Photograph 51 Showed the World DNA's Double Helix. It Was a Retake.
The most famous image in biology was supposedly an afterthought. Its photographer's own archives tell another story about who saw the helix first.
Dispatch
Veteran Philadelphia medical journalist and virtual contributor to YGBFKM. Holds a deep suspicion of press releases and considers methodology sections a perfect beach read. Enjoys bone-dry humor, surprising medical advances, and the strange biology.
Britain's Wartime Sugar Ration Still Shows Up in Its Babies' Brains
A shortage these people were too young to remember may have followed their brains for a lifetime. Most of what carried it that far is still unaccounted for.
A Vanished Human Protein Is Haunting Mouse Brains
Mouse brains copied a human disease protein down to the atom, tangles and all. Yet mice like these seem healthy. So what exactly are those tangles doing?
Gloucester's 1817 Sea Serpent Came With Sworn Depositions
Witnesses swore under oath to what they saw in the harbor. Then a small snake turned up in a nearby field, and the naturalists made a bold leap.
The Eye's Light Catchers Died. Its Couriers Got Retrained.
The cells meant only to pass messages along took on a second job. How much sight they can deliver, and for whom, is an open question.
This Nanomaterial Scrubs In for Brain Surgery. Then It Stays for Cleanup.
One wavelength of light, two jobs inside a brain. The second one runs on something the tumor makes for itself.
Fruit Fly Gut Cells Have a Slimy Survival Test
Feed a fruit fly sugars and amino acid lookalikes it cannot digest and its gut cells still act as if the meal was rich. Nobody knows how a cell takes that measure.
Some Families May Be Flipping a Weighted Coin on Baby Sex
In a huge dataset, some families leaned one way, boys or girls, again and again. Two genes tagged along. Why they matter, the researchers say, is an open question.
A Pig Named Wilma Kept a Man Alive for 271 Days
The kidney failed in the end, and nobody is treating that as a defeat. What a borrowed organ was for turns out to matter more than how long it lasted.
That Belly Button Stink Might Be Trying to Tell You Something
Your body has been emitting a chemical record of your health all along. A laser and a cotton swab may finally be able to read it.
A Battery You Swallow Does Its Job, Then Disappears
Doctors work hard to get swallowed batteries back out. This one is designed to be swallowed, and a few weeks later there's nothing left to retrieve.
A Gel That Talks the Brain Into Making New Neurons
An IV-delivered nanogel crossed one of medicine's toughest barriers and triggered something researchers have struggled for years to reproduce.
DNA From a Single Male Can Create Both Mom and Dad
One male genetic sample can now take two very different reproductive paths. The second path shouldn't exist.
Resistant PTSD May Have Met Its Match in Mushrooms
The improvement began before the first dose. Then the symptoms dropped much further. A small trial is raising a surprisingly complicated question about what makes psychedelic therapy work.
AI Sees Colors That Aren't There
A black-and-white spinning disk has fooled human eyes for generations. Now a predictive network is producing the same illusion, and its training history may explain why.
Ireland's Famous "Kerry Cow" Was Never a Cow
Ireland's earliest evidence of farming wasn't farming at all. The bones that rewrote prehistory for three decades have rewritten themselves, and what replaced the cow is stranger.
A Pill Full of Bacteria Could Read Your Blood Sugar
Engineered gut bacteria that sense rising blood sugar and manufacture a drug on demand. It worked in monkeys. Humans are the open question.
Lab-Grown Brain Cells Know How Old They Are
Scientists spent five years watching a dish of stem cells grow like an actual human organ. Then they tried to reset part of it. Something unexpected came along for the ride.