Opinion

Post-genomic cultures p545

Like it or not, big biology is here to stay.

doi:10.1038/35054677

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Greece should abandon a short-sighted policy p545

The Greek government's research funding originated in an era of support from the European Union that is coming to an end. The country's potential deserves a much greater focus on fundamental research.

doi:10.1038/35054719

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News

Hughes institute will put down roots to develop research tools p547

Colin Macilwain

doi:10.1038/35054679

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Ethics watchdog to oversee drugs trials in Third World p547

Matthew Davis

doi:10.1038/35054682

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Weapons labs escape FBI action p548

Irwin Goodwin

doi:10.1038/35054684

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Journal will publish accused scientist's work p548

Rex Dalton

doi:10.1038/35054687

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Canada pours funds into health research p549

David Spurgeon

doi:10.1038/35054690

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BSE crisis sinks German public biotech programme p549

Regina Krammer

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Poor coordination 'wastes US research into global change' p550

Mark Schrope

doi:10.1038/35054696

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Bank raids malaria centre in dispute over landlord's debt p550

Xavier Bosch

doi:10.1038/35054698

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Designer rice to combat diet deficiencies makes its debut p551

Quirin Schiermeier

doi:10.1038/35054702

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Commercial sector scores success with whole rice genome p551

David Dickson and David Cyranoski

doi:10.1038/35054705

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news in brief p552

doi:10.1038/35054707

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news feature

Taming Africa's killer lake p554

An international team of scientists and engineers is in Cameroon to begin 'degassing' Lake Nyos, scene of a 1986 natural disaster in which a cloud of carbon dioxide killed more than 1,700 people. Tom Clarke assesses the risks and benefits.

Tom Clarke

doi:10.1038/35054609

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Digital history p556

Some historians of science are moving away from the traditional image of lone scholars poring over ancient manuscripts. Alison Abbott talks to one of history's digital pioneers.

Alison Abbott

doi:10.1038/35054613

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Correspondence

Changing patent laws could be a healthy move to combat resistance p558

Terry Nicholls

doi:10.1038/35054713

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We need both computer models and experiments p558

Daniel Fischer, David Baker and John Moult

doi:10.1038/35054715

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Why Pauling didn't solve the structure of DNA p558

Jim Lake

doi:10.1038/35054717

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Book Reviews

Food for thought . . . and action p559

Dick Taverne reviews Pandora's Picnic Basket: The Potential and Hazards of Genetically Modified Foods by Alan McHughen and Food's Frontier: The Next Green Revolution by Richard Manning

doi:10.1038/35054617

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Getting the point across p560

John Galloway reviews Acupuncture: Efficacy, Safety and Practice

doi:10.1038/35054620

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New in paperback p561

doi:10.1038/35054623

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Legacy of a flying tamping iron p561

Ian Glynn reviews An Odd Kind of Fame: Stories of Phineas Gage by Malcolm Macmillan

doi:10.1038/35054625

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Science in culture p562

Alison Abbott reviews

doi:10.1038/35054628

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words

Back to the future from 1888 p563

One writer's vision of a technological utopia has stood the test of time.

Howard P. Segal

doi:10.1038/35054631

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concepts

A never-ending story p565

Peter D. Moore

doi:10.1038/35054634

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (425K)

News and Views

Fusion needs more than SNAREs p567

Force biological membranes close enough together and they will fuse. SNARE proteins are well suited to force proximity. But biochemical studies of yeast show that proximity is not the only requirement.

Wolfhard Almers

doi:10.1038/35054637

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Fluid dynamics: That sinking feeling p568

Michael P. Brenner and Peter J. Mucha

doi:10.1038/35054641

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100 and 50 Years ago p569

doi:10.1038/35054644

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Functional genomics: Silent genes given voice p571

Athel Cornish-Bowden and María Luz Cárdenas

doi:10.1038/35054646

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Solid-state optics: A laser that turns down the heat p572

An intense laser beam might be expected to cut, burn or blast anything in its path. But at the right wavelength and with a suitable target material, laser light can also chill.

Garry Rumbles

doi:10.1038/35054649

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Structural biology: Pumping DNA p573

Crystal structures of proteins not only shed light on how those proteins work. By revealing previously hidden similarities, they can also force a re-evaluation of what other proteins are predicted to do.

Edward H. Egelman

doi:10.1038/35054652

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Materials science: Ultrafast colour displays p575

Materials that change their colour as a result of a simple electric potential could be key to a new generation of flat-screen displays. But the speed at which they undergo this change of hue has held them back, until now.

Michael Grätzel

doi:10.1038/35054655

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Oceanography: The Rossby rototiller p576

Planetary waves, also known as Rossby waves, propagate throughout the world's oceans on very large scales. They influence the ocean–climate system and also, it seems, the delivery of nutrients to the ocean surface.

David A. Siegel

doi:10.1038/35054659

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Vascular biology: Targeted delivery of nitric oxide p577

Nitric oxide is a biological signalling gas that has been assumed to reach its protein targets by simple random diffusion. The discovery of molecular mechanisms for precise nitric oxide delivery challenges that assumption.

Steven S. Gross

doi:10.1038/35054661

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Brief Communications

A fern that hyperaccumulates arsenic p579

A hardy, versatile, fast-growing plant helps to remove arsenic from contaminated soils.

Lena Q. Ma, Kenneth M. Komar, Cong Tu, Weihua Zhang, Yong Cai and Elizabeth D. Kennelley

doi:10.1038/35054664

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Neuroperception:  Superior auditory spatial tuning in conductors p580

Thomas F. Münte, Christine Kohlmetz, Wido Nager and Eckart Altenmüller

doi:10.1038/35054668

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (157K)

Article

Trans-complex formation by proteolipid channels in the terminal phase of membrane fusion p581

Christopher Peters, Martin J. Bayer, Susanne Bühler, Jens S. Andersen, Matthias Mann and Andreas Mayer

doi:10.1038/35054500

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (315K)

See also: News and Views by Almers

Letters to Nature

Rapid collisional evolution of comets during the formation of the Oort cloud p589

S. Alan Stern and Paul R. Weissman

doi:10.1038/35054508

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (174K)

Two coexisting vortex phases in the peak effect regime in a superconductor p591

M. Marchevsky, M. J. Higgins and S. Bhattacharya

doi:10.1038/35054512

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (234K)

An effective gravitational temperature for sedimentation p594

P. N. Segrè, F. Liu, P. Umbanhowar and D. A. Weitz

doi:10.1038/35054518

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (275K)

See also: News and Views by Brenner & Mucha

Pumping of nutrients to ocean surface waters by the action of propagating planetary waves p597

B. Mete Uz, James A. Yoder and Vladimir Osychny

doi:10.1038/35054527

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (191K)

See also: News and Views by Siegel

Aerogeophysical measurements of collapse-prone hydrothermally altered zones at Mount Rainier volcano p600

Carol A. Finn, Thomas W. Sisson and Maryla Deszcz-Pan

doi:10.1038/35054533

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (262K)

Unexpected diversity of small eukaryotes in deep-sea Antarctic plankton p603

Purificación López-García, Francisco Rodríguez-Valera, Carlos Pedrós-Alió and David Moreira

doi:10.1038/35054537

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (147K)

Oceanic 18S rDNA sequences from picoplankton reveal unsuspected eukaryotic diversity p607

Seung Yeo Moon-van der Staay, Rupert De Wachter and Daniel Vaulot

doi:10.1038/35054541

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (141K)

Parallel adaptive radiations in two major clades of placental mammals p610

Ole Madsen, Mark Scally, Christophe J. Douady, Diana J. Kao, Ronald W. DeBry, Ronald Adkins, Heather M. Amrine, Michael J. Stanhope, Wilfried W. de Jong and Mark S. Springer

doi:10.1038/35054544

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (147K) | Supplementary information

Molecular phylogenetics and the origins of placental mammals p614

William J. Murphy, Eduardo Eizirik, Warren E. Johnson, Ya Ping Zhang, Oliver A. Ryder and Stephen J. O'Brien

doi:10.1038/35054550

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (158K) | Supplementary information

Horsetails and ferns are a monophyletic group and the closest living relatives to seed plants p618

Kathleen M. Pryer, Harald Schneider, Alan R. Smith, Raymond Cranfill, Paul G. Wolf, Jeffrey S. Hunt and Sedonia D. Sipes

doi:10.1038/35054555

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (304K) | Supplementary information

Export by red blood cells of nitric oxide bioactivity p622

John R. Pawloski, Douglas T. Hess and Jonathan S. Stamler

doi:10.1038/35054560

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (188K)

See also: News and Views by Gross

Scabrous complexes with Notch to mediate boundary formation p626

Patricia A. Powell, Cedric Wesley, Susan Spencer and Ross L. Cagan

doi:10.1038/35054566

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (521K)

Polarity controls forces governing asymmetric spindle positioning in the Caenorhabditis elegans embryo p630

Stephan W. Grill, Pierre Gönczy, Ernst H. K. Stelzer and Anthony A. Hyman

doi:10.1038/35054572

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (349K) | Supplementary information

Normal human mammary epithelial cells spontaneously escape senescence and acquire genomic changes p633

Serguei R. Romanov, B. Krystyna Kozakiewicz, Charles R. Holst, Martha R. Stampfer, Larisa M. Haupt and Thea D. Tlsty

doi:10.1038/35054579

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (340K) | Supplementary information

The bacterial conjugation protein TrwB resembles ring helicases and F₁-ATPase p637

F. Xavier Gomis-Rüth, Gabriel Moncalián, Rosa Pérez-Luque, Ana González, Elena Cabezón, Fernando de la Cruz and Miquel Coll

doi:10.1038/35054586

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (567K)

See also: News and Views by Egelman

Three key residues form a critical contact network in a protein folding transition state p641

Michele Vendruscolo, Emanuele Paci, Christopher M. Dobson and Martin Karplus

doi:10.1038/35054591

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (524K) | Supplementary information

Article

erratum A Toll-like receptor recognizes bacterial DNA p646

Hiroaki Hemmi, Osamu Takeuchi, Taro Kawai, Tsuneyasu Kaisho, Shintaro Sato, Hideki Sanjo, Makoto Matsumoto, Katsuaki Hoshino, Hermann Wagner, Kiyoshi Takeda and Shizuo Akira

doi:10.1038/35054604

Full Text | PDF (348K)

New on the Market

The subtleties of spin p647

A page of the latest centrifuges and centrifuge accessories.

doi:10.1038/35054671

Full Text | PDF (204K)