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Volume 411 Issue 6835, 17 May 2001

Volume 411 Issue 6835

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Prospects

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Regions

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Movers

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Opinion

  • Biologists should involve themselves in the debate over biological weapons — both to ensure that we have the means to counter the threats that such weapons pose and to help keep those threats in perspective.

    Opinion
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News

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News in Brief

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News Feature

  • Could our knowledge of microbial genomics and skill in genetic engineering be used to create 'enhanced' bioweapons? Carina Dennis assesses the threat, and the efforts to counter it.

    • Carina Dennis
    News Feature

  • Ultra-thin fibres spun from polymers could be used to protect against chemical weapons, dress wounds and make brakes for aircraft. David Adam tells a gripping yarn.

    • David Adam
    News Feature
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Correspondence

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Book Review

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Words

  • Could literature teach us how to release scientific writing from its straitjacket?

    • Robert Simmons
    Words
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Concepts

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News & Views

  • How long have CO2 and climate been linked? At least 300 million years, according to the results of a neat technique that exploits the relationship between concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere and pores in leaves.

    • Wolfram M. Kürschner
    News & Views

  • Mice that have only half the normal amount of a synaptic protein called α-CaMKII learn normally, but remember poorly. The result sheds light on the mysterious mechanisms of memory consolidation.

    • John Lisman
    • Richard Morris
    News & Views

  • Using a network of telescopes spread across the United States, astronomers have made a movie of an expanding shell of gas that sheds light on the intricate processes of how a star is born.

    • Kevin B. Marvel
    News & Views

  • Using a technique that exploits the strain between two semiconductor materials, researchers have made tiny self-positioning hinges, which also make good mirrors on the microscale.

    • Josette Chen
    News & Views

  • The discovery of a protein that controls the transmission of nerve impulses in snails is significant in its own right. It also advances our understanding of the vertebrate neurotransmitter receptor that responds to nicotine.

    • Dennis A. Dougherty
    • Henry A. Lester
    News & Views

  • Signals that guide embryonic cells through development are often under the control of inhibitors. It now seems that one such inhibitor does not bind to the signal itself, but rather to the receptor that detects the signal.

    • Roel Nusse
    News & Views

  • An image of the Sun's surface could be obtained by a satellite that looks for electrons emitted in the solar wind.

    • David Jones
    News & Views
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Brief Communication

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Erratum

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Article

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Letter

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Foreword

    • Bernd Pulverer
    • Lesley Anson
    • Liz Allen
    Foreword
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Progress

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Review Article

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Progress

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Corporate Support

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New on the Market

  • New ideas for the microbiologist include BugStoppers and bug counters.

    New on the Market
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Insight

  • Cancer is an umbrella term covering a plethora of conditions characterized by unscheduled and uncontrolled cellular proliferation. Almost any mammalian organ and cell type can succumb to oncogenic transformation, giving rise to a bewildering array of clinical outcomes. In this Insight, nine articles illustrate how diverse and dynamic cancer research is at the start of the 21st century.

    Insight
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