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Last week's attacks in New York and Washington were an offence against fundamental values that merits a well-targeted response, helped by science. But enhanced contacts with Islamic colleagues should also be pursued.
Developmental biologists and cell biologists have long ploughed their separate furrows. But now these two disciplines are coming together in unexpected and exciting ways, says Helen Pearson.
Over the coming decade, exploration of Mars may reveal whether or not life ever existed on the red planet — but only if the missions can avoid detecting any microbes they bring with them, says Tom Clarke.
Whales must have evolved from land-based mammals, but fossil evidence of some of the steps in between has been patchy. Newly discovered skeletons with legs fill in the gaps.
One of the dirty little secrets of physics is that there is no generally accepted explanation of the basic laws of friction. An advance in the theory of cracks will stimulate fresh thinking on the question.
In plant roots, different cell types are organized in a well-defined pattern: each cell knows exactly where it is and what it should do. A molecule that tells cells where they are has now been discovered.
Flocking, herding, swarming: call it what you will. But when you're somebody's lunch there's safety in numbers, even when the predator is an aquatic plant.
Using optical fibres, experimentalists have confirmed that a physical version of déjà vu — whereby a system returns to its original state — does occur with light waves.
The finely balanced activity of enzymes and their regulators keeps the cell-division cycle under control. A newly discovered molecule that ensures the timely destruction of one regulator is mutated in some cancer cells.