IMMUNOLOGY: Studies Unmask Undercover Asthma Agent
For years, researchers believed that asthma was orchestrated by type 2 helper (Th2) cells, which are found in the lungs of virtually all asthma patients. Dale Umetsu (left), Omid Akbari, and their colleagues report in the March 16 New England Journal of Medicine that more than half of what appear to be Th2 cells actually belong to a subgroup of natural killer T (NKT) cells. In mice, NKT cells proved to be even more powerful asthma agents than Th2 cells; those findings appear in the Feb. 21 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

GENETICS: X Inactivation Seen as Contact Sport
At an early stage in a female embryo’s development, one of the two X chromosomes in each of its cells becomes inactivated. In two recent papers, the lab of Jeannie Lee makes important breakthroughs in uncovering how the two X chromosomes decide their fate. A study in the Jan. 20 Science shows that the chromosomes literally get together before one of them bows out. The other, in the March 3 Molecular Cell, sheds light on the inactivating mechanism, how an RNA called Xist gets switched on in order to envelop the future inactive chromosome.

CHILD HEALTH: Child Enrichment Program Still Pays Off After 15 Years
Researchers have detected the lasting benefits of early childhood education 15 years after the program ended. What may have seemed like three years of fun and games at the time for the low–birth weight, premature infants translated into higher achievement scores in math and reading for the intervention group at age 18. They also tended to have fewer risky behaviors. The study, led by Marie McCormick and published in the March Pediatrics, is believed to be the largest and most rigorous of its kind.