Hindsight is 2020: The year in review

Recent articles

top-down view of the mouse brain

2020 in research images

Feast your eyes on glowing glia and organoids; high-resolution, digital renditions of mouse brains; fluorescent beads passing through zebrafish guts and more.

By Spectrum
23 December 2020 | 2 min read
researcher facing off with the coronavirus.

Rewind: Spectrum’s best from 2020

Our staff picks the stories, podcasts and special reports that stood out from the rest this past year.

By Spectrum
23 December 2020 | 5 min read
Lab scene during COVID 19 pandemic.

Inside the reporter’s notebook: Dispatches from 2020

Spectrum's staff couldn't report on the ground this year — with no lab visits, sit-down interviews or in-person conferences to attend — but we observed a lot of changes from our computer screens.

By Spectrum
23 December 2020 | 4 min read
Micrograph of nerve cells being targeted by CRISPR enzyme to activate the silenced gene in Angelman syndrome

Hot topics in autism research, 2020

The Spectrum team highlights five topics that distinguished autism research in 2020: diversity in data, gene therapies, subtyping, social circuitry and the ‘autism gene’ debate.

By Spectrum
23 December 2020 | 8 min read
White lab mouse sitting in a gloved hand.

Notable papers in autism research, 2020

Gene therapies and the factors influencing autism traits top Spectrum’s list of the 10 most notable research findings we covered in 2020.

By Spectrum
23 December 2020 | 4 min read

Explore more from The Transmitter

Two lab mice fighting.

From friend to foe: How the brain updates feelings toward others

A specific hippocampus-to-amygdala pathway reassigns emotional valence to a known individual, whereas the hippocampus’s own representation of that individual’s identity remains stable.

By Natalia Mesa
9 July 2026 | 5 min read
Illustration of scientist in lab coat looking at shelves of computer network models.

Mass-produced science is coming. What happens to scientists?

Artificial intelligence may soon enable researchers to generate high-quality science at a previously unimaginable speed. For science consumers—the public, medical patients, technology users—the likely effects will be positive. For scientists, the effects will be as disruptive as industrial mass production was for artisan manufacturers.

By Kenneth Harris
9 July 2026 | 9 min read
Adriano Aguzzi.

Neuropathologist not guilty of research misconduct, says university probe

The investigation determined that seven papers by corresponding author Adriano Aguzzi have “scientifically significant” errors, which Aguzzi attributes to his former students.

By Dalmeet Singh Chawla
8 July 2026 | 5 min read