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Mammals face a problem just after birth: they are no longer nourished through the placenta, but suckling has not yet begun. How do they survive? Digestion of the animal's own cells could be the answer.
What do changing colours in corn kernels, mutations in houseflies and the variability of antibodies and of a T cell's antigen receptors in the vertebrate immune system have in common? A great deal, it turns out.
Red blood cells develop in the bone marrow in ‘islands’ nurtured by a central white blood cell. Work in mice shows that the retinoblastoma protein is crucial for these white cells to mature and form islands.
New work shows how light might be used to cool a micrometre-size cantilevered mirror to the low temperatures required in physics experiments and applications.
The most vexing question in meteoritics is on the verge of being answered — what process led to the small droplets of primordial dust that are found throughout the most primitive meteorites?