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The link between a person's genetic ancestry and the traits — including disease risk — that he or she exhibits remains elusive. Routine sequencing of the genomes of an African and an Asian individual offer a step forward.
Changing weather patterns, producing the wrong kind of snow, have transformed the population dynamics of lemmings in northern Scandinavia. The knock-on effects have been felt throughout the ecosystem.
A large simulation reveals that most of the detectable signal from dark matter in our Milky Way probably comes from the main, smooth Galactic halo, rather than from small clumps.
Small-scale interactions of substrates with an enzyme's active site — over distances smaller than the length of a chemical bond — can make big differences to the enzyme's catalytic efficiency.
A re-evaluation of the relationship between Earth's orbital parameters, ice-sheet extent and ocean circulation sets further puzzles for those trying to disentangle cause from effect in long-term climatic changes.
The scale of the 2004 tsunami that devastated shores around the Indian Ocean has no precedent in written histories of the region. But evidence of similar events has been unearthed from the geological record.