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With the capacity to control cellular behaviors using light and genetically encoded light-sensitive proteins, optogenetics has opened new doors for experimentation across biological fields.
New tools are improving the prospects for transcranial light-based neuroscience, but better methods for using them are needed before they can reach their full potential.
The community of scientists should celebrate the Nobel Prize, even if awards bestowed on one discipline are associated with another discipline. A new prize might help.
The recent move to halt federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research in the US is a serious blow. Ironically, unless reversed, it will also cripple US participation in the development of induced pluripotent stem cells as a viable alternative.
A Human Proteome Project has been proposed. To ensure that such a project will have a transformative impact on biology, its scope should be determined by wide and open discussion.
Understanding how cloud computing can serve the scientific community is a research question in its own right and one that researchers—with the help of funders—should address.
New genetic technologies in the rat open new research opportunities and call for more careful choice of the most suitable model organism before embarking on a study.
The experimental tractability of biological systems makes it possible to explore the idea that causal relationships can be estimated from observational data.
Getting young researchers into independent positions that encourage risk-taking would benefit science but requires more than targeted individual research grants.
