Eric R. Kandel shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard in 2000 for their discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system. Eric Kandel was rewarded for his discoveries of molecular mechanisms underlying learning and memory. He is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Senior Investigator at Columbia Universities Center for Neurobiology...

Studies of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana may seem to have little impact on advances in medical research, yet a survey of the scientific literature shows that this is a misconception. Many discoveries with direct relevance to human health and disease have been elaborated using Arabidopsis, and several processes important to human biology are more easily studied in this versatile model plant.

New technology brings immersive experiences to the student, surrounding him or her in an interactive virtual environment, often beyond direct observation. In this dome CAVE, students can make discoveries as they are made in science visualization laboratories. In like manner, visualizations developed for scientific research can be adapted to create student learning experiences.

Microscopy has incited many of the greatest revolutions in scientific history. In particular, these inventions have sparked paradigm shifts in biology, and discoveries like the structure of DNA are indebted to such studies. The development of the field spans from recent work like scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy to the original optical microscope, which dates back hundre...

Science is a human activity and like all human activities, it has its share of drama and pathos. The scientific product is often an interaction of certain ways of thinking, personality traits, and circumstances. This essay examines these factors and how the melding of that could lead to breakthrough discoveries. It may in some instances, go wrong, or take a morally ambiguous path.

We describe the events surrounding the identification of the exosome complex and the subsequent early development of the field. Like many scientific discoveries, the initial identification and characterization ofthe exosome was based on a combination of skill, good fortune--and the availability of cutting edge technology.

We propose that data mining and network analysis utilizing public databases can identify and quantify relationships between scientific discoveries and major advances in medicine (cures). Further development of such approaches could help to increase public understanding and governmental support for life science research and could enhance decision making in the quest for cures.