Massive
Articles written for the GLP list the source as Genes and Science. All other articles were written for the sources noted with excerpts provided by the GLP.
Brain activation: How to help the blind see
[I]n a recent study at Baylor College of Medicine, researchers made the blind see. A team led by neurosurgeon Daniel Yoshor “drew” letters ...
Greta could be the first wooly mammoth-elephant hybrid—and the loneliest animal in the world
The room is bright and her bath is warm. A clamp slides over her sides. She squeals as it hoists ...
Sniff test: How our sense of smell appears to signal whether an unresponsive patient might recover consciousness
Even with more recent technologies, such as brain imaging, the rate of misdiagnosis in DOC [disorders of consciousness] patients could ...
Repairing retinas and restoring vision: Generating photoreceptors directly from skin cells offers ‘quick and easy’ therapy
Damage to the retina can have serious consequences and lead to retinal diseases. Even cutting edge medicine like cell therapy ...
Recreation of Earth’s ancient hydrothermal vents suggests life could emerge even on ‘hellish worlds’
One theory for how life emerged suggests that it originated in the sea, at alkaline hydrothermal vents. It’s impossible to ...
Rise of the dinosaur may have been fueled by earlier mass extinction event
When it was alive, this large, crocodile-like reptile lurked in the swamps and rivers of the Triassic — a time ...
Seeking the ‘secret ingredient’ that led to life on Earth. Researchers may have discovered it
Think of the RNA world as a pot of gazpacho. We prepare ingredients and then stir them into a single ...
If we have difficulty defining ‘life’ on earth, how will we identify it on other planets?
What does it mean to be alive? Science, shockingly, still doesn’t have a consensus. For example, is it fair to ...
While you sleep, your brain decides which memories to keep, and which ones go to ‘the garbage bin’
We don’t remember every detail of our lives: Our brains decide which events are important for long-term storage and which ...
Biomarkers could be key to blood test for concussions
There is no single distinguishing feature of a concussion. Most of these symptoms can also be present in other types of injury ...
Travel restrictions to stop the coronavirus? Here’s why they won’t work.
Travel restrictions, though not recommended by the WHO, are a tool that countries use in hopes of stopping the spread of ...
Viewpoint: Protecting NFL players’ brains demands ‘unbiased researchers with good intentions’
As a spectator, it’s easy to forget the long term consequences of 300 pound humans crashing into each other at over 20 ...
Stealth technology could offer ‘secure, selective and precise’ delivery system for cancer drugs
Earlier this year, researchers assembled an intelligent and autonomous nanostructure entirely out of DNA that delivered and released a cancer drug. Cancer ...
Moderate drinking won’t shrink your brain, but people with smaller brains do drink ‘slightly’ more
Alcohol is one of the most widely used and abused drugs on the planet. It’s important for us to understand how it is, or ...
Why virtual reality is a ‘far from perfect’ tool for studying how the brain works
Virtual Reality (VR) is not just for video games. Researchers use it in studies of brains from all kinds of ...
These women are missing the ‘scent region’ of the brain. How do they still smell?
When Tali Weiss and her colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science found a patient that had an otherwise normal ...
‘Strange’ twist for viral version of Parkinson’s: It may take decades for disease symptoms to appear
In recent years, a mysterious surge of a Parkinson’s-like disorder spread around the world, causing an estimated 10-15% of the ten million worldwide ...
Do genetics determine our political beliefs? Why twin studies may not be able to answer the question
In the late 1960s, researchers began to consider the interaction between genes and environment as a possible basis for all ...
Viewpoint: There’s a repeatability problem with CRISPR experiments. Only ‘self-governance’ can fix it
Many scientists assume that if a chunk of a gene is missing then the protein that it encodes will not ...
Here’s the thing about hallucinations: They’re not ‘categorically good or bad’
As late as the 18th century, hallucinations in their various forms were considered independent diseases or syndromes. In 1821, Alexis ...
Video: Ethical considerations when using CRISPR gene editing
This animation was produced by Massive and the Director of Sciences at Pioneer Works, Janna Levin. The beautiful animation was hand-cut and ...
Viewpoint: Are plants conscious? New York Times bungles story about how anesthetics can ‘sedate’ a plant
[T]he New York Times [recently] ran a story on a scientific paper about how anesthetics stopped motion in plants with a provocative headline for readers and ...
Bugs as food? They may have played a role in our evolution
Editor's note: Darcy Shapiro is an evolutionary anthropologist at Rutgers University Did you know that what your ancestors ate affects your ...
‘Cancer causing’ BRCA genes are often misunderstood
Some of the first genes identified as risk factors for cancer, the BRCAs (BReast CAncer genes) are really about much ...
Human Cell Atlas: The quest to build biology’s periodic table
Realizing the need and potential for an atlas of all human cells, two scientists, Aviv Regev and Sarah Teichmann, have ...
‘Müllerian mimicry’: Gut microbes ‘speak the language’ of your immune system
Müllerian mimicry is a well-studied phenomenon, particularly in butterflies, in which completely unrelated species come to display the same patterns ...
Non-antibiotic sepsis-fighting drug could save millions of lives
The state of Odisha (formerly Orissa) in southeast India is perhaps not the first place you’d expect to find a ...
Alcohol addiction: Can we blame our ancient ancestors?
[M]illions of years ago, being able to consume alcohol was likely vital to survival: our ancestors evolved to metabolize booze right around ...
