John Hewitt

All schoolchildren learn that the difference between eukaryotes and prokaryotes has something to do with a nucleus. This is usually around the same time they learn that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. The ...

Gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) is the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain. It is the control knob of all control knobs. But why GABA? What, if anything, might be so special about the molecule?

Humans have 46 chromosomes, and each one is capped at either end by repetitive sequences called telomeres. If you ask a biologist if humans have circular DNA, they are likely to say 'no.' That is because eukaryotic cell nuclei ...

Genome analysis today is basically blind. It typically proceeds by randomly inspecting a smattering of possible variants that are only loosely associated with some disease or physical trait. Unless you already have a major ...

(Medical Xpress)—As occurred in the painstaking deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs, adherence to outmoded ideas is a lasting impediment to our understanding of how odorants are decoded by the olfactory system. The primary ...

(Phys.org)—Piece by piece, the circuit diagram for electron transport in the mitochondria has come closer to completion. Each new structure obtained for any of the five respiratory complexes further constrains the assembled ...

(Medical Xpress)—The idea that reducing the amount of food you eat can slow metabolism and extend lifespan has been around for a while. Only recently has it become more mainstream. On sites like the popular Fight Aging forum, ...

(Phys.org)—Brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) are basically gimmicks. The reason you don't hear so much about them these days is because, in the fullness of time, significant tangible benefit to a user has flat out failed to ...

(Medical Xpress)—From the time it first comes online during development the nervous system begins to exact precise control over many biologic functions. In some cases, too much control. When it does, a little nerve-squelching ...

(Medical Xpress)—Image-guided therapy is one of the more rapidly expanding fronts of modern medicine. While many immense hardware challenges in this field have already been overcome, several thorny software issues continue ...

(Medical Xpress)—One major challenge in pathology is to determine if a group of cells are cancerous. By 'cancerous' one generally means that they have the potential to grow and spread, or that they have already spread from ...

(Medical Xpress)—We've done a number of articles recently about some amazing individuals developing personalized treatments to their own currently uncurable disease. Whether it is a rare orphan disease like Sanfilippo Syndrome ...

(Medical Xpress)—Few classes of drugs have galvanized the pharmaceutical industry in recent times like the cannabinoids. This class of molecules includes not only the natural forms, but also a vast new treasury of powerful ...

(Phys.org)—Dr. David Fajgenbaum is the founder of Castleman Disease Collaborative Network. Its goal is to organize patients with Castleman disease (CD), find an explanation for this rare and enigmatic immunological disorder ...

(Medical Xpress)—The motivation by fear, anger, and love to preserve self, kin, and others perches near the pinnacle of our existence. Triumph in the face of a seemingly insurmountable medical adversity by the creation of ...