Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
In certain types of gastrointestinal cell, mutations in the protein KIT give rise to gastrointestinal stromal tumours. Why are other cell types that express KIT not affected? The answer lies with a second protein. See Letter p.849
Organic aerosol particles are ubiquitous in the atmosphere. In forests, such particles can occur in solid form — a finding that will lead to a re-evaluation of how they are formed, and their properties and effects. See Letter p.824
Phylogenetic methods of evolutionary biology can be used to study socio-political variation mapped onto linguistic trees. The range of political complexities in Austronesian societies offers a good test case. See Article p.801
Astronomers would be expected to recognize comets easily when they see them, not least because of the objects' bright tails. But when planetary accidents try to fool them, their job is no longer that simple. See Letters p.814 & p.817
The T-cell receptor on the surface of T cells requires antigen recognition to function. Structural studies reveal that its predecessor, the pre-T-cell receptor, is much more independent. See Letter p.844
Reliable forecasts of sea-level rise depend on accurately modelling the dynamics of polar ice sheets. A numerical framework that better reflects ice-sheet basal drag adds greater realism to such models.
The bacterium Clostridium difficile can cause life-threatening human disease. The question is which of the organism's two toxins is the more crucial to its pathogenicity. The answer is one or the other, or both. See Letter p.711
Methods for trapping tiny particles are increasingly needed, especially for biological assays, but they often involve complicated apparatus. An approach has been discovered that could simplify matters considerably. See Letter p.692
Purification of the human tumour-suppressor protein BRCA2, which is crucial for DNA repair, has been a formidable challenge owing to its large size. That mission is now accomplished, providing biochemical insight. See Article p.678
The detection of unexpected changes in the Sun's spectral irradiance during the declining phase of the most recent solar cycle, and their implications for Earth's atmosphere, are intriguing. But they must be viewed as provisional. See Letter p.696
How do we tell red from green? Work on the primate retina shows how neural circuitry combines signals from individual cone photoreceptor cells to provide the basic building blocks for colour vision. See Article p.673
Interfaces can have quite different properties from those of their constituent materials. But it's surprising that the adsorption of a single organic molecule onto a magnetic surface can drastically modify that surface's magnetism.
The trend towards using ultracold atomic gases to explore emergent phenomena in many-body systems continues to gain momentum. This time around, they have been used to explore novel pairing mechanisms in one dimension. See Letter p.567
Delimitation of species is especially taxing when populations of similar organisms occupy non-overlapping geographical ranges. A new quantitative framework offers a consistent approach for tackling the problem.
Spikes on the surface of HIV to which antibodies can bind are sparse. One of nature's solutions is to sometimes produce antibodies that bind tightly to a spike with one arm and grab another structure with the other arm. See Letter p.591
