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Six years ago, Yale University's Stephen Stearns and colleagues took advantage of a long-running study in Framingham, Massachusetts, to assess whether the effects of natural selection could be discerned among the people in the multigenerational study population. Over the last seven decades, public-health researchers have been monitoring the residents of Framingham, noting their vital statistics as well as blood sugar and cholesterol levels to understand the factors that lead to heart disease. As the initial group of research subjects got older, the study started to include their children, and then their grandchildren. The records provide a unique view of the health of a segment of the American population since 1948.

The wandering spider boasts one of the world's most sensitive vibration detectors: It can pick up the slightest rustling of a leaf from several meters away. Now, scientists have developed similar sensors that can detect simple human speech. The technology could lead to wearable electronics for speech recognition, health monitoring, and more.

National Oceanic&Atmospheric Administration, Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network

An international team led by Professor Itai YanaAi of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Department of Biology made the discovery after using an extraordinarily powerful technique known as CEL-Seq. CEL-Seq monitors individual cells for their gene activity (as detected via mRNA)-and they applied it across 10 different species, with CEL-Seq being applied to 70 embryos per species. In particular, they were interested in whether the animal classification of phylum-which separates animals into groups according to their body plans-is actually a useful tool for placing animals into groups, as well as what genetic attributes are the same and different between the different phyla.

"That changed when NASA created the Landsat program, a series of satellites that would perpetually orbit our planet, looking not out but down. Surveillance spacecraft had done that before, of course, but they paid attention only to military or tactical sites. Landsat was a notable exception, built not for spycraft but for public monitoring of how the human species was altering the surface of the planet."

Now eight years old, USAID PREDICT is a collaborative effort to monitor, predict and prevent emerging diseases, many of them zoonotic, from becoming devastating global pandemics the likes of Ebola. It's led by Jonna Mazet, an epidemiologist at the University of California at Davis's One Health Institute and School of Veterinary Medicine, and also partners with the Wildlife Conservation Society, Metabiota, EcoHealth Alliance and the Smithsonian Institution's Global Health Program.

This activity complements the video Virus Hunter: Monitoring Nipah Virus in Bat Populations. Students explore cases of Nipah virus infection, analyze evidence, and make calculations and predictions based on data. Students assume the role of epidemiologists analyzing real data from an outbreak of Nipah virus in Malaysia, attempting to identify the reservoir of the virus and curtail the outbreak. Students will make predictions, perform calculations, adapt to new information, and make recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Movement of ions in and out of cells is crucial to maintaining homeostasis within the body and ensuring that biological functions run properly. The natural movement of molecules due to collisions is called diffusion. Several factors affect diffusion rate: concentration, surface area, and molecular pumps. This activity demonstrates diffusion, osmosis, and active transport through 12 interactive models. Start by following the path of a molecule of dye in water, create concentration gradients on either side of a cell membrane and watch the movement of substances in and out of a cell, and monitor the movement of oxygen into red blood cells with and without hemoglobin.

Awesome interactive player