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Ten years ago, the birth of Dolly the sheep sparked a media frenzy and a prolonged ethical debate. Today, the arguments have switched focus to stem cells, and the research itself is beginning to change tack.
Except for their use in military reconnaissance, unmanned aircraft have been seen mainly as expensive toys. But as technologies mature, Ned Stafford asks when drones are set to go commercial.
Hundreds of orchid species lure their pollinators with the promise of sex, only to send them away unfulfilled. Heidi Ledford looks at how dishonesty gives them the evolutionary edge.
It is commonly believed that planning for the future is a skill unique to humans. Could other animals, even those as evolutionarily distant as western scrub-jays, share this skill with us?
Iodine atoms can be fitted with a chemical jacket to control the conversion of simple carbon chains into complex iodine-containing molecules. Previously, such reactions were only possible with enzymes.
Mathematical simulations of prey capture in an aqueous environment, tuned by observational data, have produced a fresh view of the forces generated by suction feeding in fishes.
Most common diseases arise from interaction between multiple genetic variations and factors such as diet. Studies of such diseases that exploit the rich data on variation in the human genome are just beginning.
More than 150 subglacial lakes have been discovered beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. The four most recent additions, found right at the start of fast flow in a large ice stream, suggest that the lakes influence ice dynamics.
The nature of the boundary between water and oil is crucial to many nanometre-scale assembly processes, including protein folding. But until now, what the interface really looks like remained in dispute.
A measurement of the infrared spectrum (7.5–13.2 micrometres) of the transiting extrasolar planet HD 209458b reveals that there is a broad emission peak centred near 9.65 micrometres, which they attribute to emission by silicate clouds, and a narrow, unidentified feature at 7.78 micrometres.
A series of experiments that provide confirmation of the quantum nature of the quantum–dot–cavity system in the strong coupling regime by studying a photonic crystal nanocavity in which one, and only one, quantum dot is located precisely at the cavity electric field maximum.
This paper reports the synthesis of simple polyprenoids through a halocyclization reaction that used a nucleophilic promoter. This enabled halogenated cyclic products in high yields and enantiomeric purity to be obtained.
Satellite imagery is used to identify four subglacial lakes, similar in total area to Lake Vostok, right at the onset of the Recovery Glacier ice stream in East Antarctica. This suggests that the subglacial lakes can initiate and maintain rapid ice flow, a mechanism that will need to be considered in future ice-sheet mass balance assessments.
Reconstruction of sea surface salinities in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean over the past 90,000 years detected strong millennial-scale fluctuations that are associated with the migration of the tropical Atlantic Intertropical Convergence Zone. Thus, millennial-scale fluctuations of moisture transport constitute an important feedback mechanism for abrupt climate changes, modulating the North Atlantic freshwater budget and hence North Atlantic ocean circulation.
Females in a colony of fur seals in South Georgia manage to balance relatedness of potential mate against heterozygosity, thus maintaining variation in the gene pool.
Western scrub-jays make provision for the future by both preferentially caching food in a place in which they have learned that they will be hungry the following morning, and by differentially storing a particular food in a place in which that type of food will not be available the next morning. Thus jays, it seems, can spontaneously plan for tomorrow without reference to their current motivational state.
The tethering complex TRAPPI initiates the interaction of a transport vesicle with its target membrane by binding to the cargo adaptor complex of the coat complex COPII. These findings imply that coat proteins and their associated cargo help direct a vesicle to its correct intracellular destination.
Skin is the largest organ of the body and performs many functions. It helps us sense our surroundings and provides a barrier to environmental insults. Greater understanding of the mechanisms of skin development and the molecular interactions within and between skin cells and other cell types is leading to new therapeutics and laboratory-engineered skin with which to treat skin disease and injury.