Life Sciences

Biology graduate student receives three awards for outstanding conference presentation
Reich with test tubes

Biology graduate student Hannah Reich was honored with three awards for presentations she gave at scientific conferences this summer.

Genetic redundancy aids competition among bacteria in symbiosis with squid
Adult Hawaiian bobtail squid
Tracy Langkilde recognized for study of amphibians, reptiles
One of the Eastern fence lizard's main tactics for avoiding predators—holding absolutely still—make it an easy target for a new enemy, the invasive fire ant from South America. Image: Provided by Tracy Langkilde

Herpetologists' League recognizes Langkilde's contributions to advancing understanding of amphibian and reptile biology.

How to restore a coral reef
healthy and bleached coral

New guidelines could enable corals to adapt to changing environments and help restore declining populations.

Maintaining shelf-stable drugs
diagram of phase separation

New model describes phase separation that spoils antibody solutions

Parasitic plants use stolen genes to make them better parasites
dodder strangles

Some parasitic plants steal genetic material from their hosts and use the stolen genes to become better parasites.

Finding deletions and duplications in the human genome: Machine learning for diagnosis of genetic variations
A random-forest, machine-learning method for identifying copy number variation from exome-sequencing data. A forest of hundreds of decision trees is trained on a validated set of genetic deletions and duplication, the model built from these trees can then be used to accurately identify copy number variation in sample exome-sequencing data. Credit: Girirajan Laboratory, Penn State
Game theory shows why stigmatization may not make sense in modern society
Before modern medicine, stigmatization may have been the most effective way humans had for dealing with the spread of infectious diseases. Now, a game theory model supports the idea that stigmatizing people who have a disease may cause more harm than good. Image credit: Pixabay
Linking health and population patterns via satellite
Penn State biologist Nita Bharti and geographer Andrew Tatem compared satellite images of nighttime lights over time to estimate population changes in places like Niamey, capital of the West African nation of Niger, and then correlated those changes with public-health records of measles outbreaks. Credit: Penn State
Xin Zhang honored as Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences
Xin Zhang
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