Issue | September 2014 | Handedness | The Scientist Magazine®

Cover Story

Bob Grant | Sep 1, 2014 | 10+ min read

Handedness, a conspicuous but enigmatic human trait, may be shared by other animals. What does it mean for evolution and brain function?

Features

Beyond the Blueprint

Jennifer A. Schweitzer, Mark A. Genung, and Joseph K. Bailey | Sep 1, 2014 | 10+ min read

In addition to serving as a set of instructions to build an individual, the genome can influence neighboring organisms and, potentially, entire ecosystems.

The Second Coming of RNAi

Eric Bender | Sep 1, 2014 | 10+ min read

Now showing clinical progress against liver diseases, the gene-silencing technique begins to fulfill some of its promises.

Contributors

Meet some of the people featured in the September issue of The Scientist.

Editorial

Head Scratchers

Many natural phenomena elude our understanding.

Speaking of Science

September 2014's selection of notable quotes

Freeze Frame

Caught on Camera

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

Notebook

Six-Legged Syringes

Researchers whose work requires that they draw blood from wild animals are finding unlikely collaborators in biting insects.

Filling In the Notes

Why the brain produces musical hallucinations

Chagas Watchdogs

Can screening dogs for Trypanosoma cruzi antibodies inform public health officials about the risk of Chagas disease to people?

Splitting Hairs

Fragments of mitochondrial DNA from deer hair found on the clothing of an ice-entombed mummy offer a glimpse into Copper Age ecology.

Online First

Banking on iPSCs

A flurry of induced pluripotent stem cell banks are coming online, but they face significant business challenges.

Modus Operandi

Rewritten in Blood

A modified gene-editing technique corrects mutations in human hematopoietic stem cells.

The Literature

A Long Line of LINEs

Different mechanisms repress mobile DNA elements in human embryonic stem cells depending on the elements’ evolutionary ages.

Precisely Placed

Vein patterns in the wings of developing fruit flies never vary by more than the width of a single cell.

Sexless Hook-Up

Genome fusion at stem graft junctions can generate new plant species.

Profile

Crossing Boundaries

A groundbreaker in the study of Listeria monocytogenes, Pascale Cossart continues to build her research tool kit to understand how to fight such intracellular human pathogens.