Peer Reviewed

Enzymes turn vegetable oils into fuel through a flexible two-step process

Identification of a key compound that regulates plant responses to wounding could provide benefits on three fronts

Revealing the inner workings of cells takes a step forward using a newly developed Raman microscopy technique

Summaries of newsworthy papers - News and Comment: The future of vaccines; Planetary science: How Mars had a growth spurt; Biology: Immune response to HIV; Physics: How to measure an electron; Virology: Long-term evolution of swine flu; Neuroscience: Molecular pathology in autism; And finally… They might be Ordovician giants

The Institute of Microelectronics (IME), an institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have announced today their cooperation with TowerJazz, the global specialty foundry leader, on breakthrough projects in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), packaging and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).

Masayuki Ishii compares Japanese and Western approaches to aspects of life. Taking in both sports and the arts, he reflects on how different approaches can be equally advantageous in academia.

7 Research Themes Selected for 3 Mid-/Long-Term Research Projects

Muhammad Azhar Bin Zulkffle and his team at University Teknologi MARA, Perlis, Malaysia, studied the micro and macronutrient content of several maize varieties using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICPMS) to screen the best variety.

IDRC lecture by development expert Todd Moss

Ian Smillie traces his involvement in the struggle to halt conflict diamonds, which have fuelled African wars that cost millions of lives. He describes the campaign in his new book, Blood on the Stone: Greed, Corruption and War in the Global Diamond Trade, co-published by IDRC and Anthem Press.

By STEPHEN DALE Can women who experienced the most brutal impacts of decades-long civil wars in Latin America come to terms with their own pasts while helping to reshape the societies around them?

As more women participate in the workplace, inequality may be increasing, rather than decreasing. Speaking at IDRC’s head office in celebration of the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, Dr Shahra Razavi argued that gender inequality is pervasive, and that the lines between the private and public spheres are blurred.

Summaries of newsworthy papers - Geoscience: Better earthquake risk maps needed; Chemical Biology: Commodity chemicals by design; Structural & Molecular Biology: Connecting genetics to diseases; Nanotechnology: A superconducting first near absolute zero; Genetics: Risk variant for prostate cancer in African-American men

The Singapore Business Federation (SBF) and Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech) today signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to assist local manufacturing and services companies develop R&D capabilities and foster stronger research collaboration with SIMTech.

Toyohashi Tech researcher receives coveted Japanese government award for the invention of unique color filter–glasses. Allowing those with normal color vision to experience colorblindness, the glasses enable understanding of problems arising for people with color vision deficiency.

An enzyme helps control the extension of cellular tendrils by regulating the delivery of supplies needed for growth

Identification a master regulator of the response of plants to injury sheds light on organ regeneration

A new gene expression technique adapted for single molecule sequencing has enabled researchers at the RIKEN Omics Science Center (OSC) to accurately and quantitatively measure gene expression levels using only 100 nanograms of total RNA.

Summaries of newsworthy papers - Astronomy: Lonely planets; Cancer: Overcoming treatment-resistant leukaemia; Ecology: Overestimating extinction rates; Climate science: Currents from the deep; Biology: The evolution of proteins; Geophysics: Melting of the Earth’s inner core; And finally… When is a snake not a snake?

A new comparative transcriptomic analysis of four vertebrate species conducted by Naoki Irie in RIKEN's Laboratory for Evolutionary Morphology strongly suggests that the 'hourglass model' is the more accurate description of how the vertebrate phylotype manifests.

Ikuko Toyonaga, Waseda University, writes on the events in Egypt that heralded the beginning of the 'Arab Spring'.

To survive the period of change for the media in the future, Asahi should alter their attitude and release materials they have. To prevent Japan from becoming militarist or imperialist in times to come, Asahi has the responsibility for explaining to their readers to what extent they were committed in Tairikushinposha during the Pacific War.

Prof. Kuniki Kino (Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Engineering) and Dr. Ryotaro Hara (Research Institute for Science and Engineering), Waseda University, have discovered a new enzyme which has been utilized to develop an innovative new industrial manufacturing method for cis-4-hydroxy-L-proline, an amino acid derivative.

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has set a record of reaping 10 prizes at the 39th International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva, with an array of innovations which range from myopia-retarding contact lenses to DNA Bio-sensor and solar energy device.

Summaries of newsworthy papers - Geoscience: Net loss of landscape during 2008 Wenchuan earthquake; Cell Biology: Directing the building of blood vessels; Genetics: Exome sequencing for autism; Geoscience: Oxygen oases for tiny animals; Methods: Renewable reagents for detecting human proteins; Physics: Single spins resolved in imaging experiment

Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has announced the development of “ENDEAVOR-Mobile”, the world’s first fully Android-based mobile teleradiology collaboration platform.

Insights gained by the Biosphere Oriented Biology Research Unit into complex biological systems could revolutionize energy production and re-integrate society into the global ecological cycle

Assessing the chemical diversity of genetically modified organisms is an important first step for evaluating their safety

A single protein is sufficient to switch on the various genes that kick off the development of the embryonic nervous system

RIKEN (President Ryoji Noyori) and the Max Planck Society (MPG; President Peter Gruss) signed an agreement on April 27, 2011, to strengthen their collaboration by establishing a joint research center for systems chemical biology, a field that seeks to achieve a systematic understanding of biological systems from a chemistry perspective.