People quickly learned to control the extra thumb in daily life, but behavioral tests and MRI scans showed that the brain space devoted to representing the biological hand shrank over the same period.

As a child tinkering with household appliances in Michigan, Karlin Bark imagined a career in the automotive industry. But a class in haptics—the science of touch—took her in a new direction, eventually resulting in her efforts as a doctoral candidate to improve prosthetic limb fittings. Now a postdoctoral researcher, Bark has worked on tactile feedback systems to help surgeons during robot-assisted procedures, and she hopes to advance stroke rehabilitation, too. She is one of five female postdocs to receive the 2011 L’Oréal USA Fellowships for Women in Science.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Brain-controlled telepresence robots, “smart” artificial limbs, bioprinting strategies for regenerative medicine, the next generation of batteries, and the search for other Earths are just a few of the topics to be explored during America’s largest general scientific conference, 17-21 February in Washington, D.C.