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 6751, 23 September 1999

Opinion

  • Advertisement

  • A survey has revealed that many Japanese researchers are disconnected from the outside world. Their institutions can help.

    Opinion
Top of page ⤴

News

  • PARIS

    Journals produced by not-for-profit organizations are in general better value for money than those from commercial publishers, according to a study by the University of Wisconsin.

    • Declan Butler
    News
  • TOKYO

    Japan's science and technology-related budget is due to receive a substantial increase in the next fiscal year, thanks primarily to a new government move to promote various high-tech industries.

    • Asako Saegusa
    News
  • PARIS

    French science is to see a modest 1.3 per cent cash increase in funding next year, although this includes a significant increase in funds directly controlled by the Ministry of Research.

    • Heather McCabe
    News
  • WASHINGTON

    The US Senate has moved to restore cuts proposed by the House of Representatives in next year's budget for the space agency NASA and the National Science Foundation.

    • Colin Macilwain
    News
  • TOKYO

    Japanese researchers should make more effort to publish in international science journals and communicate with foreign researchers, according to the results of a survey released last week.

    • Asako Saegusa
    News
  • TOKYO

    The latest images from Subaru, one of the world's largest optical telescopes, were unveiled last week by Japan's National Astronomical Observatory to celebrate the completion of the 8.3 meter telescope.

    • Asako Saegusa
    News
  • SAN DIEGO

    The US Department of Energy is launching a major investigation into how this might be achieved by sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide in the ocean or terrestrial ecosystems.

    • Rex Dalton
    News
  • MUNICH

    Publicly funded research at Germany's six largest science and history museums is to be cut next year by at least 7.5 per cent.

    • Quirin Schiermeier
    News
  • SHEFFIELD

    Eight British universities are to set up 'centres of enterprise' to provide them with a focus for exploiting their research and transferring ideas to the private sector.

    • Natasha Loder
    News
Top of page ⤴

News Analysis

  • Research in Portugal has grown apace over the past decade, and the government is reviewing its achievements, problems and prospects.

    • Xavier Bosch
    News Analysis
Top of page ⤴

News in Brief

Top of page ⤴

Correspondence

Top of page ⤴

Commentary

  • Governments could safeguard the world's biodiversity with a small fraction of the money they spend on environmentally harmful subsidies.

    • Alexander N. James
    • Kevin J. Gaston
    • Andrew Balmford
    Commentary
Top of page ⤴

Book Review

Top of page ⤴

Millennium Essay

Top of page ⤴

News & Views

  • An apparent discrepancy between two independent distance measurements to a faraway glalaxy may lead to a revised value for the age of the Universe. The latest distance estimate is based on the discovery of large variable stars -- known as Cepheids -- in this galaxy. But the blending effects caused by images of Cepheids being mixed with other stars may provide a solution to the distance problem.

    • Bohdan Paczynski
    News & Views
  • When certain fungi infect grasses and cereals, they develop a specialized structure called the appressorium. This microscopic structure inflates on the surface of the grass leaf, then generates enough force to push through its cuticle and cell wall to tap the juices within. The development of a technique to measure the forces generated by the appressorium should help in understanding how this infection platform works.

    • Nicholas P. Money
    News & Views
  • An explanation of high-temperature superconductivity in the copper oxides has been more elusive than for conventional superconductivity -- in which crystal lattice vibrations help bind electrons into pairs. The search for a different type of pairing mechanism for the copper oxides is revealing that an excitation of the electrons themselves may provide the glue.

    • Joe Orenstein
    News & Views
  • Many birth defects are caused by chromosomal insertions or deletions. The most common deletion syndrome in humans is DiGeorge syndrome, one of the symptoms of which is congenital heart disease. DiGeorge syndrome was thought to be caused by deletion of just one gene, but the results of a targeted-deletion study indicate that more than one gene is likely to be affected.

    • Peter J. Scambler
    News & Views
  • In contrast to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Indian Ocean has seemed to manifest little coherent behaviour in the variability of such parameters as water temperature and rainfall. Now, however, two studies identify a so-called dipole mode in which the distribution of ocean temperature can be related to rainfall patterns in east Africa and Indonesia.

    • David Anderson
    News & Views
  • People with mutations in either of two proteins known as polycystin-1 and polycystin-2 develop polycystic kidney disease. Studies on the nematode worm and the frogXenopus laevisare now helping researchers to work out the normal functions of these proteins. It seems that polycystin-1-related proteins act as receptors, which regulate the activity of channels containing polycystin-2-related proteins.

    • Scott W. Emmons
    • Stefan Somlo
    News & Views
  • Sperm competition has been held responsible for higher sperm production in males with a sexual rival. DREADCO biochemists are hoping to exploit this fact to create a 'conceptive' to help couples trying to conceive. Careful studies of sperm competition between different races may even produce a new map of human evolution.

    • David Jones
    News & Views
Top of page ⤴

Brief Communication

Top of page ⤴

Article

Top of page ⤴

Letter

Top of page ⤴

New on the Market

  • Meet Noggin, and get some wheels for your glassware.

    New on the Market
Top of page ⤴

Careers and Recruitment

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

Quick links