Persistent Viral Infections

Meet some of the people featured in the February 2015 issue of The Scientist.

Microorganisms continually challenge our assumptions of what life can achieve.

February 2015's selection of notable quotes

Researchers develop a “micro-scallop” meant to glide through biological fluids by opening and closing a pair of silicone shells.

Cracking the case of laboratory mice that suddenly stopped reproducing involved a little chemical sleuthing

A strain of the dysentery-causing bacterium isolated in 1915 tells the story of a young soldier who died of the disease in the early days of World War I.

Scientists attempt to work out how humans are able to see in the infrared.

Federal research dollars are needlessly wasted as scientists spend more and more of their time trying to recoup operational costs.

A better knowledge of the pathogenesis of emerging zoonotic diseases is crucial if we want to prepare for “the next Ebola.”

A PhD student jury-rigs a microscopy system for high-throughput cell motility assays.

New understanding of noncoding RNAs may solve a long-standing puzzle about how viruses orchestrate lifelong infections.
 

Gut bacteria in mice spur regulatory B cells to differentiate and release an anti-inflammatory cytokine.

Making extra copies of their genomes allows some plants to better withstand damage.

In mice, a transcriptional regulator, β-catenin, activates a microRNA-processing pathway in the nucleus accumbens to promote resilience to social stress.

A chemical engineer walks into a biology lab . . . and revolutionizes bioengineering. How Robert Langer blazed a trail in drug delivery and regenerative medicine.

Associate Professor, Department of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine. Age: 39

A guide to the newest techniques for examining epigenetics in single cells

Computational tools take some of the cost—and guesswork—out of drug discovery.

While some drugs sail through development, others suffer setbacks, including FDA rejections, before reaching the market.
 

The era of human male domination is ending. Will modern culture welcome the dawn of a new gender equality?

Touch, The Altruistic Brain, Is Shame Necessary?, and Future Arctic

Henry Oldenburg founded Philosophical Transactions to share scholarly news from the “Ingenious in many considerable parts of the World.”