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Nature - Issue - nature.com science feeds
Sun May 9 22:41:45 EDT 2010
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A plan for the ocean - Governments have typically regulated their coastal waters as if fishing, shipping and the like were separate entities. A new, integrated approach could change all that — while greatly boosting marine science.

Up in the air - Ways to obtain more accurate data can and should be put in place to police greenhouse-gas emissions.

Open to all - A new approach to technology assessment would supplement expert opinion with input from society.

Ecology: Not-so-lonesome lizards - Cited research: PloS Genet. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1000929 (2010)Lizards on the Caribbean's Lesser Antilles islands were thought to provide a rare example of evolution resulting from geographical isolation. But work by Roger Thorpe and his colleagues at Bangor University, UK, suggests otherwise.

Neuroscience: What makes masculinity? - Cited research: Neuron66, 260–272 (2010)In many vertebrates, male sexual and territorial behaviours are regulated by testosterone and oestrogen in the brain. Nirao Shah at the University of California, San Francisco, and his colleagues have found that, in male mice, testosterone controls the

Oceanography: Deep-sea biomass boom - Cited research: Proc. R. Soc. B doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.0462 (2010)Submarine canyons are widespread in the deep ocean, but little is known about the life that they support. Fabio De Leo at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu and his team report that the floor of

Atmospheric science: Ozone high and low - Cited research: Geophys. Res. Lett. doi:10.1029/2010GL042812 (2010)A combination of climate change and repair of the hole in the stratospheric ozone layer could, by 2100, lead to increased ozone concentrations in the lower atmosphere (troposphere), particularly in the Southern Hemisphere.

Microscopy: See through tissue - Cited research: Opt. Lett.35, 1245–1247 (2010)Fluorescence microscopy has become an indispensable tool for cell biologists. But the light beams used to penetrate a sample are scattered by tissues, complicating efforts to image below a tissue's surface.Now, Ivo Vellekoop and Christof Aegerter

Genomics: Rat sequencing redux - Cited research: Genome Res. doi:10.1101/gr.103499.109 (2010)Using rapid DNA sequencing methods, Timothy Aitman of Imperial College London and his colleagues have sequenced the genome of a rat strain widely used to study high blood pressure. They compared the spontaneously hypertensive

Drug development: Virus knockdown - Cited research: Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA doi:10.1073/pnas.0912186107 (2010)The use of small RNA molecules called short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) to silence specific genes involved in disease has so far yielded few positive results in the clinic. John DeVincenzo at

Optical devices: Organic light - Cited research: Nature Mater. doi:10.1038/nmat2751 (2010)Light-emitting transistors made from organic materials could become the next generation of low-cost display technologies. The organic light-emitting transistor (OLET), made by Michele Muccini and Raffaella Capelli at the Italian National Research Agency in

Microbiology: Bacterial break up - Cited research: Science328, 627–629 (2010)A class of unusual amino acids that disperses films of bacteria might be used to make disease-causing species vulnerable to attack.Biofilms are communities of bacteria that adhere to each other and are hard to eradicate, causing problems

Cognitive neuroscience: Attention please! - Cited research: J. Neurosci.30, 6072–6079 (2010)People can ignore the most attention-grabbing object in the room thanks to a neural circuit that dampens perception of such distractions.Carmel Mevorach at the University of Birmingham, UK, and his colleagues asked 12 volunteers to perform

Journal club - An evolutionary geneticist looks at how small genetic changes can have big evolutionary effects.Vertebrates are diverse in both form and function. What genetic alterations underlie this diversity? Evolutionary modifications in brain size or limb length, for example, involve changes in the complex developmental processes

News briefing: 6 May 2010 - The week in science

The code within the code - Computational biologists grapple with RNA's complexity.

Nurse wants elite UK science focus - Incoming head of Royal Society sets out his agenda.

Greenhouse-gas numbers up in the air - To control emissions, countries must first account accurately for their carbon. That will take considerable effort, reports Jeff Tollefson.

Green patents corralled - Driven by efforts to curb fossil-fuel use and concerns about the security of energy supplies, the number of applications for renewable-energy patents is booming.But the patents are scattered across many databases, in different formats that are not readily searchable, leading to a lack of

Greeks hope crisis may spark reform - Financial troubles could be the stimulus for a fairer distribution of science research funding.

European funding may get simpler - Research commissioner promises to cut red tape in framework programmes.

Seismology: The biggest one - Fifty years ago this month, a massive earthquake in Chile broke new ground in seismic science. Roff Smith looks back at the largest quake ever recorded.

Neuroscience: Illuminating the brain - Systems neuroscientists are pushing aside their electrophysiology rigs to make room for the tools of 'optogenetics'. Lizzie Buchen reports from a field in the process of reinvention.

World view: Brick by brick - A small non-profit organization shows how to reduce the vulnerability of poor countries to earthquakes, says Daniel Sarewitz.

European money could end delays on essential facilities - I endorse the proposal for the European Union (EU) to increase its financial support of large European research facilities (Nature464, 659; 2010). But it would be better to concentrate this on a few essential facilities, rather than using the money to

Independent research offers freedom and opportunities - Andrea Schweitzer makes a strong case, in her Prospects article, for independently pursuing science outside academia (Nature 464, 945; 2010). Another bonus is the freedom to pursue lines of inquiry that run counter to prevailing paradigms.It is not easy for a

Earthquake defence and the price of a telescope - We welcome the European Southern Observatory's decision to site the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) at Cerro Armazones in Chile.In his Correspondence on the subject, Francisco Sánchez argues that the high seismicity of Chile's Armazones region could damage the telescope's optical systems (Nature

Questionable value of planting thirsty trees in dry regions - To alleviate land degradation, China's government is investing huge amounts of money in afforestation. But long-term results indicate that these projects could be exacerbating environmental degradation in arid and semi-arid regions, damaging soil ecosystems, reducing vegetation diversity and cover, and increasing water shortages (S.

Financial pain should focus universities - The tightening of the US science budgets could improve both teaching and research, argues Diane Auer Jones — by forcing academics and their institutions to play to their strengths.

Reflections on the ozone hole - Jonathan Shanklin, one of the team who discovered the thinning ozone layer over the Antarctic 25 years ago, reflects on lessons learned from a tale of luck, public perception and fast environmental change.

Chemistry's visual origins - Vivid imagination was key to unlocking the secrets of molecular structure in the nineteenth century, finds Andrew Robinson.

Managing career moves - Scientific excellence is widely believed to result from an individual's talents and creativity, rather than from their circumstances. In today's era of mobility, top talent in any discipline seems free to glide from institution to institution in search of the best rewards. Not so fast,

Medical treasures on show - Marking the 200th anniversary this year of Stockholm's Karolinska Institute — Sweden's leading medical university — are more than 100 rare medical illustrations from its historic collection, on display at Stockholm's Waldemarsudde Museum.From Andreas Vesalius's anatomical depictions to digitally enhanced visualizations of the human

Geophysics: A new turn for Earth's rotation - Earth's spin rate varies with time. A six-year periodic signal in the planet's core is partly responsible, and increases the interior magnetic-field strength to much higher levels than previously thought.

Biochemistry: Getting the metal right - Controversy has raged over the identity of the metal cofactor of membrane-bound methane monooxygenase, a methane-oxidizing enzyme. A study suggests that the answer is a cluster of two copper ions.

Nonlinear dynamics: Optoelectronic chaos - Optoelectronic circuits with delayed feedback provide a convenient bench-top platform to study a wide range of nonlinear dynamic systems, from ultrastable clocks to complex chaotic devices.

Hepatitis C: An unsuspected drug target - Infection with hepatitis C is one of the main causes of liver disease, yet there are no broadly effective treatments. Discovery of a potent inhibitor of this virus shows that researchers must think outside the box.

50 & 100 years ago - 50 Years agoHealth in Industry. By Donald Hunter — The history of occupational disease spreads over many years and, until comparatively recently, ailments like beat knee, 'stagmus', writer's cramp, grocer's itch and cotton-workers' throat were accepted as heavenly or other visitations about which

Materials science: Muscle mimic - An elastic polymer has been made whose molecular structure mimics that of titin, a protein found in muscle. The resulting material is tough, stretchy and dissipates energy — just like muscle itself.

Gene regulation: Breaking the second genetic code - Diverse messenger RNAs, and thus proteins, can be generated from a single piece of DNA. A computational approach is helping to uncover complex combinatorial rules by which specific gene instructions are selected.

Addendum - Gökhan S. Hotamisligil, a co-author of the News & Views article 'Metabolism: Host and microbes in a pickle' (Nature464, 1287–1288; 2010) declared a competing financial interest that was not noted in the print or PDF versions of the

Olfactory pattern classification by discrete neuronal network states -

Deciphering the splicing code -

H2 emission arises outside photodissociation regions in ultraluminous infrared galaxies -

Phase-preserving amplification near the quantum limit with a Josephson ring modulator -

Designed biomaterials to mimic the mechanical properties of muscles -

Fast torsional waves and strong magnetic field within the Earth’s core -

Seismic and aseismic slip on the Central Peru megathrust -

Pronuclear transfer in human embryos to prevent transmission of mitochondrial DNA disease -

Cis-interactions between Notch and Delta generate mutually exclusive signalling states -

The molecular basis for water taste in Drosophila -

Chemical genetics strategy identifies an HCV NS5A inhibitor with a potent clinical effect -

The scaffold protein Ste5 directly controls a switch-like mating decision in yeast -

An RNA polymerase II- and AGO4-associated protein acts in RNA-directed DNA methylation -

X-ray crystal structure of the light-independent protochlorophyllide reductase -

Oxidation of methane by a biological dicopper centre -

Genome sequence of the palaeopolyploid soybean - Nature463, 178–183 (2010)During resubmission of this work, a paper was published that used a comparative genomics approach between soybean and maize to show that a single-base mutation in chromosome 19 accounts for the duplicate recessive epistasis

KYLE 7 - Virtual success.