Features

Plant Talk

The Bright Side of Prions
Speaking of Science

Speaking of Science
January 2014's selection of notable quotes
Capsule Reviews

Capsule Reviews
Are Dolphins Really Smart?, Newton's Football, Outsider Scientists, and We Are Our Brains
Foundations

Fantastical Fish, circa 1719
A collection of colorful drawings compiled by publisher Louis Renard sheds light on eighteenth-century science.
Reading Frames

Evolution’s Stowaways
Terrestrial mammals, carnivorous plants, and even burrowing reptiles have spread around the globe by braving the seven seas. These chance ocean crossings are rewriting the story of Earth’s biogeography.
Bio Business

Outwitting the Perfect Pathogen
Tuberculosis is exquisitely adapted to the human body. Researchers need a new game plan for beating it.
Lab Tools

Automation on a Budget
Solutions for partially automating your cell culture set-up

Lights, Camera, Action
A guide for doing in vivo microscopy on neurons in the mammalian brain
Scientist to Watch

Benjamin tenOever: Going Viral
Professor, Microbiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Age: 36
Profiles

Drawn to Controversy
By digging through dusty storerooms and reading dead people’s mail, science historian and philosopher Michael Dietrich keeps biologists attuned to the past and mindful of the present.
The Literature

Avoiding Salt
In a newly identified tropism, plant roots steer clear of salinity.

Neurons On Demand
Astrocytes in the adult mouse brain can be reprogrammed into neuronal precursors, then neurons, in vivo.

Bacterial Persisters
A bacterial gene shuts down the cell's own protein synthesis, which sends the bacterium into dormancy and allows it to outlast antibiotics.
Modus Operandi

Exit Strategy
Scientists come up with a better way to watch cells leave blood vessels.
Critic at Large

Recognizing Basic Science Contributions
A “basic bibliography” for new drugs would provide scientists with soft incentives and acknowledge the value of basic biomedical research.

Elder Pharmacology
Studying and treating the chronic diseases associated with aging needs serious revamping.
Notebook

Farmer Fungi
Researchers uncover an unprecedented relationship between morels and bacteria. But can it be called agriculture?

Flapless Flight
New research increases the understanding of how albatrosses fly effortlessly by harvesting energy out of thin air.

A Ribbeting Tale
A famous frog-hopping contest yields data that challenge previous lab estimates of how far a bullfrog can jump.

Green Gold
It’s been decades since researchers confirmed the presence of gold in plants, but biogeochemical prospecting has yet to catch on.
Editorial

Stranger than Fiction
Plant biology: You can't make this stuff up.
Cover Story

Genomes Gone Wild
Weird and wonderful, plant DNA is challenging preconceptions about the evolution of life, including our own species.
Contributors

Contributors
Meet some of the people featured in the January 2014 issue of The Scientist.