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Probing the interiors of the Sun and other stars might sound tricky, but a technique similar to seismology provides a way. Just as seismic waves on Earth reveal information about [...]

Why did you make a film about origami? I was working on Wall Street in New York, earning a living with the mathematics side of my head, but not happily. [...]

Changes in ecological settings are thought to drive the evolution of one species into many--a process called adaptive radiation. Darwin's finches are a classic example, evolving into species with different [...]

Chemical catalysts that mop up toxic pollutants created by vehicle use and other human activities have made a difference to the environment, but there is still ample room for improvement. [...]

An experiment to detect high-energy positrons pays off. Seventy years ago, scientists first calculated that galaxies must contain additional, undetectable sources of mass--up to five times the mass of the [...]

One of the greatest fears about climate change is that the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets could melt, bringing with them a devastating rise in sea levels. But because of [...]

Much of the brain remains only loosely charted terrain, and one idea for unravelling some of its many mysteries is to map each and every neuron. One region that has [...]

Palaeontologists have long been searching for additional clues to the evolution of tropical vertebrates in the wake of the dinosaurs' demise roughly 65 million years ago. Sixty-million-year-old rock in the [...]

In recent decades, rapid warming of the western edge of the Antarctic Peninsula has seen plants moving in to colonize the area and Adelie penguins moving out. Although alarming, scientists [...]

Adorned with spiny fins and diamond-shaped scales, the fossilized 'acanthodian' fishes resemble two of today's fish groups: bony fishes, which include eels and salmon, and cartilaginous fishes such as sharks. [...]

Our robust immune systems are equipped to conquer a host of infections, but sometimes the very cells sent to help cause catastrophic injury. This is a risk in viral meningitis, [...]

In research, there is always the risk that someone else will beat you to the finishing line. On top of that, there is the chance that another's findings might undermine [...]

The cancer-stem-cell theory holds that tumours are formed by a very small population of self-renewing cells. The idea is controversial, but developmental biologist Wei-Qiang Gao hasn't allowed that to hamper [...]

A major scientific programme focusing on the world's polar regions helped to advance one group's studies simply by extending the season of a remote research post. The Zackenberg Research Station [...]

Humans have looked to the natural world for medical provisions for millennia. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks knew of the painkilling properties of the opium poppy, and for centuries inflammation, [...]

Charles Darwin spent a great deal of time puzzling over how the complex machinery of the eye arose. In 1859, he proposed the theory of 'proto-eyes', or very simple light-sensing [...]

One way to better understand how brain circuits control behaviour is to take recordings from as many individual brain cells as possible. Making single-neuron recordings in an awake animal as [...]

Gerard Evan knows all about the cancer-promoting properties of the protein Myc. But he couldn't have predicted the result of blocking Myc activity in a living organism. Then a postdoctoral [...]

The hair cells of the inner ear translate sounds into nerve signals. They are a key part of the apparatus that converts thuds, hums, swishes and voices into data that [...]

Most days, Charles Cobbs is a neurosurgeon at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. But once a week, he is a virus hunter. For the past ten years, [...]

The towering coastal redwoods of northern California have long inspired awe in scientists and laymen alike. Sequoia sempervirens can grow to a height of more than 100 metres, ranking as [...]

When David Bartel and Nikolaus Rajewsky presented their work at a molecular biology symposium in Miami in February, the two scientists discovered that they were tackling the same issue. Each [...]

Several years ago, Ernst Fehr returned from a trip with gifts for his four-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter. Fehr, an economist at the University of Zurich who studies the evolution [...]

Bright streams of gas fan out from NGC 1275--the giant elliptical galaxy at the centre of the Perseus constellation--making it look a bit like a supersized space jellyfish. These filaments [...]

The movements of flies buzzing around a picnic table may seem random, but in fact flies exhibit decision-making processes when choosing whether to circle overhead or land on the potato [...]

'Identical twin' stars are about as rare as their human counterparts. As the name suggests, these stars are thought to have been born at the same time and been made [...]

What determines a cell's shape might not seem a particularly pressing question. But biochemist Julie Theriot explains that, for those eukaryotic cells that don't have a cell wall, shape is [...]

Naturally occurring enzymes are fantastic catalysts, but they are limited to reactions important in living systems. As a result, researchers have been trying for years to create 'designer' enzymes to [...]

[illus. 1] Retroviruses pose a major threat to the fitness and survival of many animals, including humans. Researchers have now identified a factor that keeps one type of the most [...]

[illus. 1] Scientists have struggled for more than 50 years to resolve the controversial claim that individuals with Down's syndrome are less likely to develop solid tumours. Although the idea [...]

After more than 30 years studying embryo development, Claudio Stern has finally realized his dream: to see exactly how cells behave during one of the earliest periods of embryo formation. [...]

When talking about the metastasis of cancer cells to colonize a secondary area, Antoine Karnoub likens them to gamblers. If a gambler takes $1,000 to Las Vegas, Karnoub proposes, he [...]

[illus. 1] The idea that biodiversity is linked to how well ecosystems function can be traced back to Charles Darwin. However, serious experimental testing of this concept didn't begin until [...]

[illus. 1] As recently as 40 years ago, scientists thought that little more than atoms occupied the spaces between the stars. Studying the radio waves emitted by celestial objects changed [...]

Few doubt the benefits of a good night's sleep -- and research has long suggested that it helps our memories to consolidate recently learned facts. On page 610, Jan Born [...]

A hundred buckets and some lengths of plastic tubing may not sound like the most high-tech array of equipment, but it's pretty much all Kristin France needs to build ecosystems. [...]

The author presents several solutions to the problem regarding the replication of published scientific studies. One obvious solution is for journals to publish more papers that describe failures to replicate results. Scientific publishing's move online may be a big help, opening up new possibilities for sharing and commenting on papers and methods. Another possibility is to link to conversation happening elsewhere on the Web.

The article announces the standards for all research papers on cloning by "Nature." The periodical is asking the authors to provide nuclear and mitochondrial DNA fingerprints for all cloning papers submitted for publication. Nuclear DNA fingerprints of the lines should be presented for comparison with existing lines, in the case of papers disclosing new embryonic stem cell lines.

The article reports on the two papers which were linked to an extortion attempt and originated from the laboratory of Peter Schultz, a prominent chemist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, San Diego, California. The papers claimed to describe the successful incorporation of amino acids linked to sugars at specific positions in proteins made by the bacterium Escherichia coli. Related issues are further discussed.

The article reports on a study suggesting that older scientists had published more research papers than their younger counterparts. It was found that those in their 50s and 60s had published twice as many papers per year as compared to those who are in their early 30s. Yves Gingras, a historian of science, became interested in the topic when he read that the average age for first grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health in Maryland had increased from 34 in 1970 to almost 42 in 2004.

The article reports on the retraction of a "Nature" research paper which was co-written by Nobel prizewinner and scientist Linda Buck. It claims that "Nature" editors have found some inconsistencies between its researchers' original data and their publication in 2001. Olfactory-neuron researcher Hitoshi Sakano, however, notes that the retraction would not affect much their field of interest because other researchers have affirmed the paper's results using other techniques. The retracted paper describes the tracing in neural pathways from scent receptors in the nose towards the olfactory cortex of the brain.

Reports on the publication of a research paper that argues in favor of intelligent design in the "Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington" in the U.S. Impact of the publication of the paper on the advocacy of getting intelligent design into the curriculum; Use of information theory and other techniques to argue that the complexity of living organisms cannot be explained by Darwinian evolution; Overview of the arguments of Stephen Meyer, the author of the paper.

The article features about the governments, that are giving financial rewards to scientists for publishing high-profile papers. In South Korea researchers get US$3,000 and in China the amount is ten times more, and in Pakistan it is in the form of research grant. But some critics fear this trend is dangerous, and ethics are compromised, by equating excellence with money. Some, view that the reward systems has some merit, partly because in involves anonymous peer reviewers.

Reports on the controversy created by a stem cell paper by a team of German biologists published in the 2004 issue of "Applied Physics". Public announcement of the research as a breakthrough in adult stem-cell technology; Protests against research using embryonic lines; Criticisms of the research.

Reports on the decline of international collaboration on scientific research papers according to the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). Measurement of the percentage of papers published in all scientific journals; Percentage decline of the world average of international papers published.

Reports on Great Britain's 1993 white paper `Realizing Our Potential.' Research reforms proposed in the white paper; Threat on the medical Research Council's institutes; Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council's funding of basic research; Privatization of public research laboratories.

Focuses on a retraction published in the May 29, 1992 issue of `Cell' which stated that data supporting a 1991 paper on mouse embryo development, written by four researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had been fabricated. Fabrication allegedly was the work of one author without the knowledge of the others; `Oct-3 is a maternal factor required for the first mouse embryonic division'; Problems of replicating the paper's results; Mitchell Rosner; More.

Reports that for the second half of 1989, Japanese research groups take two out of the top three positions in the lists of the most cited papers in biology and physics. Brief list of noted papers.

The article discusses the failure of U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund the most impactful researchers in favor of more conformists scientists with interests similar to those of the grant reviewers.

Reports on European Union research commissioner Philippe Busquin's plan to publish a white paper early 2000 outlining his plans for the creation of a European Research Area.