celebration against entropy

Sexual development of an organism determines the life that the organism will have. Their nervous system, genes and other molecules within the body will result in a distinguishing behavior that is preset for them just because of their sex. Surprisingly, with the help of small worms, more specifically C. elegans, and the way they defecate, researchers Dr. Michael Hart and Dr. Oliver Hobert of Columbia University have found more in...

Imagine a train station connecting the entire world. From one platform you can take a train from New York, New York to Shanghai, China while from another you can take one from Sydney, Australia to Reykjavik, Iceland. Through this one train station the world can be easily connected to each other and would create a hub of commerce and easy communication. This imaginary train station resembles the hub sensory neuron found in the ma...

Seeking a romantic partner poses a unique set of challenges.  One typically considers age, common interests, physical attractiveness, and similar life goals when looking for someone to form a relationship with.  But have you ever considered how much more difficult it would be if we were forced to also determine if our love interest was the same species as us?  Thankfully, humans are able to do this subconsciously.  Male Drosophi...

As much as we know about the human body today, it’s still mind blowing to think that microscopic cells and molecules sustain our lives.  I’m here to tell you about a type of cell that isn’t discussed in a general biology class and is directly involved in forming brain sex differences: microglia.

My previous blog post unfolded the 2010 publication from Dr. Margret McCarthy’s lab, which ultimately showed that the endocannabinoid sy...

For many of us, middle school health class provided the basic biological and anatomical differences between males and females.  While we can recognize physical differences from a young age and learn about the differing reproductive organs in our pre-teen years, many sex-specific characteristics and behaviors are more difficult to understand; particularly those in the brain.  What causes structural and functional differences in t...