Insights - 2008

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Dan Lamont

Scientific American Magazine 8/26/08

Just How Harmful Are Bisphenol-A Plastics?

Patricia Hunt, who helped to bring the issue to light a decade ago, is still trying to sort it all out

Scientific American Magazine 7/22/08

Dolly's Creator Moves Away from Cloning and Embryonic Stem Cells

Like many stem cell pioneers, Ian Wilmut, the creator of Dolly the sheep, has jumped to an alternative approach. Is this the beginning of the end for embryonic cloning?

Scientific American Magazine 6/17/08

Jeremy Nicholson's Gut Instincts: Researching Intestinal Bacteria

The body and its intestinal flora produce chemicals with hidden health information, Jeremy Nicholson has found. Someday treating disease may mean treating those bacteria

Scientific American Magazine 5/20/08

Can This Man Beat the Flu with a Single Universal Vaccine?

Walter Fiers found a protein segment on the influenza virus that could lead to a universal flu vaccine, which would end seasonal shots and provide pandemic protection

Scientific American Magazine 4/23/08

Dark Forces at Work

Ten years ago two teams discovered that the universe will expand forever at an ever faster rate, thanks to an unseen energy. The leader of one of the groups, Saul Perlmutter, expects that new observations will soon illuminate the universe's dark side

Scientific American Magazine 3/28/08

At the Edge of Life's Code

Using machine learning, Chris Wiggins hopes to develop models that can predict how all of an organism's genes behave under any circumstance - and thereby explain precisely why some cells become sick or cancerous

Scientific American Magazine 2/18/08

Not Tonight, Dear, I Have to Reboot

Is love and marriage with robots an institute you can disparage? Computing pioneer David Levy doesn't think so - he expects people to wed droids by midcentury. Is that a good thing?

Scientific American Magazine 1/17/08

Maverick Against the Mendelians

Using standard inheritance theory, scientists have searched for the genes underlying autism with little success. Michael Wigler thinks he knows why - and how the disorder persists over generations
Supplement: Working around the Mendelians: A Q&A with Michael Wigler