ABOVE: Scanning electron micrograph of inner hair cells from a one-week-old mouse. Scientists this year finally nailed down the identity of the mechanotransduction channel in these cells.
GWENAELLE GELEOC
In 2018, scientists rode the activist momentum of 2017 to step out of the lab and into the public sphere: There was an unprecedented surge of candidates from STEM fields making a go at the US midterm elections, activists held a second March for Science, and there were so many developments in the #MeToo movement by victims and advocates speaking out to effect change in the scientific community that we dedicated a separate end-of-year review to those news reports.
Here are some of the other big stories that shaped the past 12 months in the life sciences:
Universities and research funders have dug in their heels as far as demanding lower prices and more open-access opportunities from scholarly publishers. In July, for ...
