Inhibition Gets a New KAR Smell

Prevalence of yaws on Kar Kar Island, New Guinea.

The International Biological Programme has as one of its objectives the study of man's adaptation to his environment. With this in view the Australian Government, the Australian Academy of Science, and the Royal Society of England combined in a multi-disciplinary study of the population of Kar Kar Island, New Guinea. The organization of the projects studied and the field work were under the dir...

FoxP3 gets a new gig

On page 1141, the one-trick transcription factor FoxP3 reveals a new function. According to Chang and colleagues, FoxP3 does more than just drive regulatory T (T reg) cell development; it also promotes the proliferation of developing thymocytes. FoxP3 is required for the development of CD4 CD25 T reg cells, which subdue the activation of conventional T cells and thus protect against chronic inf...

Utrophin gets a new look

In This Issue In This Issue trophin, a member of the spectrin superfamily of actin-binding proteins ubiquitously expressed in human cells, helps link the actin cytoskeleton to the extracellular matrix. Galkin et al. report on page 231 that a newly developed image analysis method identifies two different modes of utrophin binding to F-actin. The findings contradict earlier studies on utrophin–ac...

New Faculty Orientation Gets a Facelift

From a New Smell to a New Flavour

Using the preliminary data on Bd-Bd mixing from ARGUS, and the standard model with three families, we infer a lower bound on the top quark mass of 50-70 GeV; also, Bs-B~ mixing has to be close to maximal. We discuss how the prospects for observing CP violation in B ° decays are enhanced and sketch alternative scenarios for new physics. 1. Introduction Almost from the inception orB physics it wa...