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Articles by Helen Fields
AI models enable cross-species mapping of cell biology
Researchers at Stanford Medicine developed AI models trained on data from yeast, humans, frogs, fruit flies, sea urchins, sea sponges, mice, rabbits, a parasite, zebrafish, chickens, roundworms and mice. Credit: Margarita Gallardo, Stanford University Medical Center Researchers at Stanford Medicine have developed two new artificial intelligence models of the biological cell.
AI models enable cross-species mapping of cell biology
3 hours ago Imagine a pharmaceutical company spends nearly four years touting a ground-breaking new medicine that will cure all diseases. Early evidence supporting those claims is limited, and massive questions remain, but the company continues to make progress. Criticism and concerns, while addressed, don't …
New Ribo-Tweezer tool can pluck individual protein pieces out of a working ribosome
Credit: Molecular Cell (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.molcel.2026.04.023 Every human cell has millions of ribosomes that make proteins. For decades, biologists thought of ribosomes as tiny, uniform machines. But now a Stanford Medicine team is showing that ribosomes are much more interesting and complicated than previously thought. Their latest advance is a new tool called the Ribo-Tweezer, which can snatch a single component out of a working ribosome. The technology is opening new avenues of research.
Flagship store is a fine fit for Las Olas | Opinion
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Las Olas Boulevard has always held special meaning to me. Growing up in the 1960s, I spent time at my father’s business, David’s Bridal, on the boulevard, and now, as a Colee Hammock resident for nearly 18 years, I’ve had the privilege of watching Fort Lauderdale evolve over the decades. While the west end of Las Olas has experienced tremendous growth, investment and revitalization, the east end has remained relatively unchanged for years.
Win A Copy Of The Book 'Famous Last Words: A Novel' By Gillian McAllister
The book is in stores on Tuesday, February 25th from William Morrow. Click on the link to buy a copy. https://amzn.to/3zmmINy It is June 21st, the longest day of the year, and new mother Camilla’s life is about to change forever. After months of maternity leave, she will drop her infant daughter off at daycare for the first time and return to her job as a literary agent. Finally. But, when she wakes, her husband Luke isn’t there, and in his place is a cryptic note. Then it starts.
Win A Copy Of The Book 'The Profiler: A Novel' By Helen Fields
The book is in stores on Tuesday, Feb. 25th from Avon. Click on the link to buy a copy. https://amzn.to/4hWOBNQ He’s going to kill you. He just doesn’t know it yet. Midnight Jones is an analyst trained to understand the human mind. But everything changes when, in the course of her work, she discovers Profile K’s file – because K stands for killer, and she knows that someone more dangerous than she could have ever imagined walks among them.
Denver: Win Passes To An Advance IMAX Screening Of Fallout: The First Two Episodes'
We will be hosting a very special advance screening of the series on IMAX on April 9th at 7pm at the UA/Regal Colorado Center IMAX. Are you interested in giving away screening passes to the special early showing of FALLOUT? The screening will be of the first two episodes of the series. Here is a link for people to enter a sweepstakes for 2 tickets: http://amazonscreenings.com/main/sweepstakes/FALLOUTDEN Winners will be drawn on April 8th at 8am.
Book Review: 'The Institution: A Novel' By Helen Fields
The book is in stores on Tuesday, April 30th from Avon. To buy a copy click on the link. https://amzn.to/3NtRYy5 A pregnant nurse, Tara, is murdered, and her baby ripped out of her womb, and now kidnappers are demanding a ransom. She worked at an institution for the criminally insane, and now Dr. Connie Woolwine goes undercover there, along with patient B, an ex-cop, and together they have five days to try and figure out who has the baby.
Book Review: 'The Girl From The Grand Hotel: A Novel' By Camille Aubray
To purchase a copy click on the link. https://amzn.to/3FWG37P It’s the summer of 1939 on the French Riviera, and it’s the first ever Cannes Film Festival. For Annabelle Faucon it’s going to be a busy time at the hotel, which is full of movie stars, studio people, and other paying guests. She is picked to work with an actor and a writer, and to keep an eye on them. Then things get a bit dicey when Nazi guests arrive, and with Hitler in power, and invading other countries, it puts people on edge.
De laatste die sterft
Het gezin Clark is net verhuisd naar het afgelegen Isle of Mull, een eiland voor de kust van Schotland. Dan raakt de zeventienjarige Adriana vermist. Haar ouders zijn radeloos. De lokale bewoners en de politie zien hen als indringers, dus ze wenden zich tot privédetective Sadie Levesque om hun dochter te vinden. Wanneer Sadie het lichaam van Adriana in een grot vindt, met een kroon van zeewier, beseft ze dat de zaak veel groter is dan ze in eerste instantie dacht.
The Institution - Books from Scotland
By (author) Helen Fields ‘Brilliant! The Institution is a harrowing, nonstop story that will grab you from the first page and not let go. Helen Fields is a master of suspense. You’ll consume it in one sitting.’ – International bestselling sensation JEFFERY DEAVER They’re locked up for your safety .Now, you’re locked in with them. Dr Connie Woolwine has five days to catch a killer. On a locked ward in the world’s highest-security prison hospital, a scream shatters the night.
De schaduwman van Helen Fields
Elspeth en Meggy zitten opgesloten in een flat. Ze weten niet waar ze zijn en ze weten niet waarom ze daar worden vastgehouden. Het enige wat ze weten is dat een man ze heeft ontvoerd, en hij laat ze niet gaan. Ze zinnen op ontsnapping uit deze nachtmerrie, voordat de schaduwman meer slachtoffers maakt.
Do dogs cry ‘happy tears’ when reunited with owners?
Share: It’s easy to tell when your dog is happy to see you. The incessant face licking. The crazy tail wagging. But are they so happy they cry? Yes, suggests a study published today in Current Biology. Researchers found the eyes of dogs separated from their owners for several hours welled up with far more tears than those of dogs reunited with someone less familiar, The Scientist reports.
The Party House by Lin Anderson - 9781529084511
Lin Anderson Synopsis 'A real page-turner' – Ian Rankin The Party House by Lin Anderson is a deeply atmospheric psychological thriller set in the Scottish Highlands, for fans of Lucy Foley, Ruth Ware and Sarah Pearse’s The Sanatorium. Devastated by a recent pandemic brought in by outsiders, the villagers of Blackrig in the Scottish Highlands are outraged when they find that the nearby estate plans to reopen its luxury ‘party house’ to tourists.
The Last Girl to Die
Helen Fields Helen Fields studied law at the University of East Anglia, then went on to the Inns of Court School of Law in London. After completing her pupillage, she joined chambers in Middle Temple where she practised criminal and family law for thirteen years. After her second child was born, Helen left the Bar.Together with her husband David, she runs a film production company, acting as script writer and producer.
Where Have Figs Been All My Life?
On August 17, a magical text arrived. It read, in part: “I have many many ripe figs just a block or so away. They are in the tree ripening as I text. Can’t eat them fast enough. Please come on over whenever and pick yourself some!!” I don’t know that I’d ever eaten a fresh fig before receiving this text. I’d certainly never really appreciated a fig. So the magical properties of this text were not immediately clear. My most recent experience with figs was, in fact, with Fig Newtons.
The Last Word On Nothing
I don’t actually remember that much about the cicadas’ last visit, in 2004. I remember turning onto my parents’ street and noticing how loud the trees were, filled with chorusing insects. But not much about the bugs themselves. Mostly what I remember is trying to convince bug skeptics that a cool thing was happening. My argument: It’s a fantastic biological event–our version of the wildebeest migration on the Serengeti.
The Last Word On Nothing
In the city, during the pandemic, sometimes this view is my best look at nature for the day. But isn’t it grand? A lovely sunny tree, a starling. In spring: flowers. In summer: cicadas. Throughout the morning, light catches it in different ways. Sometime in the next few years, a new apartment building will appear in this view, but I think the tree is meant to survive. I hope the tree survives. Photo: Helen Fields Categorized in: Animals, Helen, Nature, Trees
The Devil May Dance by Jake Tapper
Charlie and Margaret discover the dark side of Hollywood in Jake Tapper’s follow-up to New York Times bestseller The Hellfire Club--an “excellent”cocktail of corruption and ambition (Publishers Weekly). Charlie and Margaret Marder, political stars in 1960s Washington DC, know all too well how the tangled web of power in the nation’s capital can operate. But while they long to settle into the … operate.
Helen Fields recommends What Planet Can I Blame This On?
Perfect reading for twenty and thirty-somethings, written in the language of failed relationships and the hope for something better. Wry, witty, insightful, fast-paced and just great fun, this is a fabulous debut. Represents so much of what people go through on the pathway to finding out what they really want, it's gong to be a hugely popular read. Reasons I enjoyed this book: Easy-to-read Entertaining Funny Page-turner Whimsical Witty Wonderful characters
The Last Word On Nothing
Here’s something I’ve learned about myself in the pandemic: I open produce bags by licking my fingers. My entire life, after touching the car keys or the inside of the metro, and my shoe, and the cart, and anything else that is around, and before touching my fruits and vegetables, I have been sticking my fingers in my mouth.
The Last Word On Nothing
A while ago I found this post-it note on my desk. Here’s the list of items I had written down: Skyrim pie Star Wars Firefly Star Trek Nancy Pelosi tax brackets Elsevier sucks Marvel Gene Kelly tap dance Drama Book Shop Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse What…on Earth. That is my question for you. What is this list? It’s not things I like. While I love Gene Kelly (obviously), Firefly, and pie, I am kind of lukewarm on Star Wars and have no particular opinion on Drama Book Shop.
Entertainment and sleuthing combine in these new crime fiction novels
By Jack BattenSpecial to the Star Thu., Jan. 21, 2021timer2 min. read Finlay Donovan Is Killing It By Elle Cosimano Minotaur Books, 360 pages, $26.99 Finlay Donovan is a crime novelist with writer’s block, a single mother with two little kids, a rotter of an ex-husband and a slew of unpaid bills. Then a strange woman offers Finlay fifty grand if she agrees to eliminate the strange woman’s cheating husband. Does Finlay go for the big payoff?
The Last Word On Nothing
A friend gave me the cyclamen for my birthday, in early December. I’d had a potted cyclamen once before, in high school or so, and it didn’t last long. In the rush of the holidays, I mentally categorized the new arrival as a temporary plant, and I didn’t do very well at watering it. One day in January, I happened to notice its stems were drooping, its beautiful pink flowers pointing toward the table. So I watered it and got back to work.
The Last Word On Nothing
Snapshot: River By: Helen Fields | December 30, 2020 Thank goodness for ravines that are inconvenient to build on. This one cuts through the suburbs near my parents’ house. You can hear the Beltway from the spot where I took this picture, but the deer wander by anyway, and the squirrels, and the occasional human. Photo: Helen Fields Categorized in: Animals, Helen, Nature, Trees
The Last Word On Nothing
Recently Ann wrote that, in the pandemic, she’d been paying attention to “the world that exists when I’m not noticing it, the world that goes on about its own business.” The other day, the world did something fantastic. It passed through the dust from an asteroid, giving us the Geminids. This is apparently one of the better meteor showers, but I’d never paid attention to it before. Who goes and stares at the sky outside when it’s cold? Not me.
The Last Word On Nothing
Cameron said the other day that she’s feeling a little bit low on perspective right now. First of all: Me, too, Cameron. Me, too. Secondly: For perspective, I recommend the sky. It’s always there, there’s often something happening in it, and the thing that is happening almost never relates to an election. Here are some things I have seen in the sky in the last week. Mars. It’s bright enough these days for me to find it without my glasses in city light pollution.
It’s Pretty, but It’s Bad News
It’s August, and that means the porcelainberries are out. The first time I noticed this plant, somewhere on the walk between home and work, I had no idea what I was seeing. Grapes? The leaves looked like grapes, but the fruits looked like so much more. Some kind of fabulous Easter confection. Chocolate covered in a hard candy shell, say. A quick check with smart Facebook friends gave me the answer: Porcelainberry. And the hatred. People really don’t like this plant.
The Last Word On Nothing
There are a lot of things that are terrible about 2020, and if I try to think about all of them at once, or even to pick an important one to write about, my head will explode. So today I am picking the least important one: Mosquitoes. Mosquitoes have always loved me. I’m just one of those people. If the mosquitoes realize that I am around, they go for me. Did you know that mosquitoes are flies? They are.
The Last Word On Nothing
On Saturday, I met up with two friends and made art. Now, in this era, “met up with” means “on Zoom.” But “made art” means “made art.” And it’s art that wouldn’t have happened without the pandemic. The two friends are Joanna and Harshita, two of my oldest friends. We’ve known each other since we were 11 and 12 years old, and after getting various degrees in other places, we’re all back and living within a few miles of the houses where we grew up.
The Last Word On Nothing
It was an unusual scene, last Tuesday night in a suburb of Washington, D.C. My mom and I were in lawn chairs on the edge of a closed road. My dad was wandering around with his camera on a tripod. A friend sat 10 feet farther down the road in her lawn chair. Strangers came and went, a little farther away. We all gazed off to the west, over the rare suburban open space. We were looking for the comet.
The Outpost by Jake Tapper
The basis for the film starring Orlando Bloom, this New York Times bestseller tells the true story of Combat Outpost Keating, which was attacked by hundreds of Taliban fighters in a deadly battle during the war in Afghanistan. “Meticulously researched, excellently written, and a must-read” (The Seattle Times).
The Babies Are Cute, But Watch Out for the Parents
To be fair, the blue jay did warn me. I was walking across a green space near my apartment building, bounded by streets and a transit station and criss-crossed by concrete paths and surrounded by roads. A recent mow–the first in months–had left it looking like a hay field. A hay field with a lot of litter. Ahead of me I saw two fluffy gray lumps, with specks of blue on their wings and grumpy faces.
The Last Word On Nothing
Birds are difficult to photograph, so here’s a ladybug, also spotted during the pandemic. A big black bird was perched up on the corner of a house, one of the nice, big old houses in my neighborhood. “Nice,” “big,” and “old” is about as precise as I can get on architecture. But I can nail down that bird. It was an American crow. It called, a single caw! Its friend, from off to my left, cawed back. Caw. Caw! Caw. Caw! The friend flew over, they chatted some more, and it flew off again.
The Last Word On Nothing
I’ve lived in my apartment for more than 12 years. In early April, I realized for the first time that there are wisteria in the back parking lot. I suppose this is because I only caught onto wisteria, as an event, in April of 2019. I was in Kumamoto Prefecture in southwestern Japan. A friend and his wife took me to see the wisteria at the shrine in their neighborhood.
The Last Word On Nothing
From my apartment most of the view is a small parking lot, a few stories below me, lined by vines and a few weedy trees. The last few weeks, a mockingbird has been loudly claiming this as his territory. On and on and on, a few phrases of a song he’s learned, then to the next song, then to the next one and the next. The dead stems of winter are turning green, hiding the chain link fences. I’ve spent more time than usual admiring this little parking lot this month.
The Last Word On Nothing
On March 1st, I got concerned enough to start asking a few beloved elders if they had two weeks of supplies. (They did.) The next day, I stopped touching my face. Last week, I stopped going to restaurants. Monday, when I left the office for my two regular work-from-home days, I thought I might not be back for a while. I was a little ahead of most of the United States, and, over the last 48 hours, much of the rest of the country seems to have caught up with me.
The Last Word On Nothing
Wednesday night, Washington, D.C.: Because my work life is slightly on fire right now, and because I already spent 10 hours of this day either sitting in front of my computer or walking around in circles talking to people on the phone, I present to you a photograph of a sunrise in the Caribbean last month. Isn’t it nice? Please imagine that you are on a small and fast boat, speeding across the water, and that everything is lovely. Photo: Helen Fields, for sure Categorized in: Earth, Helen
Update: Underwater Photography
Two weeks ago, I wrote about practicing underwater photography on the junk at the bottom of the public pool – band-aids, mostly – and my hope that I would find something better to photograph in Belize. Good news: I did. I saw a ton of lovely fish, some sea turtles, and a lot of really neat sponges. And not a single rogue band-aid. My photos aren’t the most spectacular underwater photos that have ever been taken, but they are the most mine, and I love them.
On the Bottom of the Pool
A couple of years ago, I decided I was going to draw comics. It didn’t last long – but the ones I did before I quit are pretty fun. One is about a scuba practice session. Here you go. When this post goes live on our site, I’ll be on a scuba diving vacation in Belize. A few weeks ago I was practicing in the pool again. I’m hoping this year I’ll finally be good enough at buoyancy, and comfortable enough with the various hoses and valves that are supporting my life, to take some underwater pictures.
The Last Word On Nothing
If you were to think about it, where would you think the first eyewitness account of one of the Wright brothers’ flights would have appeared in print? I’d guess the New York Times, maybe. A local newspaper in North Carolina or Ohio. Perhaps a venerable old science magazine like Scientific American. Well, I would be wrong, because it actually appeared in a magazine called Gleanings in Bee Culture.
A Little Storm Crosses the Mountains
One day last summer I went for a late-afternoon drive with my parents into Rocky Mountain National Park. From the safety of the rental car, we drove into a hailstorm, then into a parking lot to wait out the hailstorm–which stopped, so my dad pulled back onto the road, and it immediately started again, and finally we found another safe spot to pull off while the ice balls plonked on the car and bounced off the pavement.
The Last Word On Nothing
The campus of the National Institutes of Health is in Bethesda, Md. In the 1930s, the kernel of today’s NIH was part of “Tree Tops,” the estate of Mr. and Mrs. Luke I. Wilson. It has lots of lovely old brick buildings and squeezed-in bits of lawn. Lots of nice big trees, too. One day in late October, I was on the NIH campus, spending the day at a meeting where my job was to sit at the end of the long table and take notes.
The Last Word On Nothing
Dear Persimmons, Where have you been all my life? On trees, I suppose. I think you’re even on a tree in a front yard a few blocks away from here, which on the way to the gym and the grocery store–a street which, come to think of it, I’ve been using for most of my life. And I knew what you looked. You’re in a lot of Japanese art. I even know a tongue twister* about you, but in two Japanese autumns I don’t remember whether we actually crossed paths.
How I Won the Internet and Brought Joy to Peepdom
Last week, I was famous on the internet…for dressing colorful marshmallow bunnies in cravats and spreading them to the enthusiastic fans of a hit Broadway musical. My friends and I made Hamilpeep. Perhaps your cousin shared it with you? Hamilpeep was our entry into the Washington Post’s annual Peeps diorama contest, in which readers are challenged to depict a scene using marshmallow Easter treats.
Update: On Getting Pooped On By Birds
I originally wrote about getting pooped on by birds on October 23, 2014. Recent events call for an update. 1. Washington, D.C., 2004 or so A bench around a circular planter, with a tree in it. I was eating my lunch. I felt something on my arm. We call it poop, but the stuff that comes out of birds’ behinds is more complicated than that. Birds, like most vertebrates that aren’t mammals, have a single all-purpose exit called a cloaca.
The Last Word On Nothing
This post originally ran in June 2018. (I still have the sunglasses.) I’ve been telling myself for a couple of years now that, when my sunglasses turned 20, they were getting their own blog post. Well, that’s sometime around now–my records aren’t too good, but it was definitely 1998 and almost definitely June–so here you go, cheap sunglasses. Thank you for your service. Let’s make it 20 more. Art: It’s me. All me. Categorized in: Helen, Miscellaneous, Redux
The Last Word On Nothing
Dinosaur curator Matthew Carrano, paleoartist Jay Matternes, and museum director Kirk Johnson talk art, fossils, and lizard predation. When the National Museum of Natural History, here in D.C., was planning to demolish their fossil hall and build a new one, they knew they would have to deal with something big: Six huge murals. They’re classics, painted between 1960 and 1974, showing wild assemblages of animals from different points in our planet’s history.
The Last Word On Nothing
I’ve always been bad at bird songs. My neighbor corrected me on this on Sunday, as we were walking down the alley behind my building, so here’s a more accurate statement: I’ve never put in the work that is required to be really good at bird songs. To really learn bird songs, I think you have to study, or at least do more than asking someone else what that sound is.
Two and a Half Months of Milkweed
Recently I’ve been noticing the milkweed pods, doing their thing, so I thought today would be a good day to revisit these old pictures of my favorite local patch of milkweed. Originally published Nov 21, 2014. About halfway between my apartment and my office is a community garden. In a corner of that community garden is a milkweed plant. I first noticed it in early September, because of the brightly-colored animals crawling all over it.
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