A Biological Compass

Meet some of the people featured in the August 2013 issue of The Scientist.

A focus on the movements of species and disciplines through space, time, and minds

August 2013's selection of notable quotes

Ancient-DNA researchers have long clashed over work on Egyptian mummies, but next-gen sequencing might resolve their debates.

Science gets personal as researchers—professional and amateur—plumb the depths of their own molecular biology.

Military bunkers along the US East Coast may serve as sterile overwintering sites for bat populations threatened by white-nose syndrome.

Ancient receptors in seeds bind a small molecule in smoke that promotes germination.

Synthetic biologists need to work together with conservationists to understand the environmental consequences of this new technology.

Beaks did it for Darwin. Now, monitoring real-time evolution of bacteria that infects finch eyes reveals repeated, rapid evolution of an emerging avian pathogen in backyards throughout the U.S.

Cell-containing hydrogel shapes fit into a template to create an artificial tissue environment.

Researchers from various disciplines are homing in on the mechanics of magnetoreception, an enigmatic sense that some animals use to navigate the globe.

Cell division in L-forms—bacterial variants that have no cell walls—could shed light on how primitive life forms replicated.

The cell detains potentially harmful RNA messages in the spliceosome long enough to create interfering RNAs against the aberrant messages.

New oligodendrocytes in the adult mouse brain appear to remodel existing myelin sheaths, which may fine-tune the speed of nerve impulses.

Unafraid to tackle cancer disparities across races, Olufunmilayo “Funmi” Olopade has demonstrated that genomics research can make a big impact on public health.

Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon. Age: 41

A beginner’s how-to on RNAi screening in mammalian cells

Commercial kits use fluorescent beads to probe dozens of cytokines in one reaction.

The top online archives for storing your unpublished findings

Humans continue to scan the cosmos for a familiar brand of intelligence while ignoring a deeper form that pulses here at home.

Crescent, An Empty Land of Plenty, Prophet of Bones, and Equilateral

How a dinner-table conversation between two biologists led to the formulation of the theory that cells are the building blocks of all living organisms.