News & Views in 2009

Coordination between subunits is crucial for the proper functioning of multi-component molecular machines. A single-molecule study now allows glimpses into the mechanism used by subunits of one such machine.

How monomers of the cytoskeletal protein actin join to form the stable polymers crucial to muscle contraction and cellular motility has been a long-standing question. A state-of-the-art approach provides an answer.

The most outlandish and peripatetic of microbe hunters.

Turbulent convection in a rotating body is a common but poorly understood phenomenon in astrophysical and geophysical settings. Consideration of boundary effects offers a fresh angle on this thorny problem.

Oscillations in gene expression regulate various cellular processes and so must be robust and tunable. Interactions between both negative and positive feedback loops seem to ensure these features.

How can we investigate a disease affecting neurons, which cannot be isolated from patients for analysis? As the study of one neurological disorder shows, a first step might be to make patient-specific neurons.

Observations of superfluid behaviour — flow without friction — of unusual character in a condensed-matter system pave the way to investigations of superfluidity in systems that are out of thermal equilibrium.

Multi-talented astrophysicist and public servant.

During protein synthesis, mistakes in adding amino acids to the growing polypeptide chain are usually prevented. If they are not, a quality-control mechanism ensures premature termination of erroneous sequences.

How low-mass stars produce their ubiquitous magnetic fields has long puzzled astronomers. Models of how Earth accomplishes this task could hold the key to understanding the phenomenon on such stars.

Not only is the aromatase enzyme implicated in a common form of breast cancer, but it also catalyses an unusual biochemical reaction. Its crystal structure therefore offers both practical and fundamental insights.

Many organic syntheses are target-oriented — each multi-step route is designed to make just one compound. But now a diversity-oriented synthesis can make 80 different molecular skeletons in just a few steps.

Epilepsy is characterized by repetitive seizures due to abnormal electrical activity in the brain. Immune cells promote development of this disorder by mediating the breakdown of the blood–brain barrier.

The experimental verification that a bizarre quantum effect — the Casimir force — can manifest itself in its repulsive form is pivotal not only for fundamental physics but also for nanotechnology.