Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Volume 401 Issue 6749, 9 September 1999

Opinion

  • This week, Nature launches an international web debate on the factors that lead to the scarcity of women in research. Tackling discrimination is a high priority.

    Opinion

    Advertisement

  • Powerful new leadership at France's troubled Natural History Museum should benefit organismal biology.

    Opinion
Top of page ⤴

News

  • SAN DIEGO

    The largest primate facility in the United States has agreed to an animal welfare plan, after denying allegations of poor care. Meanwhile the country is wondering how to care for hundreds of chimps no longer needed in research.

    • Rex Dalton
    News

  • BOSTON

    New guidelines by the International Astronomers' Union will ask astronomers to have their calculations checked by a panel of experts before publicizing any prediction that an asteroid is likely to hit the Earth.

    • Steve Nadis
    News

  • WASHINGTON

    The planned cuts to NASA will hit the "faster, better, cheaper" projects, while Congress gives extra funding to lower-priority but politically expedient projects, say critics.

    • T. Reichhardt
    News

  • PARIS

    The French science ministry has announced a FF2.6 billion (US dollars 420 million) renovation for the long-neglected Natural History Museum in Paris.

    • Declan Butler
    News

  • LONDON

    The European Union must encourage young people to take an interest in science, says incoming research commissioner Philippe Busquin.

    • Keith Nuthall
    News

  • WASHINGTON

    Amendments to a bill that would subject university researchers to the Freedom of Information Act have infuriated both the universities and their Chamber of Commerce opponents (who want access to information underpinning federal laws).

    • Wil Lepkowski
    News
Top of page ⤴

News Analysis

Top of page ⤴

News in Brief

Top of page ⤴

Correspondence

Top of page ⤴

Book Review

Top of page ⤴

Millennium Essay

  • Targeting civilians, not using atomic weapons, was the moral watershed.

    • Kurt Gottfried
    Millennium Essay
Top of page ⤴

News & Views

  • A lek looks like a winner-takes-all competition between males to attract females. But appearances could be deceptive, and the males might be a family group cooperating to their mutual evolutionary advantage.

    • Paul W. Sherman
    News & Views

  • Molecular machines are common in nature, but creating nanoscale devices from scratch is not as easy it looks. Two ways of making a molecular motor capable of unidirectional motion have now been demonstrated. In one system movement is driven by chemical forces, whereas in the other device rotation is powered by ultraviolet light.

    • Anthony P. Davis
    News & Views

  • When synaptic vesicles are recycled, they are 'pinched' off from the presynaptic membrane. A protein called dynamin was thought to be the 'pinchase', but it now turns out that dynamin's function is to recruit another protein, endophilin I, to the neck of the vesicle. Endophilin I affects the composition of the lipids in the vesicle's membrane, influencing its curvature and facilitating the pinching process.

    • Suzie J. Scales
    • Richard H. Scheller
    News & Views

  • The mystery of how black holes form has generated several theories, including the idea that they are left behind after a supernova -- the explosion of a massive star. Evidence supporting this idea comes from a binary system containing a black hole, in which traces of the supernova are left behind in the atmosphere of the companion star.

    • John Cowan
    News & Views

  • The complete genomic sequence of the flyDrosophila melanogasterwill soon be available. As a prelude to this, two groups have looked at the amount of work that will have to be done to make biological sense of the raw data. These studies include correlations between the primary DNA sequence and genetic function, and the generation of specific mutations to study the functions of particular genes.

    • Kenneth C. Burtis
    • R. Scott Hawley
    News & Views

  • During programmed cell death (apoptosis), the doomed cell shrinks and is engulfed by its neighbours. Part of this process involves destruction of the nucleus. A factor involved in nuclear destruction has now been identified. Known as Acinus, it adds an extra level of complexity to what we know about digestion of nuclear DNA, because it seems to act without a DNA-digesting (DNase) activity.

    • Naoufal Zamzami
    • Guido Kroemer
    News & Views

  • This week's project for the DREADCO organization is the genetic engineering of seaweed to grow on ice. The bold ecological purpose behind the project is to cover polar ice shelves with weed, so reducing their rate of melting and contribution to rising sea levels.

    • David Jones
    News & Views
Top of page ⤴

Brief Communication

Top of page ⤴

Article

Top of page ⤴

Letter

Top of page ⤴
Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links