Issue | January 2013 | Let The Games Begin

Cover Story

The Scientist | Jan 1, 2013 | 10+ min read

Scientists are using video games to tap the collective intelligence of people around the world, while doctors and educators are turning to games to treat and teach.

Features

Fighting Microbes with Microbes

Amy Coombs | Jan 1, 2013 | 10 min read

Doctors turn to good microbes to fight disease. Will the same strategy work with crops?

Steal My Sunshine

David Smith | Jan 1, 2013 | 10+ min read

How photosynthetic organisms get taken up, passed around, and discarded throughout the eukaryotic domain

Contributors

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

Editorial

Staying in Touch

Searching for life beyond our teeming planet has led to some innovative collaborative approaches to generating knowledge right here at home.

Speaking of Science

January 2013's selection of notable quotes

Notebook

Arctic Bloomers

Scientists studying the Arctic Ocean aboard a US Coast Guard icebreaker discover one of the largest phytoplankton blooms ever recorded—beneath sea ice.

Decoding Dreams

Researchers learn to predict visual imagery in dreams based on functional MRI scans of brain activity during sleep.

Koala Time Machine

Old koala pelts from museum collections are helping researchers to learn more about the retroviral invasion that may be endangering the Australian marsupial.

Cleansing the Clinic

Scientists set up a stakeout to track the movements of microbes around a new hospital.

Critic at Large

Genomics-Informed Pathology

Twenty-first century lab reports will include test results read by a new breed of pathologist.

Gaming with Autism

Screen-based technologies show promise for autism intervention—but research is still needed to evaluate both the benefits and the possible negative effects.

Modus Operandi

Sperm Shadows

Tracking the shadows cast by sperm reveals their precise 3-D movements.

The Literature

Bacterial Sacrifice

Patterns of cell death aid in the formation of beneficial wrinkles during the development of bacterial biofilms.

Fast Worms

A microfluidic device scans individual C. elegans for abnormal traits and sorts wild-type animals from mutants.

Neuron Preservers

Unlike epithelial cells, neurons respond to herpes infection through autophagy, rather than by releasing inflammatory factors.

Profiles

Going Boldly Forth

Gregory Hannon believes in taking risks—an approach that’s enabled him to make exciting new discoveries in the world of small RNAs.

Scientist to Watch

Philip Low: Sleep Analyzer

Founder, Chairman, and CEO, NeuroVigil, Age: 33

Lab Tools

Limber LIMS

Using laboratory information management systems (LIMS) to automate and streamline laboratory tasks: three case studies

Macro, Mini, Micro

Clever microfluidic platforms take the study of protein-protein interactions to a new level.

Bio Business

A Dime a Dozen

Affordable diagnostic tests tackle the world’s most pressing health problems.

Reading Frames

Sex and the Primordial Ooze

The rise of copulation as a vertebrate reproductive strategy may have driven crucial evolutionary change and explosive species radiation.

Capsule Reviews

Life's Ratchet, The Annotated and Illustrated Double Helix, The Fractalist and Hallucinations

Foundations

Slices of Life, circa 1872

A master of topographical anatomy, Christian Wilhelm Braune produced accurate colored lithographs from cross sections of the human body.