Silica sol as a nanoglue: flexible synthesis of composite aerogels

Low-density nanoscale mesoporous composites may be readily synthesized by adding a colloidal or dispersed solid to an about-to-gel silica sol. The silica sol can "glue" a range of chemically and physically diverse particles into the three-dimensional silica network formed upon gelation. If the composite gel is supercritically dried so as to maintain the high porosity of the wet gel, a composite aerogel is formed in which the nanoscopic surface and bulk properties of each component are retained in the solid composite. The volume fraction of the second solid can be varied above or below a percolation threshold to tune the transport properties of the composite aerogel and thereby design nanoscale materials for chemical, electronic, and optical applications.     

Genome size in conodonts (chordata): inferred variations during 270 million years

DNA is too unstable to be preserved during fossilization, but it still seems possible to infer the genome content of fossils because in every group of organisms investigated cell size is proportional to quantity of DNA. Accordingly, information on macroevolutionary trends in genome size through millions of years is potentially available. This survey of inferred variation in genome content in fossils is based on measurements of epithelial cells in extinct conodonts over a period of 270 million years. Why genome size varies so widely amongst living organisms is a subject of continuing debate. Paleontology offers a distinct temporal perspective, but lack of data on conodont paleoecology make the proposed adaptive explanations for genome variation difficult to test.     

Genes, genetics, and epigenetics: a correspondence

Over the past months, as this special issue took shape, the Editors of Science have monitored an exchange of seven letters initiated by three queries from M. Bacon. These queries concern the popular definitions of "genes," "genetics," and "epigenetics." Below, we reprint excerpts from these letters, referring interested readers to www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/293/5532/1103/DC1 for the complete text and additional references.     

New burgess shale fossil sites reveal middle cambrian faunal complex

Soft-bodied and lightly sclerotized Burgess shale fossils have been found at more than a dozen new localities in an area extending for 20 kilometers along the front of the Cathedral Escarpment in the Middle Cambrian Stephen Formation of the Canadian Rockies. Five different fossil assemblages from four stratigraphic levels have been recognized. These assemblages represent distinct penecontemporaneous marine communities that together make up a normal fore-reef faunal complex.     

Rostroconchia: a new class of bivalved mollusks

Four Paleozoic bivalved genera are assigned to the new molluscan class Rostroconchia: Eopteria, Euchasma, Conocardium, and Pseudoconocardium. These mollusks have ani uncoiled univalved larval shell; an untorted bivalved adult shell; no hinge teeth, ligament, or adductor muscles; and a fused, almost inflexible. hinge. Rostroconchianis developed separately from the pelecypods through the ribeirioids, but are regarded as more closely related to the Pelecypoda and Scaphopoda than to other known classes of mollusks.