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US astronomers are renowned for getting together and choosing their projects as a group. But just as these tactics are catching on in other fields, some say the astronomy process is grinding to a halt. Geoff Brumfiel investigates.
Hagia Sophia has stood four-square in Istanbul for more than 1,500 years. Virginia Hughes finds out how this venerable building has resisted the area's numerous earthquakes.
Science journalists in the developing world face unique stumbling blocks, even as some of the biggest science stories unfold around them. Mike Shanahan reports.
Big conclusions can be drawn from the tiny ecosystems that flourish in carnivorous pitcher plants. Manipulating habitat size and predator abundance reveals which is more important to ecosystem dynamics.
Before hydrogen can be used as a transportation fuel, a safe storage system for the gas must be found. Metal clusters that release hydrogen in response to an electric current may be a step in the right direction.
Genetic dissection of a yeast gene-regulatory pathway shows that the logical output of such a pathway can remain the same even though the molecular mechanisms underlying the output have diverged remarkably.
Bose–Einstein condensation occurs when many particles enter into the same, coherent quantum state, and is now claimed to occur in various systems of 'quasiparticles' in solids. But is it the right term to use here?
The proliferation of cells must balance the longevity assured by tissue renewal against the risk of developing cancer. The tumour-suppressor protein p16INK4a seems to act at the pivot of this delicate equilibrium.
The Kyoto Protocol aims to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases such as methane. But it seems that the fall in human-induced methane emissions in the 1990s was only transitory, and atmospheric methane might rise again.
This paper presents a comprehensive set of experiments in which polaritons are excited in a semiconductor microcavity. Above a critical density of polaritons, massive occupation of the ground state at 19 K is observed and various pieces of experimental evidence point to a spontaneous onset of a macroscopic quantum phase.
A detailed molecular analysis of related yeast species shows that progressively opposed genetic logics can evolve while resulting in a conserved phenotypic output:mating-type determination. This is the first clear demonstration of the 'genetic drift' principle at a molecular level.
Three separate labs report that p16INK4a, a protein known to be expressed in an age-dependent manner regulates ageing specifically in stem cells. Studying its role in regeneration of three different tissues, the blood, pancreas, and brain, the three groups separately found that p16INK4a is not only a biomarker, but an effector of ageing.
Observations of an ammonia line towards a high-mass star forming region indicate that the gas is falling inwards towards a very young star of ∼20 times more massive than the Sun, in line with theoretical predictions of non-spherical accretion.
Bose–Einstein condensation, the formation of a collective quantum state of identical particles, called bosons, is observed at room temperature in a gas of magnons, which are a type of magnetic excitation.
This paper details that the incompressibility of fluids can be violated for even simple shear flows if the density dependence of the viscosity is taken into account. The results may shed light on various phenomena associated with the mechanical instabilities of liquids at low Reynolds number.
Inverse modelling is used to quantify variations in methane emissions from different sources from 1983–2004 reveals that a decrease in the growth rate of atmospheric methane during the 1990s was caused by a decrease in anthropogenic emissions, but that anthropogenic emissions have increased again since 1999.
Two dominant gradients in tree composition and function across the Amazon reflect patterns of soil fertility and differences in the length of the dry season length. The dominance of legumes in the Guiana shield may be due to high seed mass and low rates of disturbance, rather than root adaptations to poor soils.
Three separate labs report that p16INK4a, a protein known to be expressed in an age-dependent manner regulates ageing specifically in stem cells. Studying its role in regeneration of three different tissues, the blood, pancreas, and brain, the three groups separately found that p16INK4a is not only a biomarker, but an effector of ageing.
Three separate labs report that p16INK4a, a protein known to be expressed in an age-dependent manner regulates ageing specifically in stem cells. Studying its role in regeneration of three different tissues, the blood, pancreas, and brain, the three groups separately found that p16INK4a is not only a biomarker, but an effector of ageing.
New evidence suggests that as early as in embryogenic root growth, brassinosteriods and auxin communicate through a feedback loop that maintains brassinosteroid levels in an auxin-dependent manner. In turn, brassinosteroid levels are rate-limiting for auxin-induced transcriptional responses.
In cytotoxic T lymphocytes, polarized granule delivery occurs by a mechanism that does not require actin or plus-end microtubule motors, but only minus-end directed granule transport. It is also controlled by movement of the centrosome to contact the plasma membrane at the immunological synapse.
Polarized fluorescence microscopy of green fluorescent protein rigidly attached to septin was used to determine septin filament organization and dynamics. The filaments form ordered assemblies in living yeast and undergo a 90–degree rotation before the onset of cytokinesis. This suggests that septins play a mechanical role in cell division.
