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Congress requires the Environmental Protection Agency to look after the environment; the Bush administration wants it to be pro-business. Emma Marris steps through the looking glass to profile the result.
Can motor racing go green? Andreas Trabesinger asked Max Mosley, head of Formula 1, how he wants the sport to develop energy-efficient technology that will also work in road cars.
Traditional methods for making fuels from biomass come in two forms — biological or chemical. The latest approach combines the best of both worlds, and heralds the advent of a second generation of biofuels.
Chemical modification of histone proteins can affect the expression of their associated genes. Some immune cells seem to exploit this process to avoid excessive inflammation while fighting invading pathogens.
Ionic liquids are generally regarded as solvents, but these modular, tunable compounds have far greater technological potential. With a coat of silver, they become ideal materials for the liquid mirror of a space telescope.
The evolutionary history of mammals is being tackled both through molecular analyses and through morphological studies of fossils. The 'molecules versus morphology' debate remains both vexing and vibrant.
Some proteins do not fold fully until they meet their functional partners. Folding in concert with binding allows an efficient stepwise search for the proper structure within the final complex.
The sorting and degradation of cell-surface proteins are essential for cellular homeostasis. The ESCRT-I complex is known to be involved in these events, and new structural findings elucidate its core architecture.
It is shown that a small molecule inhibitor can successfully target the adipocyte/macrophage fatty acid-binding protein aP2, and that oral administration of the inhibitor can result in metabolic improvement and decreased atherosclerosis and insulin resistance in mice.
A mouse lymphoma model that shows a similar level of genomic instability generally seen in human cancer has been created. In a comparative genomics approach, recurrent genetic alterations found in this model are used as a filter to identify overlapping alterations in human T-cell acute lymphoblastic lymphomas, including in the FBXW7 and NOTCH genes.
An in vitro system of lipopolysaccharide tolerance in murine macrophages is used to show that TLR-induced genes fall into two categories on the basis of their functions and regulatory requirements.
The successful coating of an ionic liquid with silver, where the surface is smooth and the silver coating is stable on a timescale of months, is reported. The ionic liquid does not evaporate in a vacuum and remains liquid down to a temperature of 175 K. The synthesis of liquids with melting points <130 K should be possible.
Cores taken from the central Arctic Ocean in the 2004 ACEX experiment show that the Arctic Ocean went from an oxygen-poor 'lake stage', to a transitional 'estuarine sea' phase with variable ventilation, and finally to the fully ventilated 'ocean' phase, some 17.5 Myr ago.
Regional magnetotelluric and geomagnetic depth sounding data is combined with estimates of the electrical conductivity of minerals at upper-mantle and transition-zone conditions to determine that a 5–30 km thick melt layer at 410-km depth is consistent with data from the southwestern United States, but not other regional data sets. This infers that the hypothesized transition-zone water filter may occur regionally, but not as a global feature.
The patterns of nutrient cycling during forest recovery after agricultural abandonment in the Amazon Basin are described, and find conservative nitrogen cycling processes in young Amazonian forests that are consistent with large losses of nitrogen during land use change.
A new genus of Cretaceous mammal is described in the context of a comprehensive analysis of the morphology of Cretaceous mammals, and concludes that placental mammals had an 'explosive' evolutionary origin around the time of the dinosaurs' demise.
This study identifies Prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) as an important modulator of vertebrate haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) number. Chemicals that enhance PGE2 synthesis increase the number of HSCs whereas the opposite effect is achieved by blocking PGE2 synthesis.
AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is important for mitosis and epithelial cell polarity and these effects are a result of direct phosphorylation of non-muscle myosin regulatory light chain by AMPK. This is the first study reporting AMPK deletion in an entire organism and highlights the physiological function of this kinase.
Many proteins that are important to cellular signalling are intrinsically disordered, as they only fold after binding with signalling partners. In this paper the molecular interactions governing such proteins' coupled folding and binding process, and how they differ radically from interactions between pre-folded proteins are described.
Organisms need to preserve genetic information to prevent the detrimental effects of ageing and disease. This is achieved by accurate replication of DNA and by repair of any damage incurred as a consequence of endogenous or exogenous factors. Researchers are now uncovering exciting details about DNA replication and repair. These processes are proving to be highly interconnected, and new Insights could lead to treatments for various diseases and age—related disorders.
