Spinal cord injury (SCI) has been documented throughout history. Early physicians described patients with this affliction to be conscious and aware yet unable to innervate their limbs. Up to the mid 1960s the proper course of treatment for SCI was to stabilize the spinal cord to avoid further injury. Repair, however, was deemed impossible. It wasn’t until recent developments in molecular biology and biotechnology over the past decade that an understanding of the true molecular mechanisms behind SCI has been unraveled to provide a small glimpse of hope. To this day, there is not a cure for SCI but studies…

As a student assistant, I have been learning about bioinformatics for the last three months. During this time, I have found it to be an organization-obsessive rationalist in the house of sciences. It is not enough to get things right; you also have to arrange them in the proper order, and then try to make some sense out of them. Not so strictly speaking, bioinformatics brings molecular biology and computer science together, often with the help of the unifying power of the mighty Internet. It stores the onslaught of biological data coming out of research labs and provides tools for…

Over half of the American population requires some degree of vision correction.[1] Eyeglasses and contact lenses remain the most common tools to restore proper eyesight but they are sometimes inconvenient. Not surprisingly, laser refractive surgery is becoming a popular option in vision correction for many people. Each year over a million Americans have a trained professional shine a high-powered laser in their eyes at a cost of $1500 to $2500 per eye.[1-3] The procedure is quick and almost painless, the recovery time is surprisingly short, and the results are nothing short of a miracle; however, nothing comes without a price.…

From the time of Charles Darwin, it has been the dream of many biologists to reconstruct the evolutionary history of all organisms on Earth and express it in the form of a phylogenetic tree. Phylogeny uses evolutionary distance, or evolutionary relationship, as a way of classifying organisms (taxonomy). Phylogenetic relationship between organisms is given by the degree and kind of evolutionary distance. To understand this concept better, let us define taxonomy. Taxonomy is the science of naming, classifying and describing organisms. Taxonomists arrange the different organisms in taxa (groups). These are then further grouped together depending on biological similarities. This…

The biochemical potential of a cell to carry out specific chemical reactions is nothing short of enormous. Even the simplest of cells have the ability to catalyze over a thousand reactions, only a subset of which is required at any given time. In order to save energy and resources, the cell needs to regulate these reactions such that only those that are necessary are carried out. In simplest terms, this involves a two-component system: one for sensing environmental conditions and thus metabolic needs, the other for translating these needs into a regulatory mechanism that can induce or suppress pathways according…

And there it is again. The painful experience resulting from foul teeth and the dawning realisation that another undesired visit to the dentist becomes inevitable. In the reality of shrill drilling sounds, affected humans of all ages tend to make a promise to take better care of their ivories after this surgery. However, once the pain has subsided, this promise usually does not persist. Though it really should. Tooth decay is one of the most widespread diseases amongst humans, and is a result of a progressed invasion of the bacteria Streptococcus Mutans, a natural inhabitant of our oral cavity. Estimation…

In 1973, the landmark and controversial court case Roe v. Wade came to a close when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a woman’s Constitutional right to privacy negated abortion legislation [1]. This court ruling enabled women to terminate pregnancies up to the point of fetal viability [2] (the point in fetal development at which a delivered baby can survive without interfering with the body of the mother [3]). In humans, fetal viability is considered to occur at 24 weeks of gestation [4]. In a related case, Doe v. Bolton, the US Supreme Court supported abortion rights after the point…

Scientific research is a process that requires scientists to perform, interpret, and communicate results in an unbiased manner, which excludes any thoughts of self-interest. This is the researcher’s responsibility to their peers and society at large, which is rewarded by trust and an atmosphere of freedom in research with little interfering regulation. However, cases of research fraud undermine this trust, and may lead to the institution of overbearing policies that restrict the freedom researchers have enjoyed. This scenario may be closer to reality than one would think due to a number of relatively recent and highly publicized cases of research…