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The South African government at last has an opportunity to fight AIDS with drugs at reduced prices without fear of legal action. The country has the capacity to make significant progress. The government should make use of it.
After decades of neglect, research into 'innate' immunity has moved to centre stage. Phyllida Brown explores the excitement that now surrounds an evolutionarily ancient arm of our immune system.
The Internet has revolutionized how we live and work — with dynamic new technologies it is set to change the way in which science reaches its audience.
One theory about the origin of the AIDS pandemic is that the virus responsible, HIV, was transmitted to humans from chimpanzees through contaminated polio vaccine. That theory fails some crucial tests.
The evolution of feathers and flight were generally thought to be inextricably linked. But new fossils from China show that feathers pre-dated the origin of flight and of birds.
X-ray crystallography can be used to produce three-dimensional images of atoms providing they are arranged periodically. For small atomic clusters or molecules, electron holography could provide even sharper images.
In some types of unicellular algae, the chloroplasts have their own nucleus — a legacy of the time when the chloroplast was a free-living cell. The sequence of the genome in one such nucleus is now revealed.
It is difficult to obtain a dynamic picture of the Earth's mantle. A study involving geophysical observations with geochemical implications shows that compositionally distinct megablobs contribute to the ebb and flow.
Mice that have been genetically modified to be prone to tumours are thought to be poor models of sporadic cancer. This problem can be tackled with a new generation of modified mice.
