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Philanthropies are invigorating US biomedical science by liberating talented researchers from the bureaucracy that surrounds traditional peer review. The NIH should consider distributing a small proportion of its funds in a similar way.
Entrepreneurs who made their fortunes in high technology are now giving money away to fund biomedical research. These new philanthropists are sending a breath of fresh air through the labs they support, says Trisha Gura.
How do you measure the mass of the Universe? You can't use a balance to weigh it, but detailed analysis of hundreds of thousands of galaxies provides an alternative answer.
Changes in gene silencing throughout life might be a general phenomenon underlying ageing and longevity: this mechanism is at work in yeast and, as new work suggests, nematode worms.
Crystals are host to a variety of disturbances, which show up as waves or particles. Physicists think they may have seen a new type of disturbance called the orbiton.
It is often thought that sexual 'ornaments', such as the swellings that adorn ovulating female baboons, are signalling something about fertility — but what? Long-term studies of wild baboons provide an answer.
When one type of material is grown on a very different one, the electrostatic interactions between them become important. These interactions offer new ways to control structure on the nanoscale.
Intriguing in vitro results highlight the possibility that conformational differences between prion proteins with the same sequence contribute to the barrier that limits prion propagation between species.
Polymers that can conduct electricity have been known for some time, but they have defied attempts to make them into superconductors. The answer, it turns out, is to inject them with charge — but how does it work?
Daedalus calculates that a fast-spinning gas turbine could be used to make supercritical water: a powerful oxidizing agent for turning waste into energy.
Many systems show complex dynamical behaviour. Although in its infancy, the study of complex systems has seen tremendous growth in recent years, and emerging concepts are now influencing disciplines as disparate as astronomy and biology, physics and finance. The richness of the field and diversity of its application are reviewed in this Insight.
