Opinion

Gathering the evidence on medical marijuana p613

The US Supreme Court has been hearing arguments about whether states that have legalized the medical use of marijuana are in breach of federal law. But medical agencies engaged in its clinical testing should not be deterred from their work.

doi:10.1038/35070729

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E-access to science p613

Introducing a forum on the future of primary scientific publishing.

doi:10.1038/35070731

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News

Experts clash over likely impact of cheap AIDS drugs in Africa p615

Meredith Wadman

doi:10.1038/35070733

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Farmer fined for growing GM seed p615

David Spurgeon

doi:10.1038/35070736

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Criticism mounts as Bush backs out of Kyoto accord p616

Mark Schrope

doi:10.1038/35070738

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Climate change transforms island ecosystem p616

Peter Pockley

doi:10.1038/35070741

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Fears of cults and kooks push Congress towards cloning ban p617

Paul Smaglik

doi:10.1038/35070744

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Bush appoints venture capitalist as technology adviser p617

Irwin Goodwin

doi:10.1038/35070748

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Madrid quakes as Barcelona shows ambition p618

Xavier Bosch

doi:10.1038/35070751

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Primate centre promises insight into ape research p618

Nina Schnapp

doi:10.1038/35070754

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Ecologists score victory over controversial dyke project p619

David Cyranoski

doi:10.1038/35070757

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Network boost for southeast Europe p619

Quirin Schiermeier

doi:10.1038/35070760

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Indian rocket fizzles out as test launch fails to fly p619

K. S. Jayaraman

doi:10.1038/35070762

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news in brief p620

doi:10.1038/35070765

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news feature

Can they rebuild us? p622

The idea of therapeutic cloning, which offers the potential of growing replacement tissues perfectly matched to their recipients, is falling from favour. But there are alternatives, as Peter Aldhous found out.

Peter Aldhous

doi:10.1038/35070659

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A tortured tale of supply and demand p624

Joanna Downer

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Breaking the nuclear taboo p626

Despite public fears, nuclear-powered spacecraft are back on the agenda. Tony Reichhardt looks into the latest plans for planetary exploration.

Tony Reichhardt

doi:10.1038/35070668

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Correspondence

EU will gain from funding eastern European centres of excellence p627

Simeon Anguelov, (former Bulgarian ambassador to France), Norbert Kroo, Pierre Lasserre and Pierre Papon

doi:10.1038/35070672

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Spain is a closed culture to foreign researchers p627

Simon Pickin

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Commentary

Cultures of knowledge p629

Europe can benefit from East–West collaboration rather than globalization.

doi:10.1038/35070769

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Book Reviews

Playing the numbers game p631

How the cost of a can of Coke could help solve the world's population crisis.

Norman Myers reviews Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population and Population and Climate Change by Brian C. O'Neill, F. Landis MacKellar and Wolfgang Lutz

doi:10.1038/35070625

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A scientist to count on p632

W. Timothy Gowers reviews The Hilbert Challenge: A Perspective on Twentieth-Century Mathematics by Jeremy J. Gray

doi:10.1038/35070628

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New in paperback p632

doi:10.1038/35070630

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Going one better than nature? p633

John Emsley reviews Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food by Vaclav Smil

doi:10.1038/35070632

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Science in culture p634

Horace Freeland Judson reviews

doi:10.1038/35070636

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words

Heavenly phenomena p635

How an astronomer's words were transformed into a citation classic.

Euan Nisbet

doi:10.1038/35070676

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concepts

Why rename things? p637

Ralph A. Lewin

doi:10.1038/35070679

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News and Views

Climate and amphibian declines p639

Various reasons have been proposed for the falling numbers of amphibians in many parts of the world. Changing climate is likely to be a key factor — but with complicated links to the immediate causes of these population declines.

J. Alan Pounds

doi:10.1038/35070683

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Cardiovascular biology: Hearts and bones p640

The idea of repairing damaged heart tissue with donated cells is an old one, but finding cells that can do the job has been frustrating. The solution may come from a select group of bone marrow cells.

Mark Sussman

doi:10.1038/35070687

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100 and 50 years ago p641

doi:10.1038/35070690

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Materials science: Rapid alloy assessment p643

Combinatorial approaches provide a way of swiftly analysing huge numbers of samples. They are now being used to test the structural properties of materials, such as hardness and elasticity.

Robert W. Cahn

doi:10.1038/35070692

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Acoustics: In a fly's ear p644

Organisms often identify the source of a sound by comparing the noises that arrive at the two ears. Using some interesting tricks, a minute fly has mastered this feat as accurately as humans.

Peter M. Narins

doi:10.1038/35070695

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Physical chemistry: Molecules at the edge p645

Ultrafast observations of fluid interfaces show that the way molecules interact at these junctions is both structurally and dynamically different from interactions in the bulk liquid.

Peter J. Rossky

doi:10.1038/35070698

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Materials science: Turbulent creep p647

Josette Chen

doi:10.1038/35070701

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Cell biology: Channelling calcium p648

Rises in the level of calcium ions inside cells are key biological signals. A long-sought protein involved in the 'store-operated' process by which calcium ions enter cells has now been identified.

James W. Putney, Jr

doi:10.1038/35070704

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Global change: Time, money and tradeoffs p649

Measurement of the total emissions of greenhouse gases implies specifying 'tradeoffs' of one against another, as in the Kyoto Protocol. In that process, economics has to be taken into account.

David F. Bradford

doi:10.1038/35070707

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Daedalus: Warping space p650

David Jones

doi:10.1038/35070710

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Brief Communications

Enigmatic northern plains of Mars p651

A network of ridges in this region opens a new tectonic window onto this planet.

Paul Withers and Gregory A. Neumann

doi:10.1038/35070640

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Food-web dynamics: Animal nitrogen swap for plant carbon p651

John N. Klironomos and Miranda M. Hart

doi:10.1038/35070643

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (399K)

Power laws: Are hospital waiting lists self-regulating? p652

D. P. Smethurst and H. C. Williams

doi:10.1038/35070647

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (138K)

Materials science: The hardest known oxide p653

L. S. Dubrovinsky, N. A. Dubrovinskaia, V. Swamy, J. Muscat, N. M. Harrison, R. Ahuja, B. Holm and B. Johansson

doi:10.1038/35070650

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (332K)

Article

Invariant scaling relations across tree-dominated communities p655

Brian J. Enquist and Karl J. Niklas

doi:10.1038/35070500

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (410K) | Supplementary information

Letters to Nature

Stable methane hydrate above 2 GPa and the source of Titan's atmospheric methane p661

J. S. Loveday, R. J. Nelmes, M. Guthrie, S. A. Belmonte, D. R. Allan, D. D. Klug, J. S. Tse and Y. P. Handa

doi:10.1038/35070513

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (158K)

A thermodynamic connection to the fragility of glass-forming liquids p663

L.-M. Martinez and C. A. Angell

doi:10.1038/35070517

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (279K)

Intermittent dislocation flow in viscoplastic deformation p667

M.-Carmen Miguel, Alessandro Vespignani, Stefano Zapperi, Jérôme Weiss and Jean-Robert Grasso

doi:10.1038/35070524

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (260K) | Supplementary information

See also: News and Views by Chen

Varied pore organization in mesostructured semiconductors based on the [SnSe₄]^4- anion p671

Pantelis N. Trikalitis, K. Kasthuri Rangan, Thomas Bakas and Mercouri G. Kanatzidis

doi:10.1038/35070533

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (657K)

An alternative approach to establishing trade-offs among greenhouse gases p675

Alan S. Manne and Richard G. Richels

doi:10.1038/35070541

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (137K)

See also: News and Views by Bradford

Coupled major and trace elements as indicators of the extent of melting in mid-ocean-ridge peridotites p677

Eric Hellebrand, Jonathan E. Snow, Henry J. B. Dick and Albrecht W. Hofmann

doi:10.1038/35070546

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (174K)

Complex causes of amphibian population declines p681

Joseph M. Kiesecker, Andrew R. Blaustein and Lisa K. Belden

doi:10.1038/35070552

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (169K)

See also: News and Views by Pounds

Towards a resolution of the lek paradox p684

Janne S. Kotiaho, Leigh W. Simmons and Joseph L. Tomkins

doi:10.1038/35070557

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (151K)

Hyperacute directional hearing in a microscale auditory system p686

Andrew C. Mason, Michael L. Oshinsky and Ron R. Hoy

doi:10.1038/35070564

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (263K)

See also: News and Views by Narins

Motion direction, speed and orientation in binocular matching p690

Raymond van Ee and Barton L. Anderson

doi:10.1038/35070569

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (366K)

The homeobox gene lim-6 is required for distinct chemosensory representations in C. elegans p694

Jonathan T. Pierce-Shimomura, Serge Faumont, Michelle R. Gaston, Bret J. Pearson and Shawn R. Lockery

doi:10.1038/35070575

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (645K)

C. elegans odour discrimination requires asymmetric diversity in olfactory neurons p698

Paul D. Wes and Cornelia I. Bargmann

doi:10.1038/35070581

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (298K)

Bone marrow cells regenerate infarcted myocardium p701

Donald Orlic, Jan Kajstura, Stefano Chimenti, Igor Jakoniuk, Stacie M. Anderson, Baosheng Li, James Pickel, Ronald McKay, Bernardo Nadal-Ginard, David M. Bodine, Annarosa Leri and Piero Anversa

doi:10.1038/35070587

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (507K) | Supplementary information

See also: News and Views by Sussman

CaT1 manifests the pore properties of the calcium-release-activated calcium channel p705

Lixia Yue, Ji-Bin Peng, Matthias A. Hediger and David E. Clapham

doi:10.1038/35070596

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (380K)

See also: News and Views by Putney

IKK controls formation of the epidermis independently of NF-B p710

Yinling Hu, Veronique Baud, Takefumi Oga, Keun Il Kim, Kazuhiko Yoshida and Michael Karin

doi:10.1038/35070605

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (440K) | Supplementary information

Functional proteins from a random-sequence library p715

Anthony D. Keefe and Jack W. Szostak

doi:10.1038/35070613

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (143K) | Supplementary information

correction: The limits of selection during maize domestication p718

Rong-Lin Wang, Adrian Stec, Jody Hey, Lewis Lukens and John Doebley

doi:10.1038/35070620

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erratum: Scabrous complexes with Notch to mediate boundary formation p718

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

doi:10.1038/35070623

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New on the Market

Going by the book p719

A heavy representation of catalogues in this week's selection.

doi:10.1038/35070654

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Careers and Recruitment

Increase in protein analysis pushes demand for synchrotron operators p721

From biology to physics, synchrotrons offer a bright future to users and specialists alike, says Helen Gavaghan.

Helen Gavaghan

doi:10.1038/35070712

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What is a synchrotron? p722

Helen Gavaghan

doi:10.1038/35070715

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Automated for the people p722

Paul Smaglik

doi:10.1038/35070718

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US structural genomics effort needs physicists for success p723

Paul Smaglik

doi:10.1038/35070720

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Wages may make it hard to attract scientists to synchrotrons p723

Paul Smaglik

doi:10.1038/35070722

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Staffing shortage threatens Japan's structural genomics p724

Robert Triendl

doi:10.1038/35070725

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NMR versus synchrotron radiation p724

Robert Triendl

doi:10.1038/35070727

Full Text | PDF (97K)