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<jats:p>In late January, the biotech firm Myriad Genetics put out a press release announcing the discovery of a new tumor suppressor. The company took the step to forestall possible charges of insider trading by company employees, but it also had another effect: triggering an intense effort by a competing group to get its own discovery of the gene into print.</jats:p>

<jats:p>A talented family of materials has gained some even more gifted members. Piezoelectric crystals have the unique ability to swell or shrink when zapped with electricity, as well as give off a jolt of juice themselves when compressed or pulled apart. Now, by varying the recipe for these materials, researchers have found new ones that display an effect up to 10 times larger than that of current family members.</jats:p>

<jats:p> <jats:bold>CINCINNATI</jats:bold> —Last summer, a modest set of test-tube experiments made quite a splash. It was found that in cell cultures, pairs of pesticides were up to 1600 times more potent at triggering a hormonelike response than was either of the chemicals alone. The findings sent a chill through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which suddenly faced the possibility that all their safety tests of single chemicals were suspect. In the months since, however, several teams of researchers have been unable to replicate the results. While some scientists think that the synergy results merit further study, others have written them off as unlikely to be of relevance to people. </jats:p>

<jats:p> It's a rare biologist who manages to catch a glimpse of evolution happening in the wild, but on ( <jats:related-article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="doi" page="1934" related-article-type="in-this-issue" vol="275" xlink:href="10.1126/science.275.5308.1934" xlink:type="simple">page 1934</jats:related-article> )page 1934 of this issue, researchers report just such a case in Trinidadian guppies. When moved to predator-free pools, the fish grew larger and reached sexual maturity later, all in the space of 4 to 7 years—showing that evolution can sometimes move at top speed. </jats:p>

<jats:p> The Haro Strait experiment tested a new method of doing oceanography in “real time” ( <jats:ext-link xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" ext-link-type="uri" xlink:href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/275/5308/1881a" xlink:type="simple">see related story</jats:ext-link> )—and a versatile new tool for collecting the data. Along with an array of buoys and a ship, the experiment relied on two robotic submersibles known as autonomous underwater vehicles. </jats:p>

<jats:p>Oceanographic experiments have traditionally been vast data-collecting expeditions with limited flexibility, but last summer, a project in the Haro Strait near Vancouver Island proved out an approach to oceanography that allows researchers to change their plans in midstream—or midocean. Called adaptive sampling, it is based on feedback between instruments positioned in the water and computer modeling onshore. Primed with new data each day, the computer suggested where the next day's efforts should be focused.</jats:p>

<jats:p>An atomic force microscope has made the first movie of an enzyme at work on a DNA molecule. By tapping an ultrafine probe across the sample, the microscope followed an RNA polymerase molecule as it ratcheted down the DNA strand, linking nucleotide bases to create an RNA template for a protein.</jats:p>