By Vanessa Schipani Labcations Getting to know your colleagues outside the lab makes for better science. Stowe Mountain Resort, Vermont PHOTO courtesy of Stowe Mountain Resort Every winter, throngs of sleds carry children of all ages down Marshall Hill in Stowe, Vermont. Hands down, it’s “the world’s best tobogganing and inner tube hill,” sending fearless young sledders down its slope at “a million miles an hour,” says Wi

By Vanessa Schipani The Mindless Machine, circa 1664 Though many of René Descartes’ anatomical and physiological assumptions were vastly off target, he was the first to make a convincing case for a purely physical, nonspiritual view of life. Instead of seeing the mind and body as intimately intertwined, Descartes viewed them as interacting but separate entities. Animals, he reasoned, did not have minds, but were still capable of functioning, much like machin

The air is teeming with microbes, and scientists are finally starting to understand how they influence everything from meteorology to epidemiology

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Ladies and gentleman, feast your eyes on the first ever book about the neuroscience of illusion

By Vanessa Schipani Biosensor beacon Courtesy of Carsten Grashoff, Brenton Hoffman, and Martin Schwartz The paper C. Grashoff et al., “Measuring mechanical tension across vinculin reveals regulation of focal adhesion dynamics,” Nature, 466:263-66, 2010. Free F1000 EvaluationThe tool Mechanical force affects a wide range of biological phenomena, from DNA replication to strengthening bones, yet there was “no calibrated method of trac

A study in wild sheep may help explain why natural selection has not eradicated weak or self-destructive immune systems

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A Southeastern Louisiana University researcher uses paintings made by maggots to turn students on to forensic entomology

At an HIV treatment and research center in California, ART (antiretroviral therapy) is inspiring art

In one cichlid species, it's not just the males who put on a show to attract mates