In this issue of Cell, Rajasethupathy et al. report a surprising role for piRNAs, previously thought to act mainly in the animal germline to silence transposons, in transcriptional regulation of plasticity-related genes in the central nervous system of the sea slug Aplysia californica. The findings expand the functions of small RNAs and have important implications for our understanding of how t...

A handicapped child is a handicapped family. I don't know who said it, but it is very, very true. I was eight years old when my sister, three years my senior, fell ill with osteomyelitis. It turned out to be an extremely long and very serious disease. She finally recovered but was unable to cope with the legacy of her illness, a physical handicap. Not all that catastrophic, had her previous per...

Some of the signaling molecules required for formation of long-term memories are involved primarily in adult brain function, but others participate in a variety of other biological processes. The Notch signaling pathway, which is important for cell fate specification and differentiation in various systems, is also active in the mature brain. Here, we review evidence from recent studies indicati...

74 CASE REPORT 1 T his 63 year old Caucasian man with past medical history significant for hypertension, arthritis, prostate cancer status post radiation therapy, and a family history of colon and pancreatic cancer presented to the emergency department with right lower quadrant pain. The WBC count was 10.1, Hct 41, Plt 213, Amylase 34 and Lipase 83. CT scan of the abdomen revealed a dilated app...