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A snapshot of the most highly ranked articles in biochemistry, from Faculty of 1000

Evolutionary biologist Jane Hurst at the University of Liverpool has found that male mice have evolved a cunning trick to distinguish themselves within the dating pool: they produce a specific protein that drives female attraction to male scent, and this molecule, called darcin, helps females remember a specific male's odor.

The potential costs of regulating synthetic biology must be counted against putative benefits.

A selection of comments from our readers

Her doctoral advisor told her to amuse herself, and Fiona Watt has done just that—probing individual stem cells and determining the genes and molecules that direct them to differentiate or cause them to contribute to cancer.

As much as rainforests or deep-sea vents, the human gut holds rich stores of microbial chemicals that should be mined for their pharmacological potential.

Editor's Choice in Ecology

MicroRNAs may drive the development of leukemia.

Editor's choice in Immunology

The switch from single-celled organisms to ones made up of many cells has evolved independently more than two dozen times. What can this transition teach us about the origin of complex organisms such as animals and plants?