This Week in Science

Methane's Path to Captivity

The mutual repulsion of oil and water is well known. It is thus somewhat baffling that in arctic regions and in marine sediments, enormous quantities of methane lie trapped under … [Read more]

Cosmic Acceleration

Cosmic rays are thought to be accelerated in the shock waves produced by supernova explosions and can generate gamma rays when they interact with interstellar particles and radiation. Starburst galaxies, … [Read more]

Acidic Ocean

One consequence of the historically unprecedented level of CO2 in the atmosphere that fossil fuel burning has caused, in addition to a warmer climate, is higher concentrations of dissolved CO2 … [Read more]

Light in the Slow Lane

The speed of light is constant, reduced by a fraction from its vacuum level as it propagates through a material with a refractive index. In most transparent materials, the refractive … [Read more]

Early Ore Formation

Ore deposits contain most of the world's metal resources, from commonly used metals such as iron, to precious and expensive metals such as platinum. Understanding how these ancient deposits form … [Read more]

Periplasmic Redox Regulation

The oxidation state of intracellular and extracellular proteins are carefully managed by cellular redox machineries. Depuydt et al. (p. 1109) discovered a reducing system that protects single cysteine residues from … [Read more]

Demise of the Megafauna

Approximately 10,000 years ago, the Pleistocene-Holocene deglaciation in North America produced widespread biotic and environmental change, including extinctions of megafauna, reorganization of plant communities, and increased wildfire. The causal links … [Read more]

Anti-HIV Antibody Constraints

Despite significant efforts, an effective vaccine against the HIV-1 virus remains elusive. A site on the HIV-1 gp120 envelope glycoprotein that binds to the CD4 receptor on host cells is … [Read more]

A-Maize-ing

Maize is one of our oldest and most important crops, having been domesticated approximately 9000 years ago in central Mexico. Schnable et al. (p. 1112; see the cover) present the … [Read more]

Gardening for Ants and Termites

Among the social insects, ants and termites are the most diverse and ecologically dominant. Termites are known to engage in a mutualism with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and Pinto-Tomás et al. (p. … [Read more]

Dysbindin Function in Synaptic Homeostasis

Homeostatic signaling systems are widely believed to stabilize neural function over prolonged periods of time. However, the molecular mechanisms of homeostatic signaling in the nervous system are largely unknown, and … [Read more]

Hairy Polygon Solution

The packing of rods on the surface of a sphere leads to packing defects at the opposite poles. It is, however, possible to flat-pack rods onto a torus. This topological … [Read more]

Building Early Continents

Cratons, the roots of Earth's continents, have survived billions of years of accretion, volcanism, and plate motion. Due to this tumultuous history, existing evidence for how and when they formed … [Read more]

Plasmonic Probing of Catalysis

An understanding of catalytic reactions on surfaces, such as those used in industrial processes, often requires some measure of reactant concentration on the surface. Often this is expressed as the … [Read more]

Extinction Distinctions

The distribution of affected organisms can help reveal the mechanisms of mass or background extinctions. This has often been studied by comparing effects on land versus in the ocean, or … [Read more]