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The xenon isotopic composition of mantle gases from a natural gas field indicates that heavy noble gases are reintroduced into the mantle at subduction zones — providing an important constraint for future models of convection in the Earth.
γ-ray bursts are more concentrated in the very brightest regions of their host galaxies than are supernovae — in addition, the host galaxies of the γ-ray bursts are significantly fainter and more irregular than the hosts of the supernovae.
Crystallization of an integrase complex with target site DNA reveals that two flipped-out bases position the integrase subunits correctly, thus allowing different DNA sequences to be accommodated.
Newly recovered Ethiopian fossils of Australopithecus anamensis show how Australopithecus might have evolved from the earlier and more primitive genus Ardipithecus, and might have been a harbinger of Australopithecus afarensis, better known as ‘Lucy’.
Dendritic cells that interact in a pathogen-specific manner with CD4+ T cells produce chemical signals that actively attract naive CD8+ T cells. Interference with these guidance signals promoting CD8+ T-cell association with this select dendritic cell subpopulation prevents the development of optimal immunological memory responses.
A detailed description of the pectoral fin of the Devonian fish Tiktaalik roseae — a transitional form between fishes and tetrapods — gives an insight into the origins of the tetrapod limb.
The tumour suppressor PTEN is required for maintenance of haematopoietic stem cells, but not leukaemia-initiating cells — this specific effect is mediated by the mTOR pathway and mitigated by rapamycin.
The structure of full-length Hsp90 in association with an ATP analogue and a co-chaperone details for the first time how ATP binding changes Hsp90's conformation, and how the co-chaperone stabilizes the overall structure so that target proteins can bind.
Collective behaviour in neurons in the vertebrate retina is described quantitatively by models that capture the observed pairwise correlations, but assume no higher order interactions.
Data from the Southern Ocean sea-ice extent, the biological productivity of the ocean, and atmospheric iron flux over the past eight glacial cycles indicate that during glacial terminations, changes in Patagonia apparently preceded Antarctic sea-ice reduction — showing that multiple mechanisms may be responsible for different phases of CO2 increase during glacial terminations.
A combination of mutant phenotype analysis, genome comparisons and proteomics has elucidated the metabolic network of Salmonella during typhoid fever and enteritis infections. Owing to many redundant pathways, Salmonella metabolism is surprisingly robust, thus severely limiting the number of new drug targets.
A robust, versatile, one-pot bottom-up nanotechnology fabrication method uses a few-hundred short DNA strands to 'staple' a very long strand into two-dimensional structures of 100 nm in diameter and resembling any desired shape, such as squares, 'nanofaces' and stars.