Issue | December 2021 | Return of the worms

Features

3D illustration of a tapeworm infestation in a human intestine

Catherine Offord | Dec 1, 2021 | 10+ min read

Immunologists and parasitologists are working to revive the idea that helminths, and more specifically the molecules they secrete, could help treat allergies and autoimmune disease.

2021 Top 10 Innovations

The Scientist | Dec 1, 2021 | 10+ min read

The COVID-19 pandemic is still with us. Biomedical innovation has rallied to address that pressing concern while continuing to tackle broader research challenges.

Contributors

Meet some of the people featured in the December 2021 issue of The Scientist.

Editorial

New ideas and imagination Creativity and inspiration Technological innovation.

Innovations that Matter

Scientific advances almost always have the potential to benefit human lives. In times like these, they have the power to save them.

Speaking of Science

Ten Minute Sabbatical

Take a break from the bench to puzzle and peruse

Critic at Large

Opinion: Using Data to Hire High-Impact Faculty

Selecting researchers who will drive research agendas forward requires a more quantitative approach to interviewing.

Notebook

MUSCLE CONTROL: Researchers pinpoint how C. elegans (pictured) manages to expel food from its mouth.

The Science Behind How Roundworms Spit

By viewing countless hours of expectorating worms, researchers discover a unique way in which neurons control the movement of muscles.

PATH TO TREATMENT: Marley, pictured here with her father, was diagnosed with the rare genetic condition Bachmann-Bupp syndrome a few years ago.

Doctors Treat Girl’s Genetic Disorder with Repurposed Drug

In just 16 months, physicians went from identifying a novel rare disease in three-year-old Marley to successfully treating her with a drug previously used to treat African sleeping sickness and pediatric cancer.

The Literature

False color image of two Caenorhabditis elegans roundworms; blue on a black background

Mitochondrial Stress Is Passed Between Generations

Researchers identified a novel mechanism by which chemically induced stress is “remembered” by the mitochondria of worms more than 50 generations after the original trigger.

The man-of-war fish (Nomeus gronovii), a species of medusafish, near the tentacles of a siphonophore.

Medusafishes Are Grouped by Shared, Odd Traits: Study

Shared features, such as thick, slimy skin and a throat filled with teeth, suggest that medusafishes are all related.

An APP-knockout neuron (right) shows extended axonal and reduced dendritic growth compared with a normal mouse neuron (left). Scale bar 50 µm.

Amyloid Precursor Protein Linked to Brain Development Mechanisms

Researchers provide evidence that the Alzheimer’s-associated protein calibrates a signaling pathway that is conserved across the animal kingdom.

Scientist to Watch

Brooke Gardner Probes the Cell’s Peroxisomes

The University of California, Santa Barbara, cell biologist is investigating the formation and functions of the peroxisome, an organelle which exists in many copies in each cell and can be created, lost, or altered to meet the cell’s metabolic needs.

Bio Business

In Editing RNA, Researchers See Endless Possibilities

RNA editing has been in DNA editing’s shadow for nearly a decade, but recent investments in the technology could bring it into the limelight.

Reading Frames

Opinion: Bridging the Intellectual Divide

To solve modern problems, we must integrate the sciences and the humanities and think across these traditionally disparate disciplines.

Foundations

In one of the only known photos of Abraham Lincoln taken on the day of the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln can be seen seated, hatless, just below and to the right of the flag. Lincoln began developing symptoms of smallpox on the train home to Washington, DC.

Presidential Pox, 1863

Researchers continue to debate whether US President Abraham Lincoln was coming down with smallpox as he delivered his famous Gettysburg Address, and if he had been immunized.