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Attention is now turning to the developing world, where those least equipped to handle it will bear the brunt of global warming. Michael Hopkin reports.
The US National Science Foundation may soon have to supply lab equipment to poverty-stricken high schools. David Goldston explains why some politicians want the agency to pay for Bunsen burners and test-tubes.
Car companies know that plastic parts made from plants will appeal to 'green' customers. But as Ichiko Fuyuno reports, their progress has been painfully slow.
Despite years of speculation, little can be said for sure about the future of the Arctic's permafrost. But that's no grounds for complacency, reports Gabrielle Walker.
Carbon sinks play a key role in slowing the growth of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. These sinks are at risk as the world warms, but their demise is not inevitable, say Dave Reay and his colleagues.
Understanding the dynamics of infectious-disease transmission demands a holistic approach, yet today's models largely ignore how epidemics change individual behaviour.
Some genes are involved in the development of a new tumour; others specifically promote the dissemination of its cancerous cells to other organs. A set of four genes seems to be required for both processes.
The idea of bendy crystals, especially ones that move rapidly and reversibly in response to light, seems strange. Such materials have now been prepared — but how do they change shape so dramatically without cracking?
Genomic characterization of a type of leukaemia has resulted in the identification of common genetic abnormalities that underlie the disease. The results constitute an advance on several fronts.
Knowing how plants and bacteria harvest light for photosynthesis so efficiently could provide a clean solution to mankind's energy requirements. The secret, it seems, may be the coherent application of quantum principles.
A popular route for protein transport into and across cell membranes is through the Sec channel. This channel seems to function by forming a dimer of two identical units, where each has a distinct role.
Autophagy is the degradation of redundant or faulty cell components. It occurs as part of a cell's everyday activities and as a response to stressful stimuli, such as starvation. Connections with cellular life-and-death decisions and with cancer are now emerging.
A genome-wide, high-resolution single nucleotide polymorphism array analysis of a large number of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia samples identifies a number of genomic changes. These include alterations in the genes encoding Pax5 and other regulators of B-cell development and differentiation.
Previous studies identified genes involved in tissue-specific metastasis of breast cancer cells to the lung. New work now shows how four of these genes cooperate to remodel the vasculature and thereby both tumour cell intravasation into the circulation and extravasation of blood vessels in the lung to form metastases.
An Earth-like planet orbiting a nearby star is 1 × 10−10 times fainter than the star at angular separations of typically 0.1 arcsecond or less, but this paper reports an experiment that suppresses the diffracted and scattered light near a star-like source to a level of 6 × 10−10 in individual coronagraph images.
The laboratory implementation of quantum measurement procedures is difficult, relying on delicate quantum superpositions known as Schroedinger cat states. Here, an alternative technique is demonstrated to perform an optimal quantum measurement, using real-time quantum feedback. The measurement achieves its fundamental quantum limit over a non-trivial region of parameter space.
A new material of molecular crystals, based on diarylethene chromophores and with sizes ranging from 10 to 100 micrometers, can be switched rapidly and reversibly between two different stable states by irradiation with ultraviolet and visible light, respectively. When put in the spotlight, a rod-shaped crystal of the material attached to a surface will even oblige and 'bat' away a micrometer-sized gold particle.
A spectroscopic study has directly monitored the quantum beating arising from remarkably long-lived electronic quantum coherence in a bacteriochlorophyll complex. This wavelike characteristic of the energy transfer process can explain the extreme efficiency of photosynthesis, in that vast areas of phase space can be sampled effectively to find the most efficient path for energy transfer.
Although resource limitation is not the only factor that could explain species richness and biodiversity, it is shown that it explains bidoversity in experimental grass plots in California, and could explain results in the long-running Park Grass Experiment in the UK.
In the developing neural tube of the zebrafish, a newly discovered kind of cell division occurs that produces two daughter cells with mirror symmetry. Cells are polarized in mirror symmetry on either side of the neural midline, and Pard3, a protein known to be involved in polarized cell divisions, is deposited within the cleavage furrow of the midline.
An epistatic miniarray profile allows identification of multiprotein complexes involved in various aspects of chromosome biology. In one pathway, the histone acetyltransferase Rtt109 is found to modify histone H3 lysine 56 during DNA replication.
Throughout the lifespan of a plant, the stem cell niches in the shoot and root apical meristems provide the cells for the formation of new tissues and organs. Here, evidence is presented that the signalling centres of both niches utilize related transcription factors, WUSCHEL and WOX5, respectively, to maintain neighbouring stem cells undifferentiated.
Just a decade has changed cancer research beyond recognition, but adaptable skills and teamwork lead to exciting possibilities. Ricki Lewis looks at the new face of cancer genetics.
