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The US legislature is bereft of objective guidance on issues that underpin much of its work. A congressional Office of Technology Assessment should be reinstated as soon as possible, on a solid basis of bipartisan support.
By recording the electrical activity of individual neurons in monkeys, neuroscientists are beginning to understand how the brain makes simple decisions. Bas Kast considers the links between perception and action.
The tortuous tale of a probe into charges of scientific misconduct levelled at a rising neuroscientist raises questions about the adequacy of US procedures to tackle the problem. Rex Dalton reports.
Recent analyses of an old data set are starting to reveal patterns in the evolution of mammalian brains. The latest study shows that mammalian groups are characterized by basic similarities in brain proportions.
The behaviour of the North Atlantic is often invoked to explain the effects of climate change. But for certain episodes, including perhaps a period in human evolution, events elsewhere may have had a greater influence.
Body segmentation occurs during the development of many invertebrate animals. Advances are being made by those striving to produce computer models of the genetic networks underlying the process.
Astronomers have spotted a large number of newly formed stars near our Solar System. So there might be more going on in our Galactic neighbourhood than we thought.
Are genomes made up of strings of genes in no particular order? It seems not, given the abundance on the mouse sex chromosomes of genes involved in the manufacture of sperm.
Postseismic stress transfer is the local redistribution of stresses in the Earth's crust that follows an earthquake. It's a hot topic at the moment, and understandably so because of its relevance in assessing seismic hazards.
Computational and mathematical models are helping biologists to understand the beating of a heart, the molecular dances underlying the cell-division cycle and cell movement, and much more.
The old practice of spinning yarn could perhaps be replaced by modern technology, if passing a high voltage through the threads were to make other materials stick to them.
