The landscape of alternative splicing is only beginning to unravel, and the functional consequences are often unclear. Two articles in Cell and Genome Research focus on a set of largely ignored yet highly conserved exons, microexons. These appear strongly regulated by RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) and functionally modulate protein–protein interactions with strong evidence for deregulation in auti...

Whale-fall communities support a deep-sea invertebrate assemblage that subsists entirely on the decaying carcasses of large cetaceans. The oldest whale-falls are Late Eocene in age, but these early whale-falls differ in faunal content and host cetacean size from Neogene and Recent whale-falls. Vesicomyid bivalves, for example, are major components of the sulphophilic stage in Miocene and Recent...

The importance of fish in the history of Europe, particularly in Catholic countries, and the European colonisation of North America, have been underplayed, according to a new book by University of California anthropologist, Brian Fagan. Most Americans have been traditionally schooled to believe that the European discovery and settlement of the New World arose from two events: the first voyage o...

Disputes about scientific findings unfold following a well-rehearsed script. One researcher (let’s call her Dr. X) makes an intriguing new observation and manages to get it past the refereeing process of a top journal. The study is published and Dr. X happily moves on to her next project. But she is interrupted by an annoying piece of news e a report from the lab of another scientist (let’s cal...

Deep-sea whale falls create sulfidic habitats supporting chemoautotrophic communities, but microbial processes underlying the formation of such habitats remain poorly evaluated. Microbial degradation processes (sulfate reduction, methanogenesis) and biogeochemical gradients were studied in a whale-fall habitat created by a 30 t whale carcass deployed at 1675 m depth for 6 to 7 yr on the Califor...