Social Codes

Does Altruism Exist?, Ancestors in Our Genome, Fred Sanger—Double Nobel Laureate, and Stiffs, Skulls & Skeletons

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

Regulation of genome expression orchestrates the behavior of insect castes and the human response to social stress.

January 2015's selection of notable quotes

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

Are mice, considered by some to be the less intelligent rodent, edging out rats as laboratory models of decision making?

We’ve all been eating food enhanced by the genome-editing tool for years.

Thomas Deerinck has been at the helm of a microscope for more than four decades. And he’s got lots to show for it, including a half a dozen placements in the Nikon Small World competition.

Chinese farmers’ efforts at rearing wild animals may benefit conservation and reduce human health risks.

Engineered proteins can tether multiple fluorescent molecules to give a brighter signal—and that’s not all.

Forces from bidirectional growth plates mechanically realign broken bones in infant mice.

An enzyme that cleaves tau protein in acidic cellular conditions may trigger early events in Alzheimer’s disease.

Mouse offspring conceived by in vitro fertilization are metabolically different from naturally conceived mice.

A toothpick and a bit of chance shaped David Page’s career, which he has dedicated to understanding the mammalian Y chromosome and fetal germ cell development.

Associate Professor, Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley. Age: 39

Carl Linnaeus’s plant classification system was doomed, and he knew it.

A new way of evaluating academics’ research output using easily obtained data

The ongoing Ebola epidemic in West Africa is drawing more money to study the virus, but what about funding for African science in general?

Scientists and public information officers share several common goals. Here’s how to collaborate effectively.

Is the fear of funding and doing fundamental, risky research killing our ability to make breakthroughs?

Whole-animal, light-based imaging of infected small mammals

Automating Drosophila behavior screens gives researchers a break from tedious observation, and enables higher-throughput, more-quantitative experiments than ever before.

Researchers aim to unravel the molecular mechanisms by which a single genotype gives rise to diverse castes in eusocial organisms.