Table of contents
Volume 423 Number 6939 pp465-569
Editorials
Pursuing diversified universities p465
The Australian government's proposed university policy increases competition and market forces in the sector, while raising justified concerns about independence and infrastructure. But the goal of diversifying higher education is appropriate.
Recovering from cultural devastation p465
Leaders of the world's scientific community must act with more speed and determination to help reconstruct Iraq.
News
Virus detectives seek source of SARS in China's wild animals p467
David Cyranoski and Alison Abbott
BSE case rattles Canadian officials p467
Hannah Hoag
Iraqi science faces lonely road to recovery p468
Declan Butler
Anthropologists cast doubt on human DNA evidence p468
Alison Abbott
Experts blast US decision to back nuclear bunker-busters p469
Geoff Brumfiel
Deep-sea sub aims to get to the bottom of a muddy issue p469
Quirin Schiermeier
NASA aims high with orbital transport system p470
Tony Reichhardt
Legal row looms for gene-map firm p470
Rex Dalton
Biologists moot daunting plan to track viruses p471
Jonathan Knight and Alison Abbott
Threat of closure hangs heavy over primate centre p471
Rex Dalton
news feature
Special section on Martian Exploration: Mars attracts! p473
Interest in the red planet is about to peak, as three missions prepare to join the hunt for water and life on one of our closest neighbours.
Jim Giles
Special section on Martian Exploration: Fantastic journeys p474
Early next year, three instrument-laden landers will touch down on Mars. The Japanese craft Nozomi will enter orbit around the planet shortly afterwards. By spring 2004, data on the red planet will be flowing thick and fast.
Special section on martian exploration: Are you on board? p476
The Beagle 2 Mars lander has had some unusual backers — among them British pop stars and artists. Declan Butler finds out how one researcher's publicity drive got the project off the ground.
Declan Butler
Special section on Martian Exploration: The comeback kids p477
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory practically invented planetary exploration. Then, in 1999, it lost two craft in quick succession. Tony Reichhardt meets the staff behind two new Mars rovers, which could restore the lab's reputation.
Tony Reichhardt
Correspondence
Challenging the tyranny of impact factors p479
A recent Commentary aroused a lively debate. In this issue we publish some responses.
David Colquhoun
Editors are meant to be judges, not postmen p479
Bob Michell
The system rewards a dishonest approach p480
John Brookfield
Impact factors aren't top journals' sole attraction p480
Torbjörn E. Törnqvist
Disruption to science in developing countries p480
Marcello A. Barcinski
Separate achievements of the Humboldt brothers p480
W.S. Peters
Books and Arts
Beneath the great divide p481
What was life on Earth like before the Cambrian explosion?
Stefan Bengtson reviews Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth by Andrew H. Knoll
The journey to Enlightenment p482
Steven Shapin reviews The Man Who Flattened the Earth: Maupertuis and the Sciences in the Enlightenment by Mary Terrall
New in paperback p482
Science in culture p483
Martin Kemp reviews
News and Views
Gene expression: Oestrogen receptor hijacked p487
Widespread pollution of the environment by dioxins poses a risk to human health. The mechanism used by these chemicals to alter the body's responses to oestrogens is now being unveiled.
Jan J. Brosens and Malcolm G. Parker
Chemistry: Tips for moving single molecules p488
Scanning tunnelling microscopes provide a unique perspective on chemistry at the level of single molecules. Now there is a new way of using the tip of such a microscope to manipulate a single molecule.
Dennis C. Jacobs
Evolutionary biology: Fractious phylogenies p489
Speciation has been unusually fast among the cichlid fishes of Lake Victoria. An unexpectedly distant ancestor, which perhaps already had a predisposition for rapid speciation, may have seeded this 'species flock'.
Thomas D. Kocher
Earth science: A slice of history p491
Investigations of an exposed slice of oceanic crust and mantle have provided a dramatic picture of temporal variation in the activity of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge — including its pulse rate of 3–4 million years.
Paul D. Asimow
100 and 50 years ago p491
Astronomy: Sprinkler system p492
Alison Wright
Cell division: Genome maintenance p493
Early fruitfly embryos have an unusual means of halting the division of any nuclei containing damaged DNA. A key component of this mechanism has now been identified, and might have implications for cancer.
Jordan W. Raff
news and views in brief p496
Brief Communications
Forensic psychology: Violence viewed by psychopathic murderers p497
Adapting a revealing test may expose those psychopaths who are most likely to kill.
Nicola S. Gray, Malcolm J. MacCulloch, Jennifer Smith, Mark Morris and Robert J. Snowden
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (134K)
Prion diseases: BSE in sheep bred for resistance to infection p498
Fiona Houston, Wilfred Goldmann, Angela Chong, Martin Jeffrey, Lorenzo González, James Foster, David Parnham and Nora Hunter
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (82K)
Articles
Mantle thermal pulses below the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and temporal variations in the formation of oceanic lithosphere p499
Enrico Bonatti, Marco Ligi, Daniele Brunelli, Anna Cipriani, Paola Fabretti, Valentina Ferrante, Luca Gasperini and Luisa Ottolini
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (829K)
See also: News and Views by Asimow
Association of the T-cell regulatory gene CTLA4 with susceptibility to autoimmune disease p506
Hironori Ueda,
Joanna M. M. Howson,
Laura Esposito,
Joanne Heward,
Snook,
Giselle Chamberlain,
Daniel B. Rainbow,
Kara M. D. Hunter,
Annabel N. Smith,
Gianfranco Di Genova,
Mathias H. Herr,
Ingrid Dahlman,
Felicity Payne,
Deborah Smyth,
Christopher Lowe,
Rebecca C. J. Twells,
Sarah Howlett,
Barry Healy,
Sarah Nutland,
Helen E. Rance,
Vin Everett,
Luc J. Smink,
Alex C. Lam,
Heather J. Cordell,
Neil M. Walker,
Cristina Bordin,
John Hulme,
Costantino Motzo,
Francesco Cucca,
J. Fred Hess,
Michael L. Metzker,
Jane Rogers,
Simon Gregory,
Amit Allahabadia,
Ratnasingam Nithiyananthan,
Eva Tuomilehto-Wolf,
Jaakko Tuomilehto,
Polly Bingley,
Kathleen M. Gillespie,
Dag E. Undlien,
Kjersti S. Rønningen,
Cristian Guja,
Constantin Ionescu-Tîrgovi
te,
David A. Savage,
A. Peter Maxwell,
Dennis J. Carson,
Chris C. Patterson,
Jayne A. Franklyn,
David G. Clayton,
Laurence B. Peterson,
Linda S. Wicker,
John A. Todd
and
Stephen C. L. Gough
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (301K) | Supplementary information
Structure of the replicative helicase of the oncoprotein SV40 large tumour antigen p512
Dawei Li, Rui Zhao, Wayne Lilyestrom, Dahai Gai, Rongguang Zhang, James A. DeCaprio, Ellen Fanning, Andrzej Jochimiak, Gerda Szakonyi and Xiaojiang S. Chen
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (781K) | Supplementary information
Letters to Nature
A class of compact dwarf galaxies from disruptive processes in galaxy clusters p519
M. J. Drinkwater, M. D. Gregg, M. Hilker, K. Bekki, W. J. Couch, H. C. Ferguson, J. B. Jones and S. Phillipps
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (304K)
Antiferromagnetic order as the competing ground state in electron-doped Nd1.85Ce0.15CuO4 p522
H. J. Kang, Pengcheng Dai, J. W. Lynn, M. Matsuura, J. R. Thompson, Shou-Cheng Zhang, D. N. Argyriou, Y. Onose and Y. Tokura
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (464K)
Selectivity in vibrationally mediated single-molecule chemistry p525
J. I. Pascual, N. Lorente, Z. Song, H. Conrad and H.-P. Rust
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (301K)
See also: News and Views by Jacobs
Impact of urbanization and land-use change on climate p528
Eugenia Kalnay and Ming Cai
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (508K) | Supplementary information
Field sports and conservation in the United Kingdom p531
T. E. E. Oldfield, R. J. Smith, S. R. Harrop and N. Leader-Williams
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (148K)
Action video game modifies visual selective attention p534
C. Shawn Green and Daphne Bavelier
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (231K) | Supplementary information
Mitochondrial membrane remodelling regulated by a conserved rhomboid protease p537
G. Angus McQuibban, Saroj Saurya and Matthew Freeman
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (1,059K) | Supplementary information
Role of ERas in promoting tumour-like properties in mouse embryonic stem cells p541
Kazutoshi Takahashi, Kaoru Mitsui and Shinya Yamanaka
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (340K) | Supplementary information
Modulation of oestrogen receptor signalling by association with the activated dioxin receptor p545
Fumiaki Ohtake, Ken-ichi Takeyama, Takahiro Matsumoto, Hirochika Kitagawa, Yasuji Yamamoto, Keiko Nohara, Chiharu Tohyama, Andree Krust, Junsei Mimura, Pierre Chambon, Junn Yanagisawa, Yoshiaki Fujii-Kuriyama and Shigeaki Kato
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (739K) | Supplementary information
See also: News and Views by Brosens & Parker
Insulin-regulated hepatic gluconeogenesis through FOXO1–PGC-1
interaction p550
Pere Puigserver, James Rhee, Jerry Donovan, Christopher J. Walkey, J. Cliff Yoon, Francesco Oriente, Yukari Kitamura, Jennifer Altomonte, Hengjiang Dong, Domenico Accili and Bruce M. Spiegelman
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (415K) | Supplementary information
Structure and function of Nurr1 identifies a class of ligand-independent nuclear receptors p555
Zhulun Wang, Gérard Benoit, Jinsong Liu, Srividya Prasad, Piia Aarnisalo, Xiaohong Liu, Haoda Xu, Nigel P. C. Walker and Thomas Perlmann
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (648K) | Supplementary information
Naturejobs
ProspectsThinking ahead p565
Paul Smaglik
CAREERS AND RECRUITMENT
Short supply p566
Improving proteomic techniques will tackle questions in cell biology, signal transduction and clinical research. But workers with the key knowledge in protein biochemistry, mass spectrometry and bioinformatics are hard to find, says Kendall Powell.
Kendall Powell
Growing pains p568
Current economic conditions are putting a strain on the nascent world of proteomics. But many companies are managing to flourish by carving out their own market niche. Kendall Powell investigates.
Kendall Powell