Better understanding of folate nutrition through chemistry

Better Imaging through Chemistry

The 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded jointly to William E. Moerner, Stefan W. Hell, and Eric Betzig "for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy." I discuss the contributions made by this year's awardees and how advances in understanding the behavior of fluorophores and research in light microscopy converged to allow the improved visualization of biological struc...

Rehabilitation through Better Nutrition

Better Chemistry for Better Survival, through Regulation

In this issue of Cell, report on new aspects of the regulation of yeast ribonucleotide reductase, the mechanism by which dNTP levels are increased following DNA damage, and the consequences of the metabolic changes.

Better Living Through Chemistry: Evolving GasNets for Robot Control

This paper introduces a new type of arti cial neural network (GasNets) and shows that it is possible to use evolutionary computing techniques to nd robot controllers based on them. The controllers are built from networks inspired by the modulatory e ects of freely di using gases, especially nitric oxide, in real neuronal networks. Evolutionary robotics techniques were used to develop control ne...

Merchandising Madness: Pills, Promises, and Better Living Through Chemistry

N EARLY A HALF-CENTURY AGO, THE DRUG THORAZINE WAS introduced to ease the suffering of the mentally ill and those who cared for them. Since then, pharmaceutical companies have laid the fruits of science and technology before us through advertising text and images that explicitly or implicitly promise some form of psychological ‘‘better living through chemistry.’’ Given our seeming preoccupation...