Table of contents
Volume 409 Number 6820 pp545-647
Opinion
Post-genomic cultures p545
Like it or not, big biology is here to stay.
doi:10.1038/35054677
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
News
Hughes institute will put down roots to develop research tools p547
Colin Macilwain
doi:10.1038/35054679
Ethics watchdog to oversee drugs trials in Third World p547
Matthew Davis
doi:10.1038/35054682
Weapons labs escape FBI action p548
Irwin Goodwin
doi:10.1038/35054684
Journal will publish accused scientist's work p548
Rex Dalton
doi:10.1038/35054687
Canada pours funds into health research p549
David Spurgeon
doi:10.1038/35054690
BSE crisis sinks German public biotech programme p549
Regina Krammer
Poor coordination 'wastes US research into global change' p550
Mark Schrope
doi:10.1038/35054696
Bank raids malaria centre in dispute over landlord's debt p550
Xavier Bosch
doi:10.1038/35054698
Designer rice to combat diet deficiencies makes its debut p551
Quirin Schiermeier
doi:10.1038/35054702
Commercial sector scores success with whole rice genome p551
David Dickson and David Cyranoski
doi:10.1038/35054705
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
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
Correspondence
Changing patent laws could be a healthy move to combat resistance p558
Terry Nicholls
doi:10.1038/35054713
We need both computer models and experiments p558
Daniel Fischer, David Baker and John Moult
doi:10.1038/35054715
Why Pauling didn't solve the structure of DNA p558
Jim Lake
doi:10.1038/35054717
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
Getting the point across p560
John Galloway reviews Acupuncture: Efficacy, Safety and Practice
doi:10.1038/35054620
New in paperback p561
doi:10.1038/35054623
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
Science in culture p562
Alison Abbott reviews
doi:10.1038/35054628
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
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
Fluid dynamics: That sinking feeling p568
Michael P. Brenner and Peter J. Mucha
doi:10.1038/35054641
100 and 50 Years ago p569
doi:10.1038/35054644
Functional genomics: Silent genes given voice p571
Athel Cornish-Bowden and María Luz Cárdenas
doi:10.1038/35054646
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
New on the Market
The subtleties of spin p647
A page of the latest centrifuges and centrifuge accessories.
doi:10.1038/35054671