Evolutionary biology: Why reproduction often takes two Nature 462, 294 (2009). doi:10.1038/462294a Authors: Aneil F. Agrawal On the face of it, self-fertilization is the efficient way to breed: compared with outcrossing, there's usually much less fuss, for a start. So why isn't reproduction by selfing ...

Microscopy: Cell close-up Nature 462, 254 (2009). doi:10.1038/462254d Phys. Rev. Lett.103, 198101 (2009); 10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.198101Phys. Rev. Lett.103, 198102 (2009)10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.198102Researchers have taken the first X-ray diffraction images of intact, hydrated cells.Because of their ...

Costing the Earth Nature 462, 277 (2009). doi:10.1038/462277a Author: Pavan Sukhdev The value of biodiversity must be accounted for, says Pavan Sukhdev. It is time for governments to invest to secure the flow of nature's 'public goods'.

Mutation load and rapid adaptation favour outcrossing over self-fertilization Nature 462, 350 (2009). doi:10.1038/nature08496 Authors: Levi T. Morran, Michelle D. Parmenter & Patrick C. Phillips The tendency of organisms to reproduce by cross-fertilization despite numerous disadvantages relative ...

A call to the custodians of deep time Nature 462, 282 (2009). doi:10.1038/462282a Author: Douglas Erwin Palaeontologists must model the causes of biodiversity rather than simply cataloguing fossils, says Douglas Erwin, as they curate the only record of ecosystems undamaged by humans.

Regenerative biology: Brainy stem cells Nature 462, 255 (2009). doi:10.1038/462255d Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA106, 19150–19155 (2009) 10.1073/pnas.0909293106Patients undergoing irradiation for brain tumours often display signs of cognitive dysfunction, owing in part to the loss of healthy neural stem ...

Epigenomics: Methylation matters Nature 462, 296 (2009). doi:10.1038/462296a Authors: Dirk Schübeler Genome-wide maps of methylated cytosine bases at single-base-pair resolution in human cells reveal distinct differences between cell types. These maps provide a starting point to decode the function ...

From the blogosphere Nature 462, 250 (2009). doi:10.1038/7271250c Published research articles are now available to rent, writes Frank Norman on his Nature Network blog, Trading Knowledge (http://go.nature.com/GKNUa8). Norman, head of library services at the Medical Research Council's National Institute ...

Ultraflat graphene Nature 462, 339 (2009). doi:10.1038/nature08569 Authors: Chun Hung Lui, Li Liu, Kin Fai Mak, George W. Flynn & Tony F. Heinz Graphene, a single atomic layer of carbon connected by sp2 hybridized bonds, has attracted intense scientific interest since its recent discovery. Much ...

RNA polymerase II–TFIIB structure and mechanism of transcription initiation Nature 462, 323 (2009). doi:10.1038/nature08548 Authors: Dirk Kostrewa, Mirijam E. Zeller, Karim-Jean Armache, Martin Seizl, Kristin Leike, Michael Thomm & Patrick Cramer To initiate gene transcription, RNA polymerase II ...