On the floor, 16 golden retrievers stare up at me bemused. They are arranged in a square, four by four. I watch through the viewfinder of my video camera. This, I think to myself, could make me famous.
Basements house hidden treasures — including a chemical bond never before seen in living things. Scientists have discovered that collagen fibers in the basement membrane — a tough, structural layer of cells that surrounds most tissues in animals — are connected by a sulfur-nitrogen bond (SN: 9/26/09, p. 5).
Tangles of collagen IV chains link at globules via sulfur-nitrogen bonding (illustrated above).
Before a star can be born, gas and dust from a cold interstellar cloud must gather together into a distinct clump. Astronomers say they have now witnessed this earliest of steps in the star-birthing process…