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 405 Issue 6783, 11 May 2000

Opinion

  • As the final polish is given to two versions of the human genome sequence, tensions between the competing camps are inevitably high. But excited banter could be damaging to both if it gets out of hand.

    Opinion

    Advertisement

Top of page ⤴

News

  • London

    The scientific paper cited in a row in South Africa over the efficacy of the anti-HIV drug AZT was published to stimulate public debate rather than as an endorsement of its conclusions, according to the editor of the journal in which it appeared.

    • Natasha Loder
    News

  • Paris

    France's new minister of research has promised that the government will substantially increase its support for research in information technology and biotechnology.

    • Heather McCabe
    News

  • Munich

    The Greens, the junior partner in Germany's ruling coalition, are urging the government to slam the breaks on nuclear fusion research.

    • Quirin Schiermeier
    News

  • Washington

    Canadian neutron scientists fear that an ambitious plan to build a world-class neutron scattering facility could collapse unless approval to build it is forthcoming from the government this year.

    • Colin Macilwain
    News

  • Washington

    The Clinton administration has announced a series of regulatory changes and research proposals intended to bolster public confidence in the government's oversight of genetically-modified food.

    • Colin Macilwain
    News

  • Munich

    Italy's new government has left intact a plan launched by its predecessor to launch strategic research programmes in genomics and neuroscience.

    • Alison Abbott
    News

  • Jerusalem

    Israel's science ministry is considering whether to apply to become a full member of the European Laboratory for Particle Physics.

    • Haim Watzman
    News

  • Washington

    The US Department of Energy has agreed to provide more funds for the building of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

    • Colin Macilwain
    News

  • San Francisco

    Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California has reached a provisional settlement with a group of employees over a suit claiming invasion of privacy related in genetic and other medical testing.

    • Sally Lehrman
    News

  • Sydney

    The Australian Institute of Marine Science is to be upgraded, following a glowing review of the institute's work by Australia's chief scientist.

    • Peter Pockley
    News
Top of page ⤴

News in Brief

Top of page ⤴

News Feature

Top of page ⤴

Correspondence

Top of page ⤴

Commentary

  • Large, sophisticated databases cannot be left to chance and improvisation.

    • Stephen M. Maurer
    • Richard B. Firestone
    • Charles R. Scriver
    Commentary
Top of page ⤴

Book Review

Top of page ⤴

Millennium Essay

  • The millennium of the horse began with a whimper, but went out with a bang.

    • Vaclav Smil
    Millennium Essay
Top of page ⤴

Futures

  • For his biology project, Jason decided to resurrect the passenger pigeon.

    • Kathryn Cramer
    Futures
Top of page ⤴

News & Views

  • Many solvents are unpleasant but essential industrial chemicals. Supercritical carbon dioxide would be a viable ‘green’ alternative but its use has been restricted by its limited solvent power. This is about to change.

    • Walter Leitner
    News & Views

  • The mammalian ear uses two types of hair cell, inner and outer, to detect sound-induced vibrations. The outer hair cells convert vibrations into electrical signals, and then convert these signals into changes in cell length. The motor protein responsible for this response has now been identified, opening the way to greater understanding of hearing.

    • Matthew Holley
    News & Views

  • Einstein told us that gravity could bend light. Astronomers now use an effect known as gravitational lensing to observe images of galaxies distorted by dark matter. Such images can be used to estimate the amount of dark matter in the Universe.

    • Max Tegmark
    News & Views

  • Hybrids between fungal pathogens of plants seem to be arising with increasing frequency. The most recently described example is a cross between two species of rust fungus that can attack poplar trees bred for commercial purposes.

    • Clive Brasier
    News & Views

  • The motion of three particles on a ring should be easy to model. But the behaviour of such a simple system is not ergodic — that is, it cannot be assumed that the system will always sample its ‘phase space’ in the same way.

    • Michael F. Shlesinger
    News & Views

  • DNA methylation has been associated with genes that are ‘silenced’ through their failure to be transcribed into RNA, so methylation is thought to be involved in silencing. But the identification in plants of a protein that silences foreign genes without affecting their methylation suggests that the two processes can be separated.

    • Susan Tweedie
    • Adrian Bird
    News & Views

  • Last week's innovation was the ‘Wink’ range of inks and paints that oscillate in brightness. Daedalus now takes the principle a step further, using spatial variation in brightness to produce camouflage for military vehicles and cunning flicker-field advertisements.

    • David Jones
    News & Views
Top of page ⤴

Erratum

Top of page ⤴

Brief Communication

Top of page ⤴

Article

Top of page ⤴

Letter

Top of page ⤴

Foreword

Top of page ⤴

Overview

Top of page ⤴

Review Article

Top of page ⤴

Corporate Support

Top of page ⤴

New on the Market

  • Aids to DNA synthesis,repair, amplification and the rest.

    New on the Market
Top of page ⤴

Careers and Recruitment

Top of page ⤴

Insight

  • The Earth's biodiversity - the sum total of all biotic variation from the level of genes to ecosystems - is being lost at an unprecedented rate. This broad-ranging Collection of reviews focuses on the science of biodiversity, covering the underlying concepts, pure and applied research, and biodiversity loss from the human perspective.

    Insight
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