Issue # 260 _ October 2017

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Cover

Back to the laboratory bench
Stem cell therapy for heart problems, which has been tested in humans since the 2000s, has not shown conclusive results and is undergoing new tests in vitro and in animal models

S&T Policy

EDUCATION

Advances in graduate studies

Quadrennial CAPES evaluation shows increasing number and quality of courses, and fails 3% of programs

INNOVATION

Shared risk

Model adopted by Embrapii offers companies funding and cooperation with research groups

Public Policy 

Heralds of change

Study addresses the role of individuals who help mobilize society and catalyze transformation

Science

BIOLOGY

The chemical language of insects

Within colonies, bees and ants recognize each other and organize themselves through compounds that cover their bodies

EMBRYOLOGY

Silencing in order to survive

One of the copies of the X chromosome is inactivated in females during the early days of embryonic development

PALEOBIOLOGY

More than met the eye

Fossilized burrows suggest complex organisms arose before the Cambrian explosion of diversity

paleontology

Fossils on the move

3D reconstructions highlight new characteristics of crocodiles and dinosaurs that lived millions of years ago in Brazil

PHYSICS

The origin of cosmic rays

Study indicates with greater precision that these ultra-high-energy particles come from outside the Milky Way

Astrophysics

Worlds like ours

A new generation of spectrographs should permit the discovery of planets that are Earth twins

astrophysics

The rocks that remained

An alternative model suggests the asteroid belt originated in leftovers from the formation of the planets in the solar system

Technology

ENERGY

More efficient light

Perovskite solar cells may be a cheaper and more effective alternative to the silicon solar panels that dominate the world’s solar panel market.

ROAD ECOLOGY 

Animals on the highway

New technologies to prevent animals being hit and reduce highway accidents are created in Brazil

Chemistry

Green reactions

Products incorporating renewable feedstocks are gradually replacing petroleum-based products

Agriculture

Less water for rice

Agronomist develops new rice cultivation method

Humanities

LITERATURE

Lima Barreto as a chronicler of post-Abolition Brazil

An anthropologist’s biography of the Brazilian writer marks the genre’s resurgence in academia

MUSEOLOGY

The uncertain fate of police museum collections

Researchers defend the preservation of collections, while social movements and relatives demand the removal of objects and bodily remains