Art and the Brain

Meet some of the people featured in the May 2014 issue of The Scientist

A new scientific discipline investigates the neurology underlying the experience and the creation of beauty.

May 2014's selection of notable quotes

Selected Images of the Day from www.the-scientist.com

US dogs face a deadly threat from algae-spawned toxins lurking in lakes, but there may be an antidote.

Genetic testing disproves one woman’s claims to have been a survivor of the Titanic disaster.

Linking single-gene defects to inflammatory bowel disease in young children may help all sufferers of the illness.

Gangs of nonexperts are outperforming science’s best efforts at automating biological problem solving.

Social policies shaped the practice of psychiatry in the past. As the discipline becomes ever more scientific, the effects of social policy on patient well-being must not be ignored.

An optical reporter quantitatively measures the ATP demands of presynaptic neurons.

Researchers unravel the biology of beauty and art.

Clathrin-mediated endocytosis shuts down during mitosis in eukaryotic cells because all of the required actin is hoarded by the cytoskeleton.

A symbiotic relationship between squid and bacteria provides an alternative explanation for bacterial sheathed flagella.

Neurons may use interferon signals transmitted over great distances to fend off viral infection.

György Hajnóczky uncovers the chemical and physical strategies by which mitochondria communicate and function within a cell.

Assistant Professor, Department of Cell & Tissue Biology, University of California, San Francisco. Age: 38

Techniques for faster discovery and isolation of human monoclonal antibodies

Tools for tracking quorum-sensing signals in bacterial colonies

From research results to electronic health records, biomedical data are becoming increasingly accessible. How can scientists best capitalize on the information deluge?

Beneath maladies of the skin lie psychosocial stigma and pain.

Madness and Memory, Promoting the Planck Club, The Carnivore Way, and The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons

A temporal lobectomy led to profound memory impairment in a man who became the subject of neuroscientists for the rest of his life—and beyond.