By Richard Grant Spite’s roots Steinernema carpocapsae Courtesy of Allen Szalanski Spite seems to be a uniquely human phenomenon, but examining interactions among organisms you’d never peg as vengeful is giving scientists some insight into how the rather nasty behavior arose. It’s difficult to see how spite could evolve: what benefit is there in punishing another party at the cost of harming one’s own reproductive fitness? “Six years

By Richard GrantCodon clusters © Alfred Pasieka / Photo Researchers, Inc.The paper G. Cannarozzi et al., “A role for codon order in translation dynamics,” Cell, 141:355-67, 2010.http://bit.ly/codonorder The finding For more than 8 years, Yves Barral’s group at the ETH in Zürich has puzzled over this question: When the same amino acid is repeated several times in a protein, why is it often specified by the same codon? His group used a

By Richard GrantNetworked genes From M. Costanzo et al., “The genetic landscape of a cell,” Science, 327:425–31, 2010. reprinted with permission from aaas.The paper M. Costanzo et al., “The genetic landscape of a cell,” Science, 327:425–31, 2010.http://bit.ly/genlandscape The finding Knocking out a single gene in yeast often has little effect; yeast can survive with only about 20% of their 6,000 genes intact and researcher

By Richard GrantInflammation amplification Steven Moskowitz / Advanced Medical GraphicsThe paper E. Boilard et al., “Platelets amplify inflammation in arthritis via collagen-dependent microparticle production,” Science, 327:580–83, 2010. http://bit.ly/plateletRA The finding An international team led by David Lee at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital was surprised to find cell-surface markers from platelets in the fluid of inflamed join

By Richard P. Grant Alphabet soup Why are we here? It’s a question that’s puzzled philosophers and scientists for centuries. “Every human society has its story of how everything began,” says William Martin, who studies evolution at the University of Düsseldorf. “Scientists do, too. It’s a fundamental human need. We want to know where we belong in the bigger picture.” One of the biggest unknowns is how th

By Richard Grant ATP: power and torque Courtesy of Daniela Stock The paper A.K. Lee et al., “The structure of the peripheral stalk of Thermus thermophilus H+-ATPase/synthase,” Nat Struct Mol Biol, 17:373–78, 2010. The finding Just like the turbines in a hydroelectric power plant, the revolving ‘turbine’ of the energy-generating ATPase requires a stationary component to counteract the rotation of proteins in the core. Daniela St

By Richard Grant Skin of heart Dr Boris Strilic / Lammert laboratory The paperB. Strilic et al., “The molecular basis of vascular lumen formation in the developing mouse aorta,” Dev Cell, 17:505–15, 2009. The findingEcki Lammert and colleagues at the University of Düsseldorf were looking to settle a debate: Do endothelial cells create blood vessels from expanding vacuoles, or do they flatten out and wrap into a hollow cylind

Richard Grant Power of one © Sara Winter The paper J. S. Clark, “Individuals and the variation needed for high species diversity in forest trees,” Science, 327:1129–32, 2010. The finding For 50 years, ecological scientists have puzzled over why forests, which compete for the same few resources (sun, water, soil) are so diverse, when modeling predicts that such niches should yield low diversity. Now, Jim Clark of Duke Universit

By Richard Grant Make mine a double After their first snifter, they get a little hyperactive. A little bit more, and they start to stagger. Eventually, given enough to drink, they fall over and can’t get back up. Sound familiar? It does to Anita Devineni at the University of California, San Francisco, who has been looking at alcohol preferences—not in humans, but in Drosophila. In the process, she has developed a method that may help

By Richard Grant Splicing markup Julie Blencowe The paper: R.F. Luco et al., “Regulation of alternative splicing by histone modifications,” Science, 327:996–1000, 2010. (ID: 2000983) The finding: Alternative splicing, or the shuffling of exons that ultimately become an mRNA message, is one of the “last of the fundamental gene expression mechanisms we don’t understand,” said Tom Misteli from t

By Richard Grant Budget genome Courtesy of Jay Shendure The paper S.B. Ng et al., “Exome sequencing identifies the cause of a Mendelian disorder,” Nat Genet, 42:30–35, 2009. (ID: 1600956) The finding: Tracking down the genetic cause of inherited diseases is time consuming and expensive. But Jay Shendure of the University of Washington’s Department of Genome Sciences found a way to make it a whole lot easier. Instead of

By Richard Grant RNA in disguise Courtesy of Tomoshige Kino The paper: H. Kino et al., “Noncoding RNA gas5 is a growth arrest- and starvation-associated repressor of the glucocorticoid receptor,” Sci Signal, 3:ra8, 2010. The finding: Tomoshige Kino from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and colleagues were looking for regulators of the human glucocorticoid receptor (GR). The GR binds gluc