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At first glance, India's electorate has just put the brakes on the country's modernization, by ousting a government that has promoted entrepreneurship and invested in high technology. But appearances can be deceptive.
The parasite Giardia was thought to represent a throwback to the earliest days of advanced cellular life. But biologists are now arguing over its true status. Jonathan Knight reports.
Global warming and rising energy needs are rehabilitating the concept of nuclear power. But if it is to figure in the energy equation, it will need to be cheaper, cleaner and safer, says Declan Butler.
Flowering plants have sophisticated mating systems that determine whether a pollen suitor is accepted or rejected. Knowledge of how such systems operate has just taken two steps forward.
The ‘S-complex’ asteroids are not easily identified as the source of the most common meteorites reaching Earth. Their relationship might be disguised, however, by the effects of space weathering.
A new regime of strongly correlated quantum behaviour has been reached with the creation of a one-dimensional Tonks–Girardeau gas from ultracold atoms trapped within thin tubes of light.
Transposons qualify as ‘selfish’ DNA elements, adding new copies of themselves into our genomes without regard for the consequences. This wilful habit may, however, help in normal gene regulation.
Diffraction patterns, generated using X-ray pulses of only picosecond duration, reveal the motion of individual atoms as iodine molecules dissociate, then recombine, in solution.
A postdoc stint in industry can mean better pay and superior facilities. But will doing such a fellowship jeopardize your academic aspirations? Beth Martin investigates.
