This week’s Nature ($) is hot off the press, and it’s a good one.
Maria Elena Torres-Padilla and colleagues publish a report that lends further support to the idea that embryonic cells receive their first developmental orders from epigenetic cues. The report looks at methylation of an arginine amino acid in the histone H3 protein, and pinpoints the histone modifications that influence the move of blastomeres early in the embryo.
The issue also contains the Allen Brain Institute’s research report on producing a genome-wide atlas of gene expression in the mouse brain. The research itself was published online in early December, but now that it’s in print, the report is accompanied by a nice explanatory gloss by the Brain Mind Institute’s Henry Markram.
Responding to a previous news report on anti-evolution trends Europe, which portrayed EU-hopeful Turkey as a hotbed of creationism, a group of Turkish scientists point out in their letter to Nature that all is not lost. Turkey’s scientists and grad students are engaged in building pro-evolution resources, while an NGO has filed a lawsuit against the education ministry to get creationism out of the textbooks.