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The 'mosaic' theory of development applies, to different degrees, to most animals. It owes its existence in part to a group of obscure marine invertebrates, which now take centre stage in the molecular age.
According to new modelling calculations, black carbon in the atmosphere exerts a large warming influence on global climate. Curbing emissions of this pollutant may be advisable both on climate and on human health grounds.
Dating the Universe has always been a tricky business with unsatisfying answers. Astronomers now have a better clock, based on radioactive uranium, that puts the age at around 12.5 billion years.
The bacterium Wolbachia has strange and wonderful effects on reproduction in its many invertebrate host species. In effect, the creation of new species can now be added to the list.
On 11 May 1999, the density of the solar wind dropped almost to zero. Space scientists are now giving their first reports of this rare opportunity to study the complex relationship between the Sun and Earth.
Nitric oxide is a biological signalling gas that has been assumed to reach its protein targets by simple random diffusion. The discovery of molecular mechanisms for precise nitric oxide delivery challenges that assumption.
Planetary waves, also known as Rossby waves, propagate throughout the world's oceans on very large scales. They influence the ocean–climate system and also, it seems, the delivery of nutrients to the ocean surface.
Crystal structures of proteins not only shed light on how those proteins work. By revealing previously hidden similarities, they can also force a re-evaluation of what other proteins are predicted to do.
Force biological membranes close enough together and they will fuse. SNARE proteins are well suited to force proximity. But biochemical studies of yeast show that proximity is not the only requirement.
An intense laser beam might be expected to cut, burn or blast anything in its path. But at the right wavelength and with a suitable target material, laser light can also chill.
Materials that change their colour as a result of a simple electric potential could be key to a new generation of flat-screen displays. But the speed at which they undergo this change of hue has held them back, until now.
The active zones of neurons are characterized in part by protein aggregates that make up 'active-zone material'. The function of this material is unclear, but new high-resolution images look set to change that.
The genome of an Escherichia coli strain that is emerging as a severe threat to human health has been sequenced. Comparing it with that of a harmless strain suggests why some forms of this bacterium cause disease.
