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The rise of malaria in Africa is a subject of much debate. A new analysis emphasizes the influence of rainfall, but there appear to be few areas where climate has been a major driver of this change.
Damaged DNA must be removed with the utmost precision, as mistakes are costly. The structure of a repair enzyme bound to its substrate provides a welcome clue to how this is achieved.
A long-awaited breakthrough has been made in lattice quantum chromodynamics — a means of calculating the effect of the strong force between sub-atomic particles that could, ultimately, unveil new physics.
The silicon chip has been the mainstay of the electronics industry and it may similarly come to dominate photonics. A key component — a high-frequency optical modulator — has now been fabricated.
In an echo of events that unfolded earlier in the West, declines of vulture populations in the Indian subcontinent are linked to an environmental poison. Three species of these birds approach extinction.
The causes of defects in the blood system of newborn babies can be hard to establish if the errors are not inherited. An elegant approach has identified a gene that can encourage new blood vessels to grow.
Some species of plant will prefer a world with higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. When those species are invasive pests, the invaders may well flourish at the expense of the native vegetation.
A neglected mathematical theory is enjoying new popularity, thanks to its relevance to network dynamics in biological systems. The beating of a leech's heart is just one example that has a mathematical basis in ‘groupoid theory’.
Ammonia is produced industrially by combining nitrogen and hydrogen gas, catalysed over a solid iron surface. How about a catalytic reaction that could take place in solution? The first steps have now been taken.
Nerve transmission depends on voltage-gated ion-channel proteins, which in turn depend on the behaviour of a membrane domain called the voltage sensor. Therein lies the latest episode in a continuing story.
Comparative genetic linkage studies in rats, mice and humans have finally identified a key component of vitamin K metabolism that is targeted by the commonest anticoagulant drugs in use today.
A surprising number of the icy objects in the Kuiper belt exist in pairs, or binaries. A new model proposes that these two-body systems were created through three-body interactions.
During egg and sperm production, the two copies of a duplicated chromosome must be bound together until it is time for their separation. A protein that protects this chromosomal glue has now been discovered.
