Each cell in the human body has 2 meters of DNA. 2 meters is a little more than 6 feet 5 inches which is about the height of Michael Jordan. But how do we fit 1 Michael Jordan’s worth of DNA into a cell nucleus that is 1/50th the...

Plants are weird. Maybe I should be a bit more specific. Plants have weird immune systems. Scientists know a lot about how the plant immune system works, but there is still a lot we don’t know! Researchers at Duke University have learned a bit more about the plant immune...

In 2016, over 1.5M cases of cancer were diagnosed in the United States and about 600,000 people died from the disease. To put that into perspective, 600,000 is the number of people that would fit in 6.5 Rose Bowl Football Stadiums at capacity.  There are a lot of factors that...

What do antibiotic resistance, the many colors of butterflies, and the fact that life still exists on this planet all have in common? Genetic Diversity! Genetic diversity is awesome! It’s what allows us to all be a little different and to overcome any obstacle that comes our way! But genetic...

There are millions of examples of plants and animals adapting to their environment. Need to blend in? Change your coloring. Need to crack a different kind of nut? Change your beak. But while we have lots of examples of adaptation, we rarely have the ability to look at what...

I have a confession to make. I am hopelessly and desperately in love… with honey! It is the perfect additive that brings my peanut butter sandwiches to the next level. But to get honey, we need honeybees and unfortunately for everyone they aren’t doing too hot right now. There...

Have you ever gotten the flu vaccine but still gotten the flu? We make about 160 million vaccine doses every year in the US, but they vary in effectiveness from year to year. In this video I discuss the yearly difference, but I also talk about a bigger problem. A...

I went to the New York Hall of Science for their STEM and social media night to showcase my SimpleBiologist YouTube channel where I take new scientific papers and turn them into fun animated videos. An average of 1.5M scientific papers are published per year. That’s 3 papers every minute!...

Humans contract zika via mosquito or through sexual contact. While most people recover from infection, it can have some intense side-effects for pregnant women. We know that infection during pregnancy comes with an increased risk of microcephaly, where a child is born with a smaller than average head which causes brain...

What do you do when your illness isn't caused by bacteria or viruses, but is instead caused by your own immune system? Researchers are developing new technologies that could help cure autoimmune diseases....