By Richard P. Grant Eau de Choice HIDDEN JEWEL In the wild, male animals typically compete with each other for the attention of the opposite sex. When the female of a species—mouse, rat, cat, dog, or human—puts the lion’s (or rather, lioness’s) share of effort into raising offspring, she becomes a shrewd investor who must be choosy about her mate. Evolutionary biologist Jane Hurst at the University of Liverpool has found that male mice

By Richard P. Grant Basophil Roles Dr. David Phillips/Visuals Unlimited, Inc. The paper C. Ohnmacht et al., “Basophils orchestrate chronic allergic dermatitis and protective immunity against helminths,” Immunity, 33:364-74, 2010. Free F1000 Evaluation The finding Basophils were deemed critical in allergic response and parasite removal, but their precise role has been controversial. David Vöhringer, now at Universitätsklinikum Erlan

By Richard P. Grant Human Effects Erle Ellis, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Stefan Siebert, Deborah Lightman, and Navin Ramankutty. 2010. The paper E.C. Ellis et al., “Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000,” Glob Ecol Biogeogr, 19:589-606, 2010. Free F1000 Evaluation The finding To accurately measure the changes to the terrestrial biosphere on a global scale, Erle Ellis at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and coworker

By Richard P. Grant Myc, Nicked Wikipedia (Crystal structure of Myc and Max in complex with DNA.) The paper M. Conacci-Sorrell et al., “Myc-nick: a cytoplasmic cleavage product of Myc that promotes α-tubulin acetylation and cell differentiation,” Cell, 142:480-93, 2010. Free F1000 Evaluation The finding When Maralice Conacci-Sorrell joined Bob Eisenman’s lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, she

By Richard P. Grant Capsule Reviews How to Catch a Robot Rat: When Biology Inspires Innovation By Agnès Guillot & Jean-Arcady Meyer; translated by Susan Emanuel The MIT Press 232 pp. $29.95 Where do physicists turn for inspiration? To biology, naturally. Back in the day, we used to dream of being like the Six Million Dollar Man, Steve Austin, our bodies made of space-age metal and plastic, squishy biology replaced by new technology. But the oppos

How to Catch a Robot Rat, On Fact and Fraud, Not a Chimp, Here Is a Human Being

By Richard P. Grant Feeling Sleepy? “I just couldn't wake up.” It sounds like the classic excuse for arriving late to work. But anesthesiologist Max Kelz and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania have found evidence that our brains contain a stark barrier to changes in arousal states—from wakefulness to unconsciousness or back the other way. They dubbed this phenomenon “neural inertia.” Understanding this property of the br

By Richard P. Grant Spongy Genome Sally Leys The paper M. Srivastava et al., "The Amphimedon queenslandica genome and the evolution of animal complexity," Nature, 466:720-26, 2010. Free F1000 Evaluation The finding The marine sponge Amphimedon queenslandica evolved from single-celled ancestors before the Cambrian explosion, making it one of the earliest multicellular organisms. However, when Bernard Degnan of The University of Queensland and c

By Richard P. Grant Chloroplast Pinch Kristian Peters — Fabelfroh (Chloroplast) The paper Y. Yoshida et al., "Chloroplasts divide by contraction of a bundle of nanofilaments consisting of polyglucan," Science, 329:949-53, 2010. Free F1000 EvaluationThe finding When a cell divides, it splits its organelles so that each daughter has the right starting material. But rather than using a band of proteins, Tsuneyoshi Kuroiwa at Rikkyo Univers

By Richard P. Grant Counting the Core Henrik Jonsson / Istockphoto (Mitosis) The paper S. Ohta et al., "The protein composition of mitotic chromosomes determined using multiclassifier combinatorial proteomics," Cell, 142:810-21, 2010. Free F1000 Evaluation The finding Despite the central importance of chromosomes, very little is understood about the more than 120 proteins present at the kinetochore, the complex of proteins involved in connectin

By Richard P. Grant Gateway to the cilium Courtesy of John Dishinger The paper J.F. Dishinger et al., “Ciliary entry of the kinesin-2 motor KIF17 is regulated by importin-b2 and RanGTP," Nat Cell Biol, 12:703-10, 2010. Free F1000 EvaluationThe finding Primary cilia are tiny, hair-like organelles on the surface of cells, and are important in functions such as vision and smell. The composition of cilia membranes is different from the rest

By Richard P. Grant Infection plagues IQ? As a nation’s economy develops and its standard of living rises, the average intelligence of its inhabitants also increases. But why? In what Faculty of 1000 Member and University of Münster evolutionary biologist Joachim Kurtz calls a “thought-provoking” study, Christopher Eppig suggests that healthier inhabitants could be the answer: Infectious diseases are rarer in developed nations than they ar