• Salamanders regenerate limbs by memory

    Salamanders regrow amputated limbs by producing tissue-specific progenitor cells, report Tanaka and colleagues in this week’s Nature. Their results challenge dogma and have important implications for our understanding of limb regeneration, as well as regenerative medicine and research into treatments that could restore adult body parts.

    Also this week, a News and Views article by Alvarado takes a closer look at the cells involved in limb regeneration and the Nature Podcast delves deeper into the research.

    Credit: Punchstock

  • This week on the Nature Podcast

    This week, making stem cells for therapy, how salamanders regrow their limbs, three huge studies of genetic variation and schizophrenia, and how plants keep carbon dioxide above a certain level in the atmosphere.

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  • Naturejobs

    Feature

    Multiple fates: Despite the economic downturn, some US universities are seeking stem-cell faculty.

    Prospects

    Next generation: Researcher to head a new centre for neurodegenerative diseases in Germany.

    News In Brief

    Steep competition: Federal legislators worry US research universities are losing their edge.

  • Geoscience: the power of plants

    Terrestrial plants may have played a surprisingly vital role in maintaining carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere over the past 24 million years, suggests a paper in Nature this week. Pagani and colleagues simulated terrestrial and geochemical carbon cycles to investigate a negative feedback mechanism from plants that prevents further removal of carbon from the atmosphere. They find that vegetation activity in upland regions of active mountain ranges during this time period was severely limited; which in turn diminished biotic-driven silicate rock weathering.

    In a News and Views article Goddéris and Donnadieu explain why CO2 levels did not drop below a certain point in the Miocene. For even more, listen to the Nature Podcast.

    Credit: David Beerling

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