Anatomy articles within Nature

Featured

• Books & Arts | 03 February 2010

  The woman behind HeLa

  Steve Silberman enjoys a moving account that probes racial and ethical issues in medicine through the story of the young mother whose death from cancer led to the first immortal cell line.

  • Steve Silberman

• Editorial | 27 January 2010

  Building a Cell

  • Deepa Nath
  • , Ritu Dhand
  •  & Angela K. Eggleston

• News | 24 January 2010

  Healthy prions protect nerves

  The proteins that can cause CJD have a vital role in the nervous system.

  • Alison Abbott

• Letter | 24 January 2010

  Animal cryptochromes mediate magnetoreception by an unconventional photochemical mechanism

  Animals use the Earth's magnetic field for orientation but the biophysical basis of this is unclear. The light-dependent magnetic sense of Drosophila melanogaster was recently shown to be mediated by the cryptochrome (Cry) photoreceptor; here, using a transgenic approach, the type 1 and 2 Cry of the monarch butterfly are shown to both function in the magnetoreception system of Drosophila, and probably use an unconventional photochemical mechanism.

  • Robert J. Gegear
  • , Lauren E. Foley
  •  & Steven M. Reppert

• Letter | 22 January 2010

  Genome-wide erasure of DNA methylation in mouse primordial germ cells is affected by AID deficiency

  The extent of epigenetic reprogramming in mammalian primordial germ cells (PGCs) and in early embryos, and its molecular mechanisms, are poorly understood. DNA methylation profiling in PGCs now reveals a genome–wide erasure of methylation, with female PGCs being less methylated than male ones. A deficiency of the cytidine deaminase AID interferes with the genome–wide erasure of DNA methylation, indicating that AID has a critical function in epigenetic reprogramming.

  • Christian Popp
  • , Wendy Dean
  •  & Wolf Reik

• News | 20 January 2010

  Brother sperm train together

  Mouse sperm cells team up with their kin in the race to fertilize eggs.

  • John Whitfield

• News | 20 January 2010

  Genomics boosts brain-cancer work

  Molecular findings start to open up avenues of diagnosis and treatment.

  • Erika Check Hayden

• Letter | 20 January 2010

  Competition drives cooperation among closely related sperm of deer mice

  Sperm can increase their swimming velocity and gain a competitive advantage over sperm from another male by forming cooperative groups, such that selection should favour cooperation of the most closely related sperm. Sperm of deer mice are now shown to aggregate more often with conspecific than heterospecific sperm, in accordance with this theory, whereas in a monogamous species lacking sperm competition, sperm indiscriminately group with unrelated conspecific sperm.

  • Heidi S. Fisher
  •  & Hopi E. Hoekstra