Animals like mussels and barnacles produce strong adhesives that don’t dissolve in water. One reason this property has drawn the interest of scientists because of the potential to produce commercial products that mimic these sticky underwater properties. Yet the starfish, … Continue reading
Journal Club
Highlighting recently published papers selected by Academy members
Author Archives: pnas
Babies have hard-wired hand-to-mouth movements
Although babies lack much in the way of motor skills, they can still accurately bring their hands toward their mouth in a motion to feed themselves. Now scientists have discovered this self-feeding movement is encoded in a part of the … Continue reading
Categories: Neuroscience
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Climate-change-induced pink salmon stock growth upsets ecosystems
Climate change in the last century is apparently linked with the extraordinary growth of many wild Pacific salmon populations in the subarctic North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. Now scientists find the fact that pink salmon became so numerous … Continue reading
Categories: Ecology
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Tracking the spread of a cancer
As a cancer spreads throughout a person’s body—bits of a primary tumor lodging themselves in new organs and spawning new tumors—the cancerous cells are constantly changing and evolving. Exactly when, and how fast, cancers spread—or metastasize—and how the timing of … Continue reading
Categories: Genetics
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Modified hormone release patterns improve egg production
Without changing overall levels of hormones, altering how hormones are packaged and shipped out from cells in the body can affect how they act. For women undergoing fertility treatments, delivering reproductive hormones in a new way could be key to … Continue reading
Categories: Physiology
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New signaling system discovered in plants
When you step on a plant, douse it with salt water, or pluck its leaves off, it doesn’t look like the plant responds, as it stands immobilized by its roots in the ground. But plants are in-tune to their environment … Continue reading
Categories: Plant Biology
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Diagnosing asthma from a single drop of blood
Asthma affects more than 300 million people worldwide, and over the past 30 years, the prevalence of asthma has risen significantly in many populations. Unfortunately, asthma is notoriously difficult to diagnose. Now scientists have developed a handheld device that could … Continue reading
Categories: Engineering | Medical Sciences
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Oxytocin can increase lying for the benefit of the group
Oxytocin is a hormone often thought of as a “love drug,” linked as it is with feel-good emotions such as trust, empathy and generosity. Increasingly, however, scientists find that oxytocin has a dark side — for example, it can spur … Continue reading
Categories: Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
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Plants can grow human antibodies
Immunoglobulin M, or IgM for short, is the first class of antibodies to appear in response to exposure to antigen. Increasingly, scientists are interested in IgMs as therapeutics, but growing them in mammalian cells at commercial scale is very challenging. … Continue reading
Categories: Applied Biological Sciences
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In vitro engineering of muscle tissue
Engineered skeletal muscle — the muscle under a person’s voluntary control — could help treat muscle disease and injury. However, previous in vitro attempts to engineer skeletal muscle with all the properties of actual muscle have failed. Now scientists have … Continue reading
Categories: Applied Biological Sciences
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The mechanics of breastfeeding
“How do infants extract milk during breast-feeding? We have resolved a century-long scientific controversy,” say David Elad and his team from Tel Aviv University in Israel in the opening of their new PNAS article. Until now, researchers have debated what … Continue reading
Categories: Biophysics and Computational Biology
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