Reviving the Exosome

Reviving the Exosome

In the nucleus of eukaryotic cells, RNA decay in the 3'-5' direction is carried out by a complex of exonucleases called the exosome. Surprisingly, the purified exosome shows only weak activity in vitro. Two papers in this issue of Cell, by LaCava et al. (2005) and Wyers et al. (2005), and a third report by Vanacova et al. (2005) help to solve this riddle by characterizing a new RNA decay-activa...

Reviving the superorganism.

Individuals become functionally organized to survive and reproduce in their environments by the process of natural selection. The question of whether larger units such as groups and communities can possess similar properties of functional organization, and therefore be regarded as "superorganisms", has a long history in biological thought. Modern evolutionary biology has rejected the concept of...

Reviving hemp.

A method is described enabling the direct measurement of vincristine resistance in intact tissues in vivo by morphological study. Using the metaphase arresting properties of the drug, counts were made of escaping anaphase and telophase mitotic figures at a range of doses. The proportion of post-metaphase mitotic figures is called the post-metaphase index (PMI). In 95 primary intestinal tumours ...

Reviving the Philosophy of Geometry

Reviving the labial thermistor clip.

The labial thermistor clip was first introduced as a physiological measure of female sexual arousal almost 30 years ago (Henson, Rubin, Henson, & Williams, 1977); however, only a few studies have subsequently reported on its use. The development of the clip was based on the idea that surface temperature reflects changes in blood volume such as what causes genital tumescence during physiological...