Illustration of Enterobacteriaceae, a family of bacteria that includes the gut-dwelling species Escherichia coli. Scientists suggest that light could be used to manipulate the metabolism of gut ...

What the scientists had was a lab version of The Dog That Didn’t Bark — or, if Sherlock Holmes were chronicling the experiment, The Mice That Didn’t Freeze. One at a time, the 20 mice went into a ...

Researchers at the University of Bayreuth and Forschungszentrum Jülich have demonstrated that specific light-sensitive ...

Optogenetics likes to light up debate. Optogenetics is a hot technique in neuroscience research right now, involving taking a light-activited gene (called a channel rhodopsin) targeted into a single ...

Researchers have gained new insights into an ion channel from algae. These insights could help optogenetics realize its full potential in the future. Researchers from Bochum and Regensburg have ...

Biology is a lot like Legos because, metaphorically speaking, everything is a lot like Legos. The truth is that our bodies, our seemingly cohesive wholes, actually consists of innumerable small parts ...

The potential of light as a non-invasive, highly-focused alternative to pain medication was made more apparent thanks to research conducted by scientists at the Montreal Neurological Institute and ...

Through the emerging field of optogenetics, a technology that allows genetically modified neurons in living tissue to be precisely controlled by means of light, scientists are attempting to gain a ...

A 58-year-old man who has been blind for years now sees well enough to make out shapes, including the white lines of a crosswalk. The advancement comes thanks to a technology called “optogenetics,” a ...