To get from one cell to a complex organism, cells have to divide, travel around the body and arrange intricate shapes and specialized tissues. The best way to understand these dynamic processes is to…

In the beginning... Osamu Shimomura of Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole, MA, USA; Martin Chalfie of Columbia University, New York, NY, USA, and Roger Y. Tsien of the University of…

This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to three scientists responsible for transforming a green-glowing jellyfish protein into a ubiquitous tool in molecular biology. Green fluorescent protein (…

There's been some comment recently about pundit John Derbyshire's belief that Obama will try to shut down biology because it has validated racism. Needless to say, Derbyshire is full of it, and he…

Scientists at the University of Leicester, where genetic 'fingerprinting' was invented by Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, say they are developing techniques which may one day allow police to work out…

Howard Berg is a physicist turned systems biologist, and he's been a systems biologist long before it was trendy to be one. He's one of the smartest systems biologists around, and a nice guy too (one…

I am obsessed with CSI (excluding CSI Miami, David Caruso is just too smarmy). I simply can’t help it. I will watch an episode of CSI that I have already seen twice, just for the thrill of seeing the…

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tuebingen, Germany, have reported the completion of the first genomes of wild strains of the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana…

The recent announcement that Sergey Brin, the multibillionair co-founder of Google, has discovered that he possesses a genetic mutation that predisposes him to a form of Parkinson's disease has…

A study in northern China indicates that genetically modified cotton, altered to express the insecticide Bt, not only reduces pest populations among those crops, but also reduces pests among other…