Three pioneering technologies have forever altered how researchers do their work and promise to revolutionize medicine, from correcting genetic disorders to treating degenerative brain diseases.
Basic research can be easy to mock as pointless and wasteful of resources. But it’s very often the foundation for future innovation – even in ways the original scientists couldn’t have imagined.
Plants on the International Space Station must figure out how to grow in a completely novel environment. Their adaptability hints at how they’ll react to changes here on Earth – or in future space outposts.
First found in jellyfish, but now inserted into all kinds of organisms, GFPs illuminate biological structures and processes that researchers otherwise couldn’t see.
What happens inside plant cells? How can we see proteins in living cells that aren’t even visible with a microscope? This was a problem in plant cell biology until the discovery of a fluorescent jellyfish…
Luc Henry, EPFL – École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne
Researchers have discovered a fluorescent protein in a Japanese eel consumed as a popular sushi snack. The discovery could help develop simpler and more sensitive tests to detect jaundice and other diseases…