Peer Reviewed

Fear responses of zebrafish are controlled by brain structures of previously unknown function

Theoretical physicists are working to unlock the secrets of a new class of matter known as topological insulators and topological superconductors.

A total of three I²R scientists have been conferred IEEE fellow status since 2002

• A*STAR’s IMRE houses some of the world’s leading experts in SPM which was built for the physical sciences but is now widely adopted by biologists • SPM studies can help engineer novel techniques to reduce friction between surfaces at the molecular level and further miniaturise electronics.

Summaries of newsworthy papers - Genetics: A bumper crop of enhancers, Biochemistry: How to make Taxol, Cancer: A variegated picture of leukaemia, Materials science: Atom-by-atom spectroscopy, And finally… Crystals with pleats.

The Malaysian pharmaceutical industry has been urged to invest more actively in research into the production of nature-based pharmaceuticals at the International Conference on Natural Products, Penang.

Community-run tap water systems in China’s remote Guizhou province have enabled families to develop new income-generating activities and boost a faltering economy.

Treating and reusing water from sinks and baths has helped many small farming families in the Middle East deal with an extreme water shortage. This, in turn, has significantly boosted their incomes.

Highly effective yet simple BioSand Filters are providing clean water in more than 300,000 homes around the world.

Cutting-edge computer modelling and consultation with local communities allowed Bolivia’s Agua Sustentable to find political solutions to potentially disastrous clashes over water.

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has received another strong boost to achieve further internationalization with the award of South East Asia's first Erasmus Mundus (EM) Mobility Grant of nearly €1.4 million by the European Commission.

Researchers at RIKEN have linked a specific type of cellular stress to neuronal cell death leading to brain damage. The findings overturn existing assumptions on the role of a key neuronal protein in cellular stress response, opening up new avenues for research on a range of neurodegenerative diseases.

Summaries of newsworthy papers - Neuroscience: Synaptic loss in a mouse model for Alzheimer’s disease; Methods: Peering deep into the lung; Nanotechnology: Tissue engineering—how nanotechnology fits in; Geoscience: Heatwaves and soil moisture; Nature: The origin of Saturn’s rings

Linking silicon and carbon double bonds into an extended network with bulky molecules produces air-stable and photo-responsive crystals

The toolbox for imaging DNA now comes with an artificial DNA fluorescent base that can be ‘switched off’

Summaries of newsworthy papers - Cancer: Getting to the root of brain cancer; Climate: Meltwater variability drives ice-sheet acceleration; Astronomy: Probing the early Universe with a single dipole antenna; And finally… Resisting everything except reward cues

Tokyo, 6 Dec - Researchers at RIKEN, Japan’s flagship research institution, have successfully devised the world’s first experimental technique for measuring ground-state hyperfine transitions of antihydrogen.

Tokyo, 6 December - Researchers in Japan have launched FANTOM5, Functional Annotation of the Mammalian Genome, an international effort to globally map transcription initiation in every human cell type.

US, European and Japanese companies join A*STAR’s Industrial Consortium On Nanoimprint (ICON) to engineer marine life-inspired anti-microbial surfaces for use on ships, lenses and even medical devices.

Summaries of newsworthy papers: Neuroscience: Linking deafness and cardiac arrhythmia; Geoscience: Deep burn; Neuroscience: Sizing up visual perception; Genetics: Variants associated with kidney cancer and Photonics: Taking off using light

‘Green’ catalysts transform carbon dioxide gas into valuable building blocks for organic synthesis

RIKEN biochemists decipher how the precisely choreographed activity of a pair of enzymes helps protein synthesis move forward

Advances in our understanding of basic biological processes and human disease owe much to the groundbreaking research of scientists at the Chromosome Dynamics Laboratory at RIKEN Advanced Science Institute.

Genetics: LMO1’s dual role in neuroblastoma; Comment: When small got big; Neuroscience: Simple sex-specific circuits; Ecology: Biodiversity and infectious disease; Physics: ‘Stripes’ and the pseudogap in a high-temperature superconductor and Atmosphere of a ‘super-Earth’ exoplanet

19 new plant species described in Sarawak by researchers from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS)

The STAM article titled “Challenges and Breakthroughs in Recent Research on Self-Assembly,” which was published in March 2008 issue by Dr. Ariga, MANA PI, and Dr. Hill, MANA Scientist, et al., was ranked No. 1 Hot Paper in Materials Science by the Essential Science Indicators on November 1 (provided by Thomson Reuters).

A specific genre of documentation was produced by student of UiTM, Malaysia.

Summaries of newsworthy papers:A boost for Alzheimer’s disease; Why diamond can be polished; Targeting AID for immunoglobulin genes; Risk variant for hypospadias and How to reverse age-related tissue degeneration

Large tree-like sugar clusters provide potential in vivo probes for cancer cells

Frame-by-frame observations of the ionization of argon atoms under extremely bright and energetic illumination could prove a boon to research