Catálogo de publicaciones - revistas

<jats:p>Getting rich on human genes has become a fantasy for many investors in the 1990s. But who ends up rich may have more to do with their skill at navigating patent law—and with the unpredictable decisions of federal judges—than the importance of the biology they have uncovered.</jats:p>

<jats:p>One of the first companies to bring a genomics invention to market has run into a series of obstacles—including concern about the need for federal regulation of the field—that suggest that genetic testing may not lead to the quick commercial payoff some had predicted.</jats:p>

<jats:p>A surprising array of subterranean microorganisms can be found living in a variety of geological formations. In his Perspective, Ghiorse reports on a recent meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on subsurface microbiology. Among the exciting topics being discussed in this field are new hypotheses on origins and long-term survival of microbial life in deep crustal rocks, subsurface ecosystems supported by chemosynthetic primary production, and the possibility of new sources of industrially important organisms.</jats:p>

<jats:p>The organelles of eukaryotic cells—chloroplasts and mitochondria—first arose as engulfed symbionts with their own genomes. They subsequently lost most of their genes to the nucleus, retaining a few that could not be transferred. In his Perspective, Palmer discusses recent evidence that suggests that another organelle, the hydrogenosome, is a highly modified mitochondrion that has lost all of its genetic material.</jats:p>

<jats:p> Certain kinds of gene therapy may require targeted delivery of genetic material into cells. As Spector and Schnur discuss in their Perspective, new results reported in the same issue by Rädler <jats:italic>et al</jats:italic> . ( <jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="doi" page="810" related-article-type="in-this-issue" vol="275" xlink:href="10.1126/science.275.5301.810" xlink:type="simple">p. 810</jats:related-article> ) may shed light on ways to incorporate DNA into membranes. </jats:p>

<jats:p>Recent fossil discoveries have greatly increased our knowledge of the morphology and diversity of early Anthropoidea, the suborder to which humans belong. Phylogenetic analysis of Recent and fossil taxa supports the hypotheses that a haplorhine-strepsirrhine dichotomy existed at least at the time of the earliest record of fossil primates (earliest Eocene) and that eosimiids (middle Eocene, China) are primitive anthropoids. Functional analysis suggests that stem haplorhines were small, nocturnal, arboreal, visually oriented insectivore-frugivores with a scurrying-leaping locomotion. A change from nocturnality to diurnality was the fundamental adaptive shift that occurred at the base of the tarsier-eosimiid-anthropoid clade. Stem anthropoids remained small diurnal arborealists but adopted locomotor patterns with more arboreal quadrupedalism and less leaping. A shift to a more herbivorous diet occurred in several anthropoid lineages.</jats:p>

<jats:p>The unexpected and prolonged persistence of warm conditions over the tropical Pacific during the early 1990s can be attributed to an interdecadal climate fluctuation that involves changes in the properties of the equatorial thermocline arising as a result of an influx of water with anomalous temperatures from higher latitudes. The influx affects equatorial sea-surface temperatures and hence the tropical and extratropical winds that in turn affect the influx. A simple model demonstrates that these processes can give rise to continual interdecadal oscillations.</jats:p>