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.
The widespread conversion of democratic governments to environmental causes is understandable: it keeps, or even catches, votes. But the consequences are increased costs and the tolerance of irrationality.
Knowing the half-life of the neutron is important for particle physicists and cosmologists alike. A new technique should soon improve the accuracy of measurements to better than the present half per cent.
The polymerase chain reaction can be used to create probes for specific regions of the Drosophila genome and for chromosome walking in a library of yeast artificial chromosomes.