May 2011

Power Failure

Does mitochondrial dysfunction lie at the heart of common, complex diseases like cancer and autism?
BY MEGAN SCUDELLARI

Wrestling with Recurrent Infections

Clostridium difficile is evolving more robust toxicity, repeatedly attacking its victims, and driving the search for alternative therapies to fight the infection.
BY GAYATRI VEDANTAM AND
GLENN S. TILLOTSON

Best Places to Work in Industry, 2011

By forging new relationships and finding novel uses for existing technologies, this year’s top companies are employing creative ways to advance their science.
BY HANNAH WATERS

CONTRIBUTORS

EDITORIAL

Channeling the Microbiome
The new discipline of sociomicrobiology is revealing life’s struggle tooth and nail—and gut.
SARAH GREENE

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

Skeleton Keys
There are a surprising number of unknowns about how our limbs come to be symmetrical.
LEWIS WOLPERT

CRITIC AT LARGE

If Bacteria Can Do It…
Learning community skills from microbes
H. STEVEN WILEY

NOTEBOOK

One Hip Dino
A closer look at some dinosaur bones accumulating dust since their 1994 discovery reveals a new, athletic sauropod species.
JEF AKST

Lobster-Pot Science
Building tiny houses to study how bacteria behave in natural environments
An F1000 Hidden Jewel
RICHARD P. GRANT

New Blood for Gene Therapy
A promising gene therapy trial, derailed by cancerous side effects in a young patient, is set to reboot with the help of next generation gene-transfer vectors.
MEGAN SCUDELLARI

One on One: Dustin Rubenstein
On primitive agricultural behavior in a social amoeba
CRISTINA LUIGGI

SPEAKING OF SCIENCE

THE LITERATURE

An Insoluble Problem?
The challenges of crystallizing membrane proteins
—and how they’re being overcome
ROBERT MICHAEL STROUD

Editor's choice in Developmental Biology:
Control from Without
RICHARD P. GRANT

Editor’s choice in Neuroscience:
Hangover Headache
HANNAH WATERS

Editor’s choice in Immunology:
Compact Model T
HANNAH WATERS

PROFILE

Making the Gradient
Ron Kaback didn’t believe that electrochemical gradients could power the transport of sugars and amino acids across cell membranes—until he proved that they do.
KAREN HOPKIN

SCIENTIST TO WATCH

Andrew Carter
Dynein Trailblazer
HANNAH WATERS

LAB TOOLS

Going with the Flow
A guide to the new wave of budget, easy-to-use flow cytometers
KELLY RAE CHI

CAREERS

Simplifying Teaching
How to make your teaching more efficient, effective, and enjoyable without slighting your lab projects
HANNAH WATERS

READING FRAMES

Wanted: Another Scientific Revolution
In the 19th century, four friends changed the way scientists viewed themselves. It’s time for another shake-up.
LAURA J. SNYDER

Capsule Reviews
Biopunk: DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life
by Marcus Wohlsen

The Belief Instinct:
The Psychology of Souls, Destiny,
and the Meaning of Life
by Jesse Bering

Biology Is Technology:
The Promise, Peril, and New Business of Engineering Life
by Robert H. Carlson

Medical Muses: Hysteria in Nineteenth-Century Paris
by Asti Hustvedti
BOB GRANT

FOUNDATIONS

Medical Posters, circa 1920
EDYTA ZIELINSKA