Goodbye

I’m leaving the Scientific American network, which is being “reshaped.” I’ll be returning to my original solo blog, which I left nearly five years ago, continuing to edit...

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Method Quarterly

Over the past couple months, I’ve been working with Azeen Ghorayshi on starting a new publication for stories about science in the making. We’re launching the first issue of Method...

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Weird Biology Fact of the Day: Mirror-image Amino Acids

In her fascinating and wide-ranging talk on multi-dimensional spaces and human consciousness, Tauba Auerbach briefly mentioned the fact that after an organism dies its molecules will gradually change...

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Fist Bumps Are For Germophobes

Fist bumps are back in the news this week after the publication of a study finding that fist bumps transfer fewer bacteria than the more customary handshake.

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If you build it, they will come: designing microbial ecosystems in cheese

Microbes live in dense and diverse communities. There are billions of bacteria from thousands of species living together in your gut or in the soil.

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If you build it, they will come: designing microbial ecosystems in cheese

Microbes live in dense and diverse communities. There are billions of bacteria from thousands of species living together in your gut or in the soil. Sequencing the total DNA of these communities can...

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

If you build it, they will come: designing microbial ecosystems in cheese

Microbes live in dense and diverse communities. There are billions of bacteria from thousands of species living together in your gut or in the soil. Sequencing the total DNA of these communities can...

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

Four Great Scents from Outer Space

You don’t need your nose to know what something smells like. Perfumers and astronomers can detect and recreate scents based on the chemical signatures of the molecules in the air, even if that...

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Biological Speculation

A great short talk by Drew Endy about the early history of synthetic biology and the motivations, hopes, and uncertainties of bioengineering. How do we know we’re making good decisions? How can...

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If you wish to make a gene from scratch

According to the New York Times, synthetic biology is creating DNA out of thin air. A recent article about synthetic biology and consumer goods describes DNA synthesis as a process where “DNA...

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