Blinking eye cells on a polymer chip – along with other “organs-on-chips” – offer a new way to examine the effects of drug treatments on humans, according to the panelists of a Feb. 16 news briefing at the 2018 AAAS Annual Meeting.

Synthetic biology promises to revolutionize cancer care by offering permanent cures to patients with historically untreatable malignancies. Yet policy and regulation must keep pace with rapidly advancing research to allow new treatments to be made available worldwide, said Carl June during the plenary address at Science Diplomacy 2017, the third annual conference by AAAS’ Center for Science Diplomacy. The conference was held on March 29 at AAAS headquarters in Washington.

Using exquisitely precise methods to measure how memories are embedded in brain cells in mice, scientists have shown how fear-based memories prompted by the sound associated with an electric shock can be activated and erased.