Scientists recently turned Harvard’s Skeletal Biology Laboratory into a pop-up restaurant. It would have fared very badly on Yelp.

Katherine D. Zink, then a graduate student, acted as chef and waitress. First, she attached electrodes to the jaws of diners to record the activity in the muscles they use to chew food. Then she brought out the victuals.

Some volunteers received a three-course vegetarian meal of carrots, yams or beets. In one course, the vegetables were cooked; in the second, they were raw and sliced; in the last course, Dr. Zink simply served raw chunks of plant matter.

Continue reading “Unappetizing Experiment Explores Tools’ Role in Humans’ Bigger Brains” →

What could be more alien than a virus? It’s a nanobiological weapon — a microscopic protein shell holding a few genes that hijack a cell’s internal machinery, forcing it to make new viruses. The battles we fight with these alien enemies brings malaise, scars and even death.

Yet as foreign as viruses may seem, the boundary between us and them is turning out to be remarkably blurry. We use DNA from viruses to do things that are essential to our own survival, scientists are finding. Somehow, we have managed to domesticate some of these invaders.

Continue reading “Study Finds Surprising Benefit of Viral DNA: Fighting Other Viruses” →