Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
On 26 July, The New England Journal of Medicine published a curious article suggesting that obesity spreads though social ties: if your spouse, sibling or friend has gained weight, chances are you also need to buy larger shirts. Unfortunately, the popular media decided to interpret this quite literally as obesity being contagious...
It was a busy year—the genomes of some celebrities were sequenced, vaccine clinical trials were halted and, at long last, embryonic stem cells from primates were created.
By designing a new generation of prosthetic limbs that rely on electronic sensing, Hugh Herr has proven that he can put good ideas into motion. But he aims to go beyond simply restoring lost limb function.
Funding is tight. Grants are rejected. Research equipment is too expensive. And these are complaints heard in well-heeled laboratories in the US and UK. In the following pages, we present inspiring examples of scientists who, using materials as simple as litmus paper, bamboo and blenders, prove that science on a shoestring is possible—and sometimes even better than the alternative.