In the last decade, Neuroscientists have made major advances in their quest to study the brain. They can assemble complete wiring diagrams and catalogue the brain's many cell types. They've developed electrode arrays for recording electrical activity in individual neurons and placed itty bitty microscopes on the heads of mice to visualize their brain activity. However, almost shockingly, there are no tools to precisely measure the brain's principal output -- behavior - in freely moving animals.

Animal behavior is important to a broad range of disciplines, from neuroscience and...

When most people think of ferocious, blade-like teeth on prehistoric creatures they picture Smilodon, better known as the saber-toothed tiger. But in the world of dinosaurs, theropods are well known for having blade-like teeth with serrated cutting edges used for biting and ripping their prey. And until recently, the complex arrangement of tissues that gave rise to these terrifying teeth was considered unique to these meat-eating dinosaurs.

In a paper published December 16 in ...

Congratulations to PhD candidate Nikhil Chari (Taylor Lab) recipient of the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research Program Award for his project “Assessing the impacts of root exudation on soil mineral-associated organic matter dynamics"...

Congratulations to our PhD candidates who successfully defended and earned their doctorate November 2020!!

• Meghan Blumstein (N. Michele Holbrook Lab), "The plastic and adaptive potential of sugar storage in temperate trees under climate change"
• Liming Cai (Charles Davis Lab), "Phylogeny and genome evolution of the flowering plant clade Malpighiales"
• Blake Dickson (Stephanie Pierce Lab), "Evolution of the tetrapod forelimb and functional morphology of the humerus...