In a landmark study that researched the origins of bird species, evolutionary biologists have made discoveries about the age of birds, and the genomic relationships among modern birds. The genomes of modern birds tell a story: today's winged rulers of the skies emerged and evolved after the mass extinction that wiped out dinosaurs and almost everything else 66 million years ago. That story is now coming to light, thanks to an international collaboration that has been underway for four...

Computer science teachers from across the country tell you what excites them about teaching computer science.

The Congo basin is an unruly ribbon of tropical forest, over a million square miles spanning six countries in Central Africa. It is the second-largest contiguous tropical forest in the world. The basin is home to the classics of African wildlife – chimpanzees, elephants, gorillas – along with thousands of other less well-known species. This wealth of flora and fauna, much of it native to the region, is enough to qualify the Congo basin as a biodiversity hotspot: a biologically rich...

Organs on a chip systems could transform the medical drug pipeline as we know it. Biomedical engineer Ali Khademhosseini explains how he and his team at MIT are engineering tissues outside of the human body and connecting different "organs" to solve some pressing challenges.

What does it take to engineer a smart bandaid? Biomedical engineer Ali Khademhosseini walks us through the future of bandaids, and how he and his team at MIT are testing them.

Over a cup of coffee, astrophysicist Dan Evans chats about black holes, his research and what’s on the horizon.

Credit: NSF

To treat oral cancer, NSF-funded small business Privo Technologies has created a platform that delivers treatments directly to the affected area. Privo develops new classes of targeted treatments, such as chemotherapy drugs, designed to be delivered through the mouth’s mucous membranes. Privo founder Manijeh Goldberg talked about her company’s research at the 2014 BIO International Convention.

Developing new drugs means researchers must observe how cells react to those drugs over extended periods of time. NSF-funded small business Phi Optics has developed an optical microscope that lets scientists do just that -- study living cells in their natural environments. Catalin Chiritescu talked about how the technology works at the 2014 BIO International Convention.

Despite a surgeon’s best efforts, residual cancer cells often remain after a tumor is removed. Now, a technology from NSF-funded small business NovaScan detects cancer cells in living tissue in real-time. The cancer-scanning device has already been used to find breast cancer cells. NovaScan’s William Gregory talked about how the wand works at the 2014 BIO International Convention.

Inventors are using small-scale biology and engineering to find ways to use the body’s natural defenses to effectively treat cancer. NSF-funded small business GigaGen uses microfluidics, bioinformatics and genome sequencing to look for antibodies that may be good candidates for new therapies. GigaGen’s David Johnson explained how at the 2014 BIO International Convention.