Insights

Insight articles are related to original research papers in eLife and explain why the results reported in the paper are significant in a given field of research. Insight articles are commissioned by eLife staff.

Latest articles

    1. Neuroscience

    Visual Categorization: How monkeys carve up the visual world

    Binxu Wang
    Monkeys generalize many visual categorization rules, such as animate versus inanimate, but fail on culturally defined ones, placing their behavior closer to networks trained on images alone than to humans.
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    Insight
    1. Cell Biology

    Stress: How to give cells an identity crisis

    Paige Dillon, Julie Hollien
    The transcription factor CHOP helps cells switch from an emergency stress response to a chronic one, where cells survive but lose some of the functions that define their identity.
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    Insight
    1. Epidemiology and Global Health

    Malaria Prevention: Using mathematical models to optimise mosquito net distribution

    Carlos A Prete Jr
    Tailoring malaria control interventions to regional transmission dynamics and behavioural characteristics can optimise them in resource-limited settings.
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    Insight
    1. Plant Biology

    Mixotrophy: An updated view of glucose pathways in cyanobacteria

    José Manuel García-Fernández
    Contrary to previous belief, the cyanobacterium Synechocystis lacks the Entner-Doudoroff pathway for glucose metabolism.
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    Insight
    1. Cell Biology
    2. Developmental Biology

    Organ Development: Following your heart as it takes shape

    Alexandra Trouilloud, Nicole C Dubois
    A novel computational pipeline reveals patterns of tissue movement and growth in early heart formation and advances virtual modeling of development.
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    Insight
    1. Cancer Biology

    Tumor Biology: The two faces of JAK-STAT

    Qianying Lu, Yingyi Zhang
    A signal that can help breast cancer cells grow may also increase immune responses and boost immune therapy.
    Version of Record
    Insight
    1. Neuroscience

    Brain Mapping: Understanding the cellular architecture of Huntington’s disease

    Dorian Pustina
    A new diffusion MRI approach offers a glimpse of the anomalies of cellular architecture underlying basal ganglia degeneration in Huntington’s disease.
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    Insight
    1. Physics of Living Systems

    Vector Biology: The exquisite mechanics of a tsetse bite

    Katelyn Fealy, Álvaro Acosta-Serrano
    Specialized anatomical structures in the mouth and feet of tsetse flies help them feed on blood from a variety of hosts.
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    Insight
    1. Physics of Living Systems

    Actin Filaments: Building bundles by the numbers

    Christian Vanhille-Campos, Anđela Šarić
    The size and shape of cytoskeletal bundles, essential regulators of cell function, emerge from collective filament assembly rather than precise size-control mechanisms.
    Version of Record
    Insight
    1. Neuroscience

    Hippocampal Network: Stronger memories through smarter stimulation

    Justin Riddle
    Stimulating brain areas connected to the hippocampus may improve memory function in humans.
    Version of Record
    Insight