Table of contents
Volume 404 Number 6777 pp421-525
Opinion
A squandered opportunity p421
The sacking of France's science and education minister was unavoidable. His successor would do well to take on board some of Claude Allègre's goals, but also to learn from his mistakes in reforming French and European research.
doi:10.1038/35006695
News
Safety concerns force NASA to condemn satellite to fiery end p423
Tony Reichhardt
doi:10.1038/35006697
Software error 'caused Mars lander crash' p423
Tony Reichhardt
doi:10.1038/35006700
German researchers seek legal backing for stem cell work p424
Alison Abbott
doi:10.1038/35006702
Balance is returning after US biotechnology shares scare p424
Meredith Wadman
doi:10.1038/35006705
The worm's turn to claim Internet fame p425
Declan Butler
doi:10.1038/35006708
Radical changes urged for Spanish universities p425
Xavier Bosch
doi:10.1038/35006711
Modified reforms end two years of deadlock at CNRS p426
Heather McCabe
doi:10.1038/35006714
Giant tortoises come home p426
Natasha Loder
doi:10.1038/35006716
Is starting simple the path to complexity? p427
Paul Smaglik
doi:10.1038/35006719
India and US bring collaboration out of the freezer p427
K. S. Jayaraman
doi:10.1038/35006722
Chemists 'volunteered for nerve gas tests' p428
Natasha Loder
doi:10.1038/35006724
Cuts may force cancellation of Austrian research grants p429
Quirin Schiermeier
doi:10.1038/35006727
Correspondence
Local farmers would be able to feed Africa if they were given the chance p431
Willy H. Verhye
doi:10.1038/35006732
Ancient Chinese had their fingers on the pulse p431
P.-L. Chau
doi:10.1038/35006734
No pie in the sky, thanks p431
Brian Charlesworth
doi:10.1038/35006736
Book Reviews
Scientist, social reformer, soldier, spy p433
From a Massachusetts farm to the court of England's George III, and beyond.
John Meurig Thomas reviews Count Rumford: The Extraordinary Life of a Scientific Genius by G. I. Brown
doi:10.1038/35006501
Fingering the brain's past p434
Ian Glynn reviews Minds Behind the Brain: A History of the Pioneers and Their Discoveries by Stanley Finger
doi:10.1038/35006504
Before the great binary divide p434
Bruce Mazlish reviews Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution by Lisa Jardine
doi:10.1038/35006507
Ill-served inventions p435
David Jones reviews The Greatest Inventions of the Past 2000 Years
doi:10.1038/35006510
At one with nature p436
doi:10.1038/35006512
A view of figures through the ages p436
Ludmilla Jordanova reviews The Human Body: Image and Emotion by I. Philippe Comar
doi:10.1038/35006515
Millennium Essay
The Big Bang and the genetic code p437
Gamow, a prankster and physicist, thought of them first
Gino Segrè
doi:10.1038/35006517
Futures
Eternal verities, eternal questions p439
How our ancestors reconciled themselves to eternal life
Ben Bova
doi:10.1038/35006520
News and Views
Survival of the clearest p441
There are no fossils to show how language evolved. But evolutionary game theory is revealing how some of the defining features of human language could have been shaped by natural selection.
Steven Pinker
doi:10.1038/35006523
Genome sequencing: A view of Mount Drosophila p442
Jonathan Hodgkin
doi:10.1038/35006526
X-ray astronomy: Peeking into the obscured Universe p443
Günther Hasinger
doi:10.1038/35006529
100 and 50 years ago p445
doi:10.1038/35006532
Ecology: Bats about the Arctic p446
Peter D. Moore
doi:10.1038/35006534
Nuclear physics: Doubly magic nickel p447
Philip Walker
doi:10.1038/35006537
Enzymology: Not just an active site p449
David W. Banner
doi:10.1038/35006540
Superfluidity: A new twist to an old story p450
George Pickett
doi:10.1038/35006543
Bacterial genomics: ABC of meningococcal diversity p451
Ian M. Feavers
doi:10.1038/35006546
Particle physics: Backyard exotica p452
Frank Wilczek
doi:10.1038/35006549
Ancient DNA: Neanderthal population genetics p453
Matthias Höss
doi:10.1038/35006551
Daedalus: Direct illumination p454
David Jones
doi:10.1038/35006553
Brief Communications
Finger-length ratios and sexual orientation p455
Measuring people's finger patterns may reveal some surprising information.
Terrance J. Williams, Michelle E. Pepitone, Scott E. Christensen, Bradley M. Cooke, Andrew D. Huberman, Nicholas J. Breedlove, Tessa J. Breedlove, Cynthia L. Jordan and S. Marc Breedlove
doi:10.1038/35006555
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (109K)
Drosophila cryptochromes: A unique circadian-rhythm photoreceptor p456
Patrick Emery, Ralf Stanewsky, Jeffrey C. Hall and Michael Rosbash
doi:10.1038/35006558
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (155K)
Structural colour: Colour mixing in wing scales of a butterfly p457
P. Vukusic, J. R. Sambles and C. R. Lawrence
doi:10.1038/35006561
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (132K)
Articles
Resolving the extragalactic hard X-ray background p459
R. F. Mushotzky, L. L. Cowie, A. J. Barger and K. A. Arnaud
doi:10.1038/35006564
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (300K)
See also: News and Views by Hasinger
Peptide exosite inhibitors of factor VIIa as anticoagulants p465
Mark S. Dennis, Charles Eigenbrot, Nicholas J. Skelton, Mark H. Ultsch, Lydia Santell, Mary A. Dwyer, Mark P. O'Connell and Robert A. Lazarus
doi:10.1038/35006574
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (298K)
See also: News and Views by Banner
Letters to Nature
Double-quantum vortex in superfluid 3He-A p471
R. Blaauwgeers, V. B. Eltsov, M. Krusius, J. J. Ruohio, R. Schanen and G. E. Volovik
doi:10.1038/35006583
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (366K)
See also: News and Views by Pickett
Imaging of localized electronic states in the quantum Hall regime p473
N. B. Zhitenev, T. A. Fulton, A. Yacoby, H. F. Hess, L. N. Pfeiffer and K. W. West
doi:10.1038/35006591
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (364K)
Anisotropic spinodal dewetting as a route to self-assembly of patterned surfaces p476
A. M. Higgins and R. A. L. Jones
doi:10.1038/35006597
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (245K)
A soluble and air-stable organic semiconductor with high electron mobility p478
H. E. Katz, A. J. Lovinger, J. Johnson, C. Kloc, T. Siegrist, W. Li, Y.-Y. Lin and A. Dodabalapur
doi:10.1038/35006603
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (265K)
Molecular-scale interface engineering for polymer light-emitting diodes p481
Peter K. H. Ho, Ji-Seon Kim, Jeremy H. Burroughes, Heinrich Becker, Sam F. Y. Li, Thomas M. Brown, Franco Cacialli and Richard H. Friend
doi:10.1038/35006610
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (277K)
Effect of climate change relative to ozone depletion on UV exposure in subarctic lakes p484
Reinhard Pienitz and Warwick F. Vincent
doi:10.1038/35006616
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (378K)
Hf–Nd isotope evidence for a transient dynamic regime in the early terrestrial mantle p488
Francis Albarède, Janne Blichert-Toft, Jeffrey D. Vervoort, James D. Gleason and Minik Rosing
doi:10.1038/35006621
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (156K)
Molecular analysis of Neanderthal DNA from the northern Caucasus p490
Igor V. Ovchinnikov, Anders Götherström, Galina P. Romanova, Vitaliy M. Kharitonov, Kerstin Lidén and William Goodwin
doi:10.1038/35006625
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (180K)
See also: News and Views by Höss
Pervasive density-dependent recruitment enhances seedling diversity in a tropical forest p493
Kyle E. Harms, S. Joseph Wright, Osvaldo Calderón, Andrés Hernández and Edward Allen Herre
doi:10.1038/35006630
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (141K)
The evolution of syntactic communication p495
Martin A. Nowak, Joshua B. Plotkin and Vincent A. A. Jansen
doi:10.1038/35006635
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (184K)
See also: News and Views by Pinker
Glutamate spillover suppresses inhibition by activating presynaptic mGluRs p498
Simon J. Mitchell and R. Angus Silver
doi:10.1038/35006649
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (692K)
Complete DNA sequence of a serogroup A strain of Neisseria meningitidis Z2491 p502
J. Parkhill, M. Achtman, K. D. James, S. D. Bentley, C. Churcher, S. R. Klee, G. Morelli, D. Basham, D. Brown, T. Chillingworth, R. M. Davies, P. Davis, K. Devlin, T. Feltwell, N. Hamlin, S. Holroyd, K. Jagels, S. Leather, S. Moule, K. Mungall, M. A. Quail, M.-A. Rajandream, K. M. Rutherford, M. Simmonds, J. Skelton, S. Whitehead, B. G. Spratt and B. G. Barrell
doi:10.1038/35006655
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (1,046K) | Supplementary information
See also: News and Views by Feavers
The duration of antigen receptor signalling determines CD4+ versus CD8+ T-cell lineage fate p506
Koji Yasutomo, Carolyn Doyle, Lucio Miele and Ronald N. Germain
doi:10.1038/35006664
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (419K)
DNA repair protein Ku80 suppresses chromosomal aberrations and malignant transformation p510
Michael J. Difilippantonio, Jie Zhu, Hua Tang Chen, Eric Meffre, Michel C. Nussenzweig, Edward E. Max, Thomas Ried and André Nussenzweig
doi:10.1038/35006670
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (331K)
Yeast Sm-like proteins function in mRNA decapping and decay p515
Sundaresan Tharun, Weihai He, Andrew E. Mayes, Pascal Lennertz, Jean D. Beggs and Roy Parker
doi:10.1038/35006676
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (428K)
Structural basis for the anticoagulant activity of the thrombin–thrombomodulin complex p518
Pablo Fuentes-Prior, Yoriko Iwanaga, Robert Huber, Rene Pagila, Galina Rumennik, Marian Seto, John Morser, David R. Light and Wolfram Bode
doi:10.1038/35006683
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (797K)
See also: News and Views by Banner
correction: The thymine glycosylase MBD4 can bind to the product of deamination at methylated CpG sites p525
Brian Hendrich, Ulrike Hardeland, Huck-Hui Ng, Josef Jiricny and Adrian Bird
doi:10.1038/35006691
erratum: DNA-bound structures and mutants reveal abasic DNA binding by APE1 and DNA repair coordination p525
Clifford D. Mol, Tadahide Izumi, Sankar Mitra and John A. Tainer
doi:10.1038/35006693
