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Reconstruction of the amount of oxygen in the ocean during the Ediacaran period using carbon- and sulphur-isotope records identifies three distinct stages of oxidation over this interval. Complex animals may have evolved during the second stage, indicating that this event may have played a key role in the evolution of eukaryotic organisms.
The structure of the influenza virus A nucleoprotein is visualized, revealing connected head and body regions with a groove in between for the viral RNA to sit.
The expression of each of the roughly 22,000 genes of the mouse genome has been mapped, at cellular resolution, across all major structures of the mouse brain, revealing that 80% of all genes appear to be expressed in the brain.
Study of nerve cells in a bird's auditory system shows that those where spikes initiate closer to the cell body (or soma) are tuned to sounds with lower frequencies. Computer modelling suggests that spike initiation sites may also be key to coincidence detection by other neurons.
The crystal structure of CPSF-73, part of a complex involved in mRNA cleavage and polyadenylation is solved. CPSF-73 was purified and shown to endonucleolytically cleave mRNA, in a reaction mediated by two zinc ligands.