Issue | March 2013 | The Do-It-Yourself Revolution

Features

Jef Akst | Mar 1, 2013 | 10+ min read

Patients are sidestepping clinical research and using themselves as guinea pigs to test new treatments for fatal diseases. Will they hurt themselves, or science?

Bedeviled by Dengue

Beth Marie Mole | Mar 1, 2013 | 10+ min read

The global spread of dengue virus has immunologists and public-health experts debating the best way to curb infection.

Instant Messaging

Savraj S. Grewal | Mar 1, 2013 | 9 min read

During development, communication between organs determines their relative final size.

Contributors

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

Editorial

The Rebirth of DIYbio

Do-it-yourself science is likely as old as science itself, driven by an inherent curiosity about the world around us.

Speaking of Science

March 2013's selection of notable quotes

Notebook

Sea Change

A normally land-based microbiologist sets sail to find the building blocks of novel antibiotics in marine bacteria.

Bacterial Buddies

A chance encounter with a crab apple tree leads to the discovery of a new bacterial species and clues to the evolution of insect endosymbionts.

Coral Clocks

Uranium dating of coral tools used by the earliest settlers of the South Pacific island kingdom of Tonga offers unprecedented precision in reconstructing their history.

Teenage Drug Hunter

An Oregon teenager spent a summer in a New York biochemistry lab helping to discover a novel molecule that could become the next commercial nonaddictive painkiller.

Critic at Large

DIYbio: Low Risk, High Potential

Citizen scientists can inspire innovation and advance science education—and they are proving adept at self-policing.

Regulating Amateurs

How should the government ensure the safety and responsibility of do-it-yourself biologists?

Modus Operandi

Sticky Lithography

Scotch tape and a scalpel provide a MacGyver-esque approach to microfabrication.

The Literature

Crack Control

Nanoscale cracks in bone dissipate energy to protect against fracture, a process that appears to be regulated by the interaction of two proteins.

Sleep Protection

Inducing certain brain patterns extends non-REM sleep in mice.

Antibiotic Bouncer

Contrary to previous assumptions that macrolide antibiotics completely block the exit tunnel of ribosomes, new evidence shows that some peptides are allowed to pass.