Yinan Wan

Abstract An animal’s ability to survive and thrive—whether fleeing from danger, eating a meal, or fighting an infection—arises from the collective moment-to-moment activity of many interacting cell types throughout the body. Physiology seeks to elucidate these cellular interactions that span organs, cell types and timescales, but has been limited by the inability to record this time-varying cellular activity simultaneously throughout the entire body.

Abstract The hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis (HPG) controls pubertal development, sexual maturation, and fertility. We identified a role of hypothalamic microglia in controlling the HPG axis through receptor activator of nuclear factor κβ (Rank) signaling. Whole-body and microglia Rank depletion led to hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (HH) resulting from an alteration in gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) neuron function.

Editor’s summary Many species make their living by scavenging from kills made by other species. Observational knowledge posits that they do this by following predators around. Lorretto et al. tested this assumption by tagging ravens, wolves, and cougars in Yellowstone National Park. They found that the ravens weren’t following the predators; instead, they regularly returned to sites where they had encountered wolf kills before, like bats returning to known fruiting trees at the right time.