How the mighty have fallen

Why have child pedestrian death rates fallen?

Pedestrian injuries are a leading cause of childhood mortality and disability. Over the past two decades in Britain child pedestrian death rates have fallen despite large increases in traffic volume. In this paper Roberts examines the likely reasons for this decline. He argues that neither prevention programmes nor improvements in medical care are a plausible explanation and that the decline is...

Fallen arches, or how the vertebrate got its head.

Calcaneal bone mineral density in older patients who have fallen.

BACKGROUND Annually, 35-40% of those aged >65 years fall; up to 5% of such falls result in fracture. Fracture is determined both by propensity to fall and by bone fragility. AIM To determine osteoporosis prevalence and predictors in patients who have fallen. DESIGN Observational cross-sectional study. METHODS We measured calcaneal BMD in 408 consecutive patients aged >50 years attending a...

Fallen Immortals

The memory of somatic cell gene expression is reset in the germline in a process that is accompanied by dramatic changes in chromatin modifications. In this issue, Katz et al. (2009) show that the histone demethylase Lsd1/Spr-5 may participate in this resetting process in the worm, thereby preventing a decline in germ cell epigenetic stability and viability over ensuing generations.

The mighty mite

storehouses of terrestrial biodiversity, but many of the more astounding species are apparent only after the closest scrutiny. Here are a few of the roughly 2000 species of mite (Arachnida: Acari) that can be found in the subtropical rainforests of Lamington National Park in southeast Queensland, Australia. The mites there range in size from 0.182 millimetres to 7 millimetres, with the minute b...