December 2014: JoVE's Year in Review

Abstract

In this Year in Review, we showcase some of our favorite video articles of the year 2014 in JoVE: The Journal of Visualized Experiments. In January, JoVE Chemistry revisited one of the most famous experiments of the 20th Century. Stanley Miller and his thesis advisor, Harold Urey, made scientific history in 1953 when they showed that under the right conditions, simple compounds in a flask could spontaneously form the building blocks of life. Over six decades later, Parker et al. have demonstrated how to recreate the classic Miller-Urey experiment-combining water with various gases, And subjecting the mixture to sparks to simulate Earth's conditions 3 ½ billion years ago. The resulting primordial soup contains various amino acids that are fundamental to life on earth. February's Neuroscience section featured the nematode worm C. elegans. This simple organism is easy to manipulate genetically. And it's sensitive to various compounds, so Hao and Buttner [scientists can] use them in chemical genetic screens to study the mechanisms of antipsychotic drugs. In March, JoVE Clinical and Translational Medicine had an article on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This neurodegenerative disease affected baseball legend Lou Gehrig, and in 2014, inspired millions of people to dump ice buckets on their heads to raise money and awareness for ALS. An early sign of ALS is weakness in specific hand muscles, so Menon and Vucic showed how recording motor responses from hand muscle groups can help diagnose this disease. April's edition of JoVE Environment featured a technique for expressing recombinant genes in plants. Mattozzi et al. delivered special expression constructs using a gene gun to specifically target recombinant genes to different subcellular organelles in plants. In May, JoVE Clinical & Translational Medicine, Thompson et al. used coordinate mapping to analyze the pharyngeal phase of swallowing, a technique that can be useful for studying swallowing disorders. In June, JoVE Applied Physics took us back in time again with a protocol that approximates conditions in the early Solar System. Blum et al. examined collision forces between particles, which can aggregate over hundreds of millions of years to form planets. In the July edition of JoVE Behavior, Tung et al. demonstrated standard behavioral tests for noninvasively assessing balance performance in mice. In August, Malide et al. demonstrated in JoVE Biology how to label hematopoietic precursor cells with different fluorescent markers so the cells can be tracked as they differentiate and engraft into bone marrow after transplantation. In our September issue, JoVE Bioengineering featured innovative methods for treating the cornea, the clear front window of the eye. Ortega et al. engineered membranes that could potentially regenerate the corneal epithelium and preserve vision in certain eye diseases. In October, JoVE Immunology & Infection featured a technique for analyzing glycoprotein spikes on viral surfaces, which many viruses use to penetrate host cells. Huiskonen et al. use a computational approach to study the precise, 3D structures of these spikes, which can guide the design of antiviral drugs and vaccines. November's edition of JoVE Biology took flow cytometry to a whole new level with a protocol that can be performed in space. Phipps et al. demonstrate the procedure on a parabolic flight, also known as a vomit comet, which creates a weightless environment and presents a whole new set of challenges to laboratory research. And coming up in December, we pinch off 2014 with a article describing fecal transplantation, When stool from a healthy donor is transferred to a patient infected with Clostridium difficile through a standard colonoscopy, it is a highly effective therapy for infections that don't respond to other treatments. This Year in Review was just a sampling of more than 900 video articles that JoVE produced for 2014. Browse the JoVE archives for thousands of other videos, and come back each week to see brand-new material in JoVE: The Journal of Visualized Experiments.