2010
Too much stress isn’t good, but too little isn’t ideal, either.
O: The Oprah Magazine, August 650 words
The overuse of acid blockers poses serious health risks.
Scientific American, July 810 words
Vaccinomics: Scientists Are Devising Your Personal Vaccine
A new breed of vaccines is being developed.
ScientificAmerican.com, June 24 985 words
More evidence that refined carbohydrates, not fat, threaten the heart.
Scientific American, May 830 words
It could be making us sicker.
Slate Magazine, March 25 1570 words
Should young people without cholesterol problems take statins?
Scientific American, April 825 words
How to manage your body’s defenses to stay healthy.
Women’s Adventure Magazine, April 1,400 words
What you think of as your worst qualities can have some surprising upsides.
O: The Oprah Magazine, April 650 words
The Search Beyond Statins (PDF)
Scientists are developing new cholesterol-lowering approaches in light of clues suggesting that cardiovascular health is more complicated than doctors thought.
Nature Medicine, February 2,000 words
The Future of Fat (PDF)
Scientists have found a new way to rev the body’s metabolism: activate its fat cells.
Popular Mechanics, January 1,300 words
2009
Inflammatory Clues (PDF)
Not just obesity--more evidence links inflammation with diabetes.
Scientific American, December 800 words
Know if Disease Grows Inside You (PDF, see pp. 9-10)
Complex diseases have complex causes. Luckily, they also leave a multitude of traces.
Scientific American, December 840 words
A Look Back at 2009 (PDF, see pp. 12-14)
Nature Medicine takes a look back at the key developments in biomedicine in 2009.
Nature Medicine, December 2000 words
See “The Rule Shredder” (p.5), “The Mental Messenger” (p.4), and “The Tooth Sleuth” (p.8).
Popular Science, November 1000 words
The Most Transparent Research (PDF)
Using tools borrowed from physics, genetic engineering, and chemistry, scientists are developing ways to make human tissue transparent.
Nature Medicine, October 2200 words
Researchers are learning how the architecture of the nucleus affects gene expression.
Scientific American, October 800 words
Smile! It Could Make You Happier
Making an emotional face -- or suppressing one -- influences your feelings.
Scientific American MIND, September / October, 750 words
Lessons learned by James M. Wilson, the scientist behind the first gene therapy death.
Scientific American, September 1200 words
Find Your Stress Sweet Spot (PDF)
In small doses, angst-provoking situations can improve your health, slow down the signs of aging, and even help you live longer.
Women’s Health magazine, September 1030 words
Children of the Corn (PDF)
New research suggests that corn syrup could be tainted with mercury.
Mother Jones, July / August 970 words
A Patchwork Mind (PDF)
We each have two parents, but their genetic contributions to what makes us us are uneven. New research shows we are an amalgam of influences from Mom and Dad.
Scientific American MIND, July/August 3000 words
Women in Biomedicine (PDF)
A new report reveals changes and remaining challenges for women in the biosciences.
Nature Medicine, July 700 words
A Cultured Response to HIV (PDF)
A pilot project is helping a Tanzanian community make its own probiotic yogurt for HIV-infected locals in the hopes that it will counter some of the virus's devastating effects on the intestine.
Nature Medicine, June 1800 words
Too Little, Too Much (PDF)
A new sense for how variable numbers of genes cause disease.
Scientific American, June 780 words
Bacteria devoted to growth instead of “quorum sensing” communication could beat antibiotic resistance.
Scientific American, May 800 words
The Next Generation of Biofuels (PDF)
Companies are poised to go commercial with gasoline substitutes made from grass, algae and the ultimate source: engineered microorganisms.
Scientific American Earth 3.0, April 2,400 words
The Human Machine (PDF)
20 breakthroughs that blur the line between biology and technology -- to help restore, improve, and extend our lives.
Popular Mechanics, March 1,500 words
The Serious Need for Play (PDF)
Free imaginative play is crucial for normal social, emotional and cognitive development. It makes us better adjusted, smarter and less stressed.
Scientific American MIND, February / March 3,000 words
Certain life experiences may lead to brain changes in suicide victims.
Scientific American MIND, February / March 800 words
Cold Relief (PDF)
Two Philadelphia doctors are championing an unconventional new treatment for keeping cardiac arrest victims alive, with as little brain damage as possible: just give them hypothermia.
Popular Science, February 2,760 words
Virus in the Brain (PDF)
Does a herpesvirus cause the deadly cancer glioblastoma?
Scientific American, January 830 words
The most definitive study yet could finally determine whether cellphone use causes cancer.
Popular Science, January 415 words
New orbiting observatory will search for Earth-like planets.
Popular Science, January 400 words
2008
U.N. Puts Greenhouse-Free Clean Coal on the Back Burner
United Nations climate negotiators have not yet decided whether to back certain “clean coal” efforts.
Popular Mechanics.com, December 12 890 words
When the mind is fooled into disowning a limb, body functions go awry.
Scientific American MIND, December/January 720 words
Fact or Fiction? Cell Phones Can Cause Brain Cancer
Should you be worried about that mobile plastered to your ear?
Scientific American.com, November 21 1280 words
Rethinking the Wrinkling (PDF)
Key genes, rather than cell and DNA damage, as causes of aging.
Scientific American, October 870 words
Diabetes Trials (PDF)
A promising treatment for Type 1 Diabetes in the last place anyone would expect to find it.
Pitt Med magazine, autumn 2,600 words
Does radiofrequency radiation pose a cancer risk? Researchers in the largest study to date won’t say.
The Walrus magazine, September 3,000 words
How To Be Popular During the Olympics: Be H. Lee Sweeney, Gene Doping Expert
Physiologist Lee Sweeney has been asked to dope an entire junior college football team, but his day job is studying age-related muscle decline.
Scientific American.com, August 15 1,300 words
Magnifying Taste (PDF)
Compounds that enhance the sweet and salty flavors of foods could combat obesity and heart disease.
Scientific American, August 2,200 words
Bring In the Noise (PDF)
New studies reveal how cells exploit biochemical randomness.
Scientific American, July 800 words
Next Generation Antibiotics (PDF)
Scientists are working hard to find more potent antibiotics, and they are uncovering them in the strangest of places.
Discover magazine, July 515 words
Going with His Gut Bacteria (PDF)
The body and its intestinal flora produce chemicals with hidden health information, Jeremy Nicholson has found. Someday treating disease may mean treating those bacteria.
Scientific American, July 1,200 words
Improving Health by Targeting Gut Bacteria: A Q&A with Jeremy Nicholson
Extended Q&A with Jeremy Nicholson (supplement to the article above).
Scientific American.com, June 16 1,225 words
Hedy Lamarr: Not Just a Pretty Face
How one of the best known actresses of mid-20th century revolutionized weapons systems and helped create cell phones.
Scientific American.com, June 3 700 words
Your Brain on Diabetes (PDF)
More signs that insulin ills set off neurodegenerative conditions.
Scientific American, June 740 words
STDs In the City (PDF)
Susan Blank, director of New York City’s Bureau of Sexually Transmitted Disease Control, doesn’t exactly do things by the book.
Pitt Med Magazine, Summer 630 words
Strange Crude (PDF)
Thanks to next-generation versions that won’t require new infrastructure, biofuels are the next big thing—again.
Plenty magazine, June/July 700 words
Learning from Death (PDF)
Vishva Dixit’s study of cellular demise led to the discovery of a new molecular-signaling mechanism—one with implications for inflammation and perhaps much more.
Nature magazine, May 15 2,100 words
The Drug Resurrector (PDF)
One pharmacologist’s mission to recycle blockbuster drugs into treatments for neglected diseases.
Popular Science, May 800 words
A new play by A. Rey Pamatmat explores the mathematician’s complexities.
Scientific American.com, April 15 620 words
Infected with Insanity (PDF)
The evidence is mounting: mental illness may be caused by microbes.
Scientific American Mind, April/May 2,860 words
Men, Women, Passion, and Sperm.
Slate magazine, February 13 1,200 words
Disease for Darwinism (PDF)
More kids, less cancer: Huntington’s may confer survival benefits.
Scientific American, February 800 words
The Battle Within (PDF)
Viral and microbial interactions within living tissues are more complex than we previously thought.
Nature magazine, January 23 1,600 words
Is There Room for Meat in a Green Diet?
Admit you’re emitting, then adjust what you ingest.
Inkling magazine, January 17 1,400 words
How to Survive a 47-story Fall
Make sure you land on your feet.
Slate magazine, January 8 580 words
Regaining Lost Luster (PDF)
New developments and clinical trials breathe life back into gene therapy.
Scientific American, January 800 words
The Year in Science 2008 (PDF)
see “Back to the Future,” “The Dark Side of the Olympics,” “Other Worlds Revealed” and “Breaking the Law.”
Popular Science, January 1,600 words
2007
Yes -- but it’s very, very, very, very unlikely.
Slate magazine, December 23 730 words
How brain imaging is shaping our grasp of the disorder.
The Scientist magazine, December supplement 1,650 words
Scientists don’t agree on what neurotransmitters - if any - are responsible for schizophrenia, but they agree on one thing: Its causes are complex.
The Scientist magazine, December supplement 1,400 words
In GABA, David Lewis finds shared transcription products among people with schizophrenia.
The Scientist magazine, December supplement 800 words
Martha Shenton pushes imaging boundaries in order to understand the schizophrenic brain.
The Scientist magazine, December supplement 800 words
Strange But True: Humans Carry More Bacterial Cells than Human Ones
You are more bacteria than you are you, according to the latest body census.
Scientific American.com, November 30 780 words
Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa: the former farmworker is fighting brain cancer both in the operating room and in the laboratory.
Popular Science, November 320 words
Frans Pretorius: His computer simulations predict what happens when black holes collide.
Popular Science, November 440 words
Helen Blackwell: To stop bacteria from causing infections, she stops them from talking to each other.
Popular Science, November 310 words
Brain Mapping (Atlas) (PDF)
The US and western Europe claim the majority of the world’s high-profile science and tech prizes -- for now.
Wired magazine, November 185 words
A new play depicts a scientist’s struggle to understand her autistic teenager.
The Scientist.com, November 2 460 words
Liability fears trump science for ulcer-beating injectable silicone.
Scientific American, November 750 words
Forgetting is a vital brain function.
Scientific American Mind, October/November 330 words
Will an asteroid hit us?
Wired Science, October 23 1,130 words
How the UN uses infrasound to monitor nuclear testing.
Wired Science, October 17 900 words
Climate-change driven extinction.
Wired Science, October 10 750 words
Fact or Fiction?: Pets Protect Children Against Allergies
Pets may or may not help fend of developing allergies but they will help keep the house from being antiseptically clean.
Scientific American.com, August 30 820 words
Telltale Hearts, and Veins (PDF)
Three scientists are changing the lives of heart attack patients around the world.
Pitt Med Magazine, summer 3,500 words
Portraits of Scientists, On Display
This time, it’s scientists who are under the lens -- one attached to a camera, that is.
The Scientist.com, July 20 650 words
A Few Transcranial Zaps and You’re a Happy Genius
Transcranial magnetic stimulation could transform medicine.
Wired magazine, July 150 words
The Logic of Intuition (PDF)
Book review of Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious.
Scientific American Mind, June/July 450 words
Humans and Monkeys, Center Stage
A new play captures the power struggles that can occur among troops of monkeys and the scientists studying them.
The Scientist.com, April 6 690 words
The Amygdaloids: Scientists Who Rock Out
New York University researchers weave neuroscience and biology into classic rock.
The Scientist.com, March 30 600 words
Designing a Disease, and Its Drug
An artist creates a drug called Havidol. Say the drug’s name out loud, and you get her point.
The Scientist magazine, March 25 850 words
A biologist and journalist review a Brooklyn artist’s attempt to bring the zoo to SoHo.
The Scientist.com, February 23 615 words
Scientists complete the first draft of the Human Metabolome Project.
The Boston Globe, February 19 500 words
The age-old practice may harm both science and scientists.
The Scientist.com, February 16 650 words
African leaders embrace science continent-wide to drive development.
Seed magazine, January 560 words
