October 2011

Life on Earth is mind-bogglingly diverse with estimates of the number of existing species in the tens of millions. Over the last 4 billion years, many species have gone extinct; and because of the actions of humans, many existing species are now endangered.

In late June 2009, a small group of mountain gorillas in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park began to fall ill. One by one, 11 of the dozen apes started exhibiting severe respiratory problems. 

Editor’s choice in Ecology

Editor’s choice in Plant Biology

Editor's Choice in Cell Biology

The promise of viruses as biotech tools will help molecular biology fulfill its true potential.

Researchers studying differences in how individuals respond to stress are finding that genes are malleable and environments can be deterministic.

Three gene jockeys share their thoughts on past and future tools of the trade.

Twenty-five years later, the magazine is still hitting many of the same key discussion points of science.

An early advocate of the sequencing of the human genome reflects on his own predictions from 1986.

Our silver anniversary issue celebrates a quarter century of covering major advances in the life sciences—some in fields that didn’t even exist when we first went to press—and looks ahead to future research milestones.

By extending its reach beyond science, the field of omics will change the way we live our lives.

In fewer than 15 years, nanomedicine has gone from fantasy to reality.

As neuroscientists look to the future of their field, they are beginning to delve into more complex factors that define our emotions and intentions.

Investing more federal dollars in life science research may save the US economy.

Exploiting the unique properties of living systems makes synthetic biologists better engineers.

Designing genomes from scratch will be the next revolution in biology.

History repeats itself, and so do trends in research funding.

A decade’s worth of engineering-infused biology

Large-scale data collection and analysis have fundamentally altered the process and mind-set of biological research.

Considered a renegade by his peers, Nobel Prize-winner Eric Kandel used a simple model to probe the neural circuitry of memory.

Nanotechnology will offer doctors new ways to diagnose and treat patients, boosting efficiency and slashing costs.

Cataloging the staggering richness of Earth’s species will have multiple payoffs.

Reversing catastrophic threats to our planet’s biodiversity is not optional: our lives depend on it.

Meet some of the people featured in the October 2011 issue of The Scientist.

The mother of disabled twins doggedly pursued the root of her children's illness and found it in their genome profiles.

Epigenetic perturbations could jump-start heritable variation.

Dried plant specimens reveal the origin of an insect pest that has spread throughout Europe.

As ecotourism becomes more popular, wild apes are succumbing to human diseases.

Near the turn of the millennium, James Collins and Stanislas Leibler independently undertook rather similar projects: design what would become synthetic biology’s seminal genetic circuits. And they came up with strikingly similar action plans.

In fewer than 15 years, nanomedicine has gone from fantasy to reality.

Government and industry are the biggest funders of research, basic and otherwise. Here is how science funding in the US and European Union has shaped up in the past two and a half decades. 

To the great scientific leaps witnessed during our first 25 years, and the game changers yet to come.

The publication I launched a quarter century ago has come further than anyone ever expected.

A selection of quotes from past issues of The Scientist.

From iPhone apps to cloud computing, everyday digital technologies are helping advance drug discovery, conduct clinical trials, and improve medical care.

Eric Kandel, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his work on signal transduction in the nervous system, chats about the ever-changing field of neuroscience, funding, his students, and what he hopes science will accomplish.