Issue | May 2017 | Rapid Evolution | The Scientist Magazine®

Cover Story

Evolution’s Quick Pace Affects Ecosystem Dynamics

Jef Akst | May 1, 2017 | 10+ min read

From fish harvests to cottonwood forests, organisms display evidence that species change can occur on timescales that can influence ecological processes.

Features

The Proteasome: A Powerful Target for Manipulating Protein Levels

John Hines and Craig M. Crews | May 1, 2017 | 10+ min read

The proteasome’s ability to target and degrade specific proteins is proving useful to researchers studying protein function or developing treatments for diseases.

Understanding Body Ownership and Agency

Roman Liepelt and Jack Brooks | May 1, 2017 | 10+ min read

Understanding how people recognize and control their own bodies could help researchers develop therapies for those who’ve lost their sense of self.

Contributors

Meet some of the people featured in the May 2017 issue of The Scientist.

Editorial

Learning Your Stripes

Science’s lowest common denominator has always been patterns.

Speaking of Science

Notable Science Quotes

Climate change, research funding, race, and much more

Notebook

Will Komodo Dragons Yield the Next Blockbuster Antibiotic?

The giant lizards have numerous microbicidal compounds in their blood.

Computers That Can Smell

Teams of modelers compete to develop algorithms for estimating how people will perceive a particular odor from its molecular characteristics.

Uncovering the Secrets of a Successful Pest

The green peach aphid can colonize new host plants with ease through rapid changes in gene expression.

Future Homes May Have Bioreactive Walls

Researchers are redesigning the humble brick to produce electricity, to clean water and air, and to harvest valuable compounds.

Critic at Large

Opinion: Birds of a Feather?

Taking into account the interaction of nuclear and mitochondrial genes in birds holds the promise of more objectively defining what constitutes a species.

Modus Operandi

Phosphorylation at the Flick of a Switch

Incorporating light-controlled dimerization domains into kinases provides tight regulation of these enzymes.

The Literature

Macrophages Physically Relay Signals Between Cell Types

Time-lapse imaging shows the immune cells transferring chemical signals during pigment pattern formation in developing zebrafish.

Noncoding RNA Helps Cells Recover from DNA Damage

Scientists discover transcripts from the same gene that can express both proteins and noncoding RNA.

Rare T Cells Fight Cancer

A new approach to immunotherapy finds that the immune-cell clonotypes that come to the rescue start out at very low frequencies.

Profiles

Glia Guru

Ben Barres recast glial cells from supporting actors to star performers, crucial for synaptic plasticity in the brain and for preventing neurodegenerative disorders.