Editorial Welcome to Silence [1], a new open-access journal devoted to RNA silencing and other pathways directed by non-coding RNAs. Silence springs from the extraordinary, yet brief, history of RNA silencing. In just two decades, we have seen the anomalous properties of plant and fungal transgenes connect with a series of amazing experiments in which injected double-stranded RNA triggered sile...

A pioneering genetic analysis of aging in yeast has revealed that a protein complex known to play an essential role in transcriptional silencing at mating-type loci and telomeres also controls aging and stress resistance.

When choosing between alternatives of uncertain quality, one can learn from other decision-makers either through communicating with them about the reasons underlying their choices, or through simply observing their choices. The former way of learning has been extensively studied in the word-of-mouth (WOM) literature, while the latter way, labelled silent word-of-mouth (SWOM), has received less ...

T he genomes of many species, including man, have been laid bare with hundreds of known and thousands of unknown genes. A major challenge in present day biology is to decipher the molecular function of the unknown genes. Gene knockout by homologous recombination has proven to be very useful but is laborious and expensive. Antisense and ribozyme technology have been useful but are not always rel...

This paper investigates whether inhalation noises are treated as silences in speech communication. A perception experiment revealed differences in pause detection thresholds for breathing pauses and silent pauses. This in turn indicates that breathing pauses are treated differently by the perceptual system, and could potentially carry a communicative function.

“It saved me.” This emphatic, unrestrained declaration was the response of our young black South African driver to my query about masturbation, as we passed the time discussing HIV en route to Soweto on an AIDS-related field trip. Although he had a steady girlfriend, he earnestly believed that the sexual outlet provided through masturbation enabled him to avoid seeking multiple partners, which ...

Destruxin A (DA), a cyclodepsipeptidic mycotoxin of entomopathogenic fungus, Metarhizium anisopliae, has anti-immunity activity against insects, but the mechanism of immune regulation is not clear yet. In our previous experiment, the significant expression changes of Bm_nscaf2838_045, Bm_nscaf2674_066, and Bm_nscaf2767_133 genes in a silkworm's hemocytes were found, which suggested that these g...