John Travis

All Stories by John Travis

  1. Health & Medicine

    Keeping breathing steady and safe

    Scientists may have found a way to avoid the lowered breathing rate that comes from treatment with morphine or other opiate-based narcotics and anesthetics.

  2. Down the Tubes: Amino acid proves key to plant reproduction

    An amino acid that human brain cells communicate with also has a role in plant sex.

  3. Let there be light

    Ultraviolet light may have favored, not hindered, the creation of RNA on early Earth.

  4. Life

    All the World’s a Phage

    There are an amazing number of bacteriophages—viruses that kill bacteria—in the world.

  5. A Matter of Taste: Mutated fruit flies bypass the salt

    By creating mutant fruit flies with an impaired capacity to taste salt, researchers have identified several genes that contribute to this sensory system in insects.

  6. Genetic variation sways risk of diabetes

    A gene carried by up to 85 percent of the people in the world increases susceptibility to diabetes by about 25 percent.

  7. Calling out the cell undertakers

    Dying cells secrete chemicals that attract other cells that specialize in disposing of cellular corpses.

  8. Attack of the cannibalistic bacteria

    When nutrients are low, some members of a bacterial species will cannibalize other members.

  9. Health & Medicine

    Data faked in immune-system study

    A researcher fabricated evidence suggesting that never-before-seen RNA-DNA-hybrid molecules play a role in creating antibodies.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Sperm just say NO to egg cells

    Sperm fertilizing an egg produce a whiff of nitric oxide.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Marrow converted into brain cells

    Scientists can now efficiently transform bone marrow into nerve cells.

  12. NIH OKs work on stem cells

    The U.S. government opened the door for U.S. scientists to receive federal funding for research on stem cells from human embryos.