Estrogen Wires the Male Brain
Testosterone plays a key role in shaping the male brain and behavior. Shah and colleagues now show that the conversion of testosterone into estrogen is a key step and allows male mice to develop aggressive behavior. Treating female mice with excess estrogen neonatally results in a masculinization of the female brain and aggressive behavior in the adult. Preview by Gagnidze and Pfaff.

Crystallizing Double-Strand Break Repair
The Mre11-Rad50-Nbs1 (MRN) complex senses DNA double-strand breaks and initiates repair. Two studies, by Smerdon and colleagues and Tainer and colleagues, reveal how an unusual molecular structure underpins Nbs1's role as an adapter for multiple repair activities. Preview by Hopfner.

Corkscrew Improves Memory
To form long-term memory, it is better to leave breaks between study sessions than to mass them together. Zhong and colleagues now find that in flies, the phosphatase corkscrew regulates the duration of the breaks that are required between study sessions. Mutations in human corkscrew cause mental retardation and prolong the length of the required breaks in flies. Preview by Philips and Carew.

Translating Dietary Restriction into Long Life
Watch and listen as Pankaj Kapahi takes you on a brief, personally guided tour of his lab's new results indicating the specific effects of dietary restriction on protein translation that can lead to increased life span. Read more in Zid et al.

Stringent Specificity in Synaptic Targeting
Nervous system development involves the precise wiring of neural circuitry, but how neurons select their appropriate synaptic partner neurons is unclear. Jessell and colleagues show that for a population of mammalian interneurons, there is one and only one viable option for synaptic partnering. The study suggests that in at least some instances stringent targeting underlies the logic of neural circuit construction.

In this PaperClip, Robert Kruger speaks with Thomas Jessell about what happens when a developing neuron doesn’t find its preferred synaptic partner.

You can listen directly by clicking on the player above.

In the first two Reviews in our series on sensory systems, Peter Gillespie and Ulrich Müller explore the mechanisms of auditory hair cell mechanotransduction, and John Carlson and colleagues consider the emerging principles of olfactory processing.

Mechanotransduction by Hair Cells: Models, Molecules, and Mechanisms
Peter G. Gillespie and Ulrich Müller

Olfactory Perception: Receptors, Cells, and Circuits
Chih-Ying Su, Karen Menuz, and John R. Carlson

In this Enhanced Snapshot, Daniel Wilson and colleagues present an easy-to-navigate figure with in-depth information accessible by the click of a mouse, including animations, captions, and movies of protein structures.

Antibiotic Inhibition of Protein Synthesis II
Daniel Sohmen, Joerg M. Harms, Frank Schlünzen, and Daniel N. Wilson

In our September podcast, we hear from Dr. Giulio Tononi about his new study in Neuron that helps to unravel the enduring mysteries of why we sleep (start 0:52). Next, we learn from Dr. Yi Liu about his study published in Cell that identifies another layer of complexity in the regulation of clock genes and circadian rhythms (9:45). And stay tuned for a conversation with Dr. Chenevix-Trench about her study in The American Journal of Human Genetics that identifies rare variants associated with breast cancer risk (start 15:42).

You can listen directly by clicking on the player above. For a complete archive of Cell Press podcasts, click here.

In this PaperClip, Dr. Lara Szewczak speaks with Dr. Pier Giuseppe Pelicci about cancer stem cells and how they divide differently than normal stem cells with consequences for tumorigenesis.

You can listen directly by clicking on the player above. For a complete list of Cell PaperClips, click here.