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Australia's researchers have been set national goals by their government. The underlying agenda is to ensure that the country's institutions spend scarce funds more wisely and in a way that reflects joined-up thinking.
The Alliance for Cellular Signaling is exploring new frontiers, both in fundamental scientific terms and in the way in which research in cell biology is conducted. Alison Abbott reports.
Producing a popular research tool will make you a lot of friends in science. But meeting requests to supply the material puts a heavy burden on your lab. David Cyranoski examines a system under pressure.
Growth factors regulate cell behaviour, and are kept in check by inhibitors. The structure of a complex of two such proteins shows that they form back-to-back butterflies, with the inhibitor's wings stretching to embrace its partner.
Triple points describe states of matter in which three phases exist at the same time — such as solid, liquid and gas. The same phenomenon has now been found to occur between three different shapes of atomic nuclei.
Our understanding of insect flight is hampered by the difficulty of obtaining data when the insects are flying freely. But such experiments can be carried out and show butterflies to be masters of flight control.
A small fraction of Kuiper-belt objects are known to be accompanied by large moons. These double worlds may have formed in the earliest days of the Solar System through comparatively gentle gravitational encounters.
The fat-derived hormone leptin is best known for its effects on weight. But it also influences bone density, and new work reveals a role for the sympathetic nervous system in mediating this effect.
The familiar way in which frogs swim is with both hind legs kicking together. But on occasion they swim with alternate leg kicks, raising questions about the energetics involved.
Huge amounts of methane are locked up in deposits that lie deep beneath the sea floor. New seismic images reveal that these deposits possess unexpected features that might affect their stability.
A study of the thermodynamics of antibody binding to a crucial HIV protein has shed light on why the virus so effectively evades the antibody arm of the immune response. Changes in the protein's conformation are the key.
The dominant science hubs in Scandinavia are akin to the open sandwiches favoured throughout the Nordic region - each country has its own name for, and unique approach to preparing, this delicacy. So, too, with science. Each hub has had different motivations and methods for building up local networks, as articles in this supplement reveal.
The Alliance for Cellular Signaling (AfCS) is a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional consortium designed to answer global questions about cell- signalling networks. By investigating pathways in B lymphocytes and cardiac myocytes, the AfCS aims to facilitate quantitative modelling and catalyse complementary research, as described in this Collection of papers.
