Science Writer and Editor
![Sunny Side Up <br />[[August HHMI Bulletin]]](http://www.sarahcpwilliams.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/arthemia/scripts/timthumb.php?src=http://www.sarahcpwilliams.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/chory.jpg&w=300&h=300&zc=1&q=100)
It’s a concept that every kindergartner understands after watching a seed sprout roots and shoot a stem out of a paper cup, reaching toward the sun. But plant researchers have struggled to identify the molecular pathway that explains this elementary phenomenon—that plants will do anything to get some extra rays of light.
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![Getting Their Feet Wet <br />[[August HHMI Bulletin]]](http://www.sarahcpwilliams.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/arthemia/scripts/timthumb.php?src=http://www.sarahcpwilliams.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/bay.jpg&w=100&h=65&zc=1&q=100)
It’s a sunny Friday afternoon in April and high school senior Devon McCurdy stands on the beach using a pocketknife to dissect a round, marble-sized sea squirt.
![A Baroque Biochemist <br /> [[May HHMI Bulletin]]](http://www.sarahcpwilliams.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/arthemia/scripts/timthumb.php?src=http://www.sarahcpwilliams.com/wordpress//wp-content/uploads/biochemist_image.jpg&w=100&h=65&zc=1&q=100)
On Tuesday and Friday evenings, biochemist Alexander Konstantinov walks away from his spectrophotometer and picks up a different fine-tuned instrument.
![A Different Side of Estrogen <br />[[Science News Magazine]]](http://www.sarahcpwilliams.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/arthemia/scripts/timthumb.php?src=http://www.sarahcpwilliams.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Estradiol.jpg&w=100&h=65&zc=1&q=100)
The mice in Jan-Åke Gustafsson’s lab are obese, their bones are brittle, and their spleens are unusually big. The female mice produce fewer and smaller litters than normal mice.
![Don’t Let the Robo-Bugs Bite<br /> [[UCSC Science Notes]]](http://www.sarahcpwilliams.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/arthemia/scripts/timthumb.php?src=http://www.sarahcpwilliams.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/robobot.jpg&w=100&h=65&zc=1&q=100)
Silicon insects are hopping towards existence in a lab at UC Berkeley.
Not all RNA is content to inactively remain in linear genetic fragments. Some bits of RNA can break away, or self-splice, and invade other areas of RNA and DNA, driving the evolution of new genes.
Spinal muscular atrophy—a degeneration of motor neurons that causes muscle wasting—stems from mutations in a protein called “survival of motor neurons” (SMN).
One of the most deadly consequences of an infection is sepsis—a drastic, full-body response characterized by inflammation and blood clotting.
