If we drew an imaginary line straight down the middle of the human body, it would look pretty similar on each side. We see this kind of symmetry in lots of animals, from cats and birds to worms and frogs. In fact, about 99 percent of animals have bilateral or two-sided symmetry, says my friend […]
Luana Lins, a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Biological Sciences, is fresh off a month-long visit studying polar organisms as part of the National Science Foundation’s Training Program in Antarctica for Early-Career Scientists. When she wasn’t counting bacteria or extracting the DNA of pteropods, Lins was visited by penguins, watched whales, and toured the […]
When Omar Cornejo got his genomic analysis back from 23andMe, he and his wife, fellow population geneticist Joanna Kelley, were both a bit surprised and vindicated. Venezuelan, Cornejo expected to see the alleles, or variations of a gene, from Native American, western European, and North African populations. But he was unaware that his family’s deep history […]
The headlines paint a dire picture: By the 2030s, global warming could completely melt Arctic sea ice, imperiling the 19 known polar bear populations that range across the United States, Canada, Russia, Greenland, and Norway. Could, as some fear, the trend spell extinction for Ursus martimus?
As weird animals go, the mangrove killifish is in a class of its own. It flourishes in both freshwater and water with twice as much salt as the ocean. It can live up to two months on land, breathing through its skin, before returning to the water with a series of spectacular 180-degree flips.
Old assumptions about human breast milk are giving way to new thinking about microbes in milk and their role in children’s health and our immune systems. It happened again, most recently at a conference in Prague. After she gave her talk, a scientist came up to Shelley McGuire, a pioneer exploring the microbial communities found […]
Vincent Danna (’17) was in middle school when he lost all of his hair. He suffers from a condition known as alopecia universalis, which is when the immune system mistakenly attacks the hair follicles. His personal struggle led him to want to become a dermatologist and help those who experience serious skin diseases and other […]
As a result of resources and mentorship she received at Washington State University Tri-Cities student Catalina Yepez not only began the initial steps of realizing her future dream of becoming an eye doctor. The opportunities also led her to be selected for an opportunity open to only 30 students nationwide. Yepez was selected to participate in a week-long workshop that prepares students for […]
Patrick Carter, an expert in evolutionary physiology, has been named director of the School of Biological Sciences at Washington State University. A WSU faculty member since 1996, Carter began serving as interim director for SBS in June and officially began his tenure as director on Oct. 1.
First, the good news. Washington State University researchers have found that a rat exposed to a popular herbicide while in the womb developed no diseases and showed no apparent health effects aside from lower weight. Now, the weird news. The grand-offspring of that rat did have more disease, as did a great-grand offspring third generation. […]