Tiny droplets make a big splash

Zebrafish Make a Big Splash

Thus, the most efficient way to find genes that have key regulatory functions in vertebrate development is Institute of Neuroscience 1254 University of Oregon to screen for them directly by looking for their mutant phenotypes during embryogenesis. Eugene, Oregon 97403–1254 Two groups have now completed the most extensive genetic screens ever carried out in a vertebrate to isolate mutations in g...

MicroRNAs make big splash in apoptosis

undreds of microRNAs are encoded in animal genomes, yet the function of only two were known until recently. That number has now doubled with the identification of two miRNAs, mir14 and bantam , both of which appear to regulate cell death in Drosophila , according to reports from Peizhang Xu, Bruce Hay (California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA), and colleagues and from Julius Brennecke, ...

Plant Phase Transitions Make a SPLash

During post-embryonic development, plants undergo a series of phase transitions, from juvenile to adult and from the vegetative to the reproductive phase. Recent findings reported in Cell (Wang et al., 2009; Wu et al., 2009) and Developmental Cell (Yamaguchi et al., 2009) reveal how microRNAs and their transcription factor targets coordinate these phase transitions.

Sun's Big Splash - Spectrum, IEEE

T he Sunnyvale, Calif., campus of Sun Microsystems Inc. is a quiet and peaceful place with six low-rise buildings connected by tree-lined walkways. But the tranquility masks a frightening real-ity—Sun is in serious economic trouble. The company was badly splattered by the burst of the dot-com bubble of 2000. Revenues for this once towering colossus of the server industry went south, and its sto...

Tiny Medicine, Big World