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Synbio is a broad and quickly expanding community, and the examples I selected are only a few of the major amazing applications developed in recent years. I encourage everyone to expand his/her knowledge and make your own little research into this amazing broad new world of science.

The patent process is a nightmare for an adult, let alone younger patrons. Fortunately FIRST--an organization dedicated to bringing STEM programs and activities to young students--is giving middle schoolers an opportunity to invent and patent their own designs without any of these obstacles.

EB is a rare condition, sometimes called an "orphan disease". This is a good news/bad news situation: we want it rare, because no child should have to suffer such continual pain--but it also means the number of patients wanting cure may be too few to attract corporate money.

Evolutionary biologist Eviatar Nevo was born into a family of nature enthusiasts, teachers, composers and philosophers in Palestine, then under British mandate. Nevo says his early years were a continual love affair with nature, which eventually led to a formal education in biology.

Last week's Curios covered the math mistake that caused the Western drought, self-repairing concrete, and the Norwegian settlement that banned death.

There are many theories out there as to why sperm needs to be kept cooler and why the testes of most mammals hang outside their bodies, inside the scrotal sac. In my opinion, the least likely is the "handicap principle." The easiest way to illustrate this principle is the peacock's flashy feathers.

The Hebrew University was not established by a ruling monarch or by the government of an existing state. It was conceived and founded by the Zionist movement, which pursued the goal of establishing a Jewish homeland.

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For my entire career I just thought that I was a statistician that was really good at finding the deep insights from data and who could write a bit of code in a few languages. Then, a few months ago I started taking some workshops at one of the hot new "trade schools" that teach code, analytics, marketing, UX and more.

The idea that the amygdala is the home of fear in the brain is just that--an idea. It is not a scientific finding but instead a conclusion based on an interpretation of a finding. So what is the finding, what is the interpretation, and how did the interpretation come about?

Ostensibly it's good that more women are entering a very male-dominated scientific world. My question is, though, what happens to these women when they finish their degrees and enter the workforce? Do they become the living embodiment of the American dream, or do they soon discover that the American dream is just as elusive as ever?

In addition to our concern for animals, and this animal in particular, there's also something that might not have anything to do with animals, which is our sense of fair play.