Review, News & Views, Perspectives, Hypotheses and Analyses in 2010

Although sphingolipids are vital cellular components, the path to their production is paved with toxic intermediates. Orm proteins allow cells to form these lipids without killing themselves in the process.

What was responsible for the unusual climatic conditions that prevailed during the early Pliocene, 5 million to 3 million years ago? Modelling studies point to intense tropical-cyclone activity as a possible answer.

The finding that the normal phase of an ultracold gas of fermionic atoms in the strongly interacting regime is close to a Fermi liquid isn't quite what theorists expected for these systems.

Redox reactions in widely spatially separated layers of marine sediments are coupled to each other. This suggests that bacteria mediate the flow of electrons between the layers — an idea that would previously have been dismissed.

Researchers have met the challenge of capturing transient states of the SUMO E1 activating enzyme. Their pictures show radically different crystal structures for two of the steps in this enzyme's activity.

Big and beautiful microfossils have been extracted from rocks that are more than 3 billion years old. They offer tantalizing hints about the antiquity of the eukaryote lineage of organisms that includes ourselves.

In some galaxies, matter falling onto a supermassive black hole is ejected in narrow jets moving at close to the speed of light. New observations provide insight into the workings of these cosmic accelerators.

A technique used primarily to study fundamental issues in quantum mechanics has now been shown to have promise as a powerful practical tool for making ultra-precise measurements.

When environmental temperatures rise, plants seek help from their core molecular mechanisms to adapt. The chromatin protein H2A.Z, which regulates gene expression, is one such rescue molecule.

The production of intestinal cells in a worm embryo is regulated by a network of transcription factors. Studies of these networks in mutant worms provide evidence for stochastic effects in gene expression.

To discover superheavy elements and study their properties, we need to know the masses of the isotopes of elements heavier than uranium. Weighing these isotopes in an electromagnetic trap has now become possible.

Experiments with simple chordate animals show how decay may make the resulting fossils seem less evolved. The consequence is to distort evidence of the evolution of the earliest vertebrates and their precursors.

DNA is particularly well preserved in hair — enabling the genome of a human to be sequenced, and his ancestry and appearance to be determined, from 4,000-year-old remains.

Chronic drug use can lead to addiction, which is initiated by specific brain circuits. The mystery of how one class of drugs, the benzodiazepines, affects activity in this circuitry has finally been solved.

Defects in mitochondria are implicated in Parkinson's disease. Study of a quality-control pathway involving the proteins PINK1 and Parkin provides further clues about the mechanism involved.