Friedman's Guarding Life’s Dark Secrets

DARK apoptosome secrets come to light.

In this issue of Structure, Yuan et al. (2011) utilize biochemical approaches to reconstitute an active Drosophila apoptosome, as well as cryo-electron microscopy to generate an improved model for this conserved caspase-activating complex.

Dark secrets of tobacco company exposed.

Still Guarding Secrets after Years of Attacks, RSA Earns Accolades for its Founders

In the fall of 1976, three friends, all young faculty members at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, began working on a new type of cryptographic scheme. The group soon established a dynamic—Ron and Adi would come up with ideas, and Len would try to shoot them down. Len was consistently successful; late one night, though, Ron came up with an algorithm that Len couldn’t crack. That algori...

Deep, Dark Secrets of Melatonin in Animal Evolution

Tosches et al. show that melatonin signaling regulates circadian swimming in annelid worms by rhythmically activating cholinergic neurons. This suggests an evolutionary connection between melatonin signaling in invertebrates and sleep regulation in vertebrates.

Lifes preservative against self-killing

in the "index of botanical names", where the medieval Latin designations take you to the main dictionary, for example to the items satirion and testiculus leporis, under which the Middle English names are listed, in the case of satirion indiscriminately with other possible identifications, such as Arum and Endymion. Admittedly, the difficulties of identification are considerable-one reason bein...