Way off the Beaten Path Or How I Became a Tourism Researcher

Brain Exploration, Off the Beaten Path

Model organisms, such as rodents, monkeys, or Drosophila, have driven much of recent research in neuroscience. However, studies in other, more unusual systems have broadened the types of questions that are being asked and have revealed the diverse ways in which species tackle common problems. Cell editor Mirna Kvajo talked with Nachum Ulanovsky, Gilles Laurent, and Anthony Leonardo about their ...

Visual System: Prostriata — A Visual Area Off the Beaten Path

Recent work establishes that Prostriata, a little-studied area of the visual cortex neighboring V1, has distinct but hybrid visual properties which are suggestive of an unsuspected role in the rapid analysis and integration of peripheral visual stimuli.

How I became a biochemist.

It was a sunny September day in a Madrid that had started to grow after years of stagnation, when I entered a modern red brick building at the corner of Velázquez and Joaquín Costa streets. I had an appointment with someone unknown to me, but whom I had been told was an important enzymologist. I was far from imagining that the encounter with that person would determine my future scientific life...

Off the Beaten Path: An Interview with Spencer Wells

S pencer Wells has this geneticist’s dream job. He transits the globe, collecting DNA samples, building collaborations, and orchestrating what may be the most extensive and fascinating project on human origins yet, sponsored by one of the most respected institutions in the US—The National Geographic Society. There, Wells holds the oxymoronically named post of ‘‘Explorer-inResidence’’ and runs t...

How I nearly became a Marlboro man.