Lectins: From obscurity into the limelight

Plant genomics moves into the limelight.

Two major considerations impelled Ronald Phillips [University of Minnesota and Director of the National Research Initiative of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)], and Michael Freeling (University of California, Berkeley), to organize a recent colloquium, ‘‘Protecting our Food Supply: The Value of Plant Genome Initiatives’’ (Stanford, CA, June 2–5). First, the increased wealth of the dev...

Blood disorders stepping into the limelight.

Reluctant Vesicles Coaxed into the Limelight

Synapses respond to brief, repetitive stimulation with synaptic depression when initial transmitter release probability is high. Vesicle depletion has been a long-standing hypothesis for depression, but results unexplained by the depletion hypothesis have been nagging. In this issue of Neuron, Xu and Wu show that, under some conditions, calcium current inactivation explains stimulus-dependent d...

Colugos: obscure mammals glide into the evolutionary limelight

Substantial molecular evidence indicates that tree-shrews, colugos and primates cluster together on the mammalian phylogenetic tree. Previously, a sister-group relationship between colugos and primates seemed likely. A new study of colugo chromosomes indicates instead an affinity between colugos and tree-shrews.

Energizing rheumatology training: put teaching back into the academic limelight.