Tag: Universe Within

Our ability to savor the sounds of our world depends on the remarkable machinery of the inner ear, where highly sensitive hair cells convert sound waves into electric pulses that the brain translates into music, spoken language, the sounds of nature and just plain noise. Zubair Ahmed, PhD, and Saima Riazuddin, PhD, two researchers in

Much like cities and towns connected by highways and streets, the neurons in our brains are connected by nerve fibers called dendrites and axons. Neurons are supported by other neural cells called astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. Researchers at Cincinnati Children’s are studying how neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes form from neural stem cells during development and in

In late 2010, researchers at Cincinnati Children’s became the first team to successfully convert human skin cells into fully functioning intestinal tissue. This breakthrough in stem cell science eventually may allow doctors to repair organ damage by using the patient’s own cells to grow replacement tissue. This image of the functioning tissue was produced by

Imagine taking a fantastic voyage deep into your own eye. As you get smaller and smaller, the world around you becomes surreal. This is the developing retina of a mouse, as seen under a powerful confocal microscope. The green structures depict blood vessels reaching out to form new branches. The red objects are myeloid cells

The stained glass architecture of these insulin-producing cells found deep inside a mouse pancreas brings new meaning to the idea that our bodies are temples.  Researchers at Cincinnati Children’s are studying these cell groups, known as islets of Langerhans, to learn more about diabetes – a disease that has been rising along with the obesity

This is your brain. Actually, this is your brain’s white matter as seen using a technique called diffusion tensor imaging. White matter and grey matter are the brain’s two main components. White matter, actually pinkish white to the naked eye, works like wiring inside the brain. The tissue transmits signals from one region of the

This is the compound eye of Drosophila melanogaster , more commonly known as the fruit fly. Researchers at Cincinnati Children’s use fruit flies as models to learn about the genetic and molecular roots of vision disorders.  Although the structure of a fruit fly eye appears very different than a human eye, they have a surprising