Table of contents
Volume 423 Number 6940 pp571-667
Editorials
Biodefence takes its toll p571
It is ironic, constitutionally questionable and misguided that in pursuit of vaccines against biowarfare agents, the Bush administration has attacked the very biomedical research budgets that have helped to make such defence possible.
A meeting for Europe's scientists and publics p571
Scientific organizations should support the Euroscience Open Forum in 2004.
News
Harmful potential of viral vectors fuels doubts over gene therapy p573
Erika Check
Protests win reprieve for renowned medical lab p573
Jim Giles
Divisions sink US consensus effort on transgenic food p574
Jonathan Knight
UK universities face star treatment in funding revamp p574
Jim Giles
Natural history collections in crisis as funding is slashed p575
Rex Dalton
Biologist gets minimum sentence in 'espionage' case p575
David Cyranoski
Geneticists play the numbers game in vain p576
Helen Pearson
Pet theory comes to the fore in fight against SARS p576
Alison Abbott
Panel calls for sea change to fisheries policy p577
Virginia Gewin
Japanese team makes stem cells p577
David Cyranoski
news feature
Sweet revenge p580
Parasites exact a devastating toll on health, particularly in the tropics. Could vaccines based on the sugars on parasite surfaces provide a way to fight back? Carina Dennis investigates.
Carina Dennis
The ulcer bug: Gut reaction p583
A bacterium that causes ulcers and stomach cancer is on the decline, but not everyone is celebrating. John Whitfield talks to the experts who have misgivings about its impending extinction.
John Whitfield
Correspondence
SARS, a challenge from the South p585
When an epidemic threatens the affluent countries, the response is fast and well-funded.
Jerome. A. Singh
Impact factors: target the funding bodies p585
Robert Insall
Books and Arts
Eau de vie p587
How water shaped our planet and serves as the essence of life on Earth.
Daniel Hillel reviews Water from Heaven: The Story of Water from the Big Bang to the Rise of Civilization, and Beyond by Robert Kandel
The last word on books? p588
Maurice Pope reviews A History of Reading by Steven Roger Fischer
Philology: The pages of history p588
Alison Abbott
Darwin's stonecutter p589
Richard Bellon reviews Hewett Cottrell Watson: Victorian Plant Ecologist and Evolutionist by Frank N. Egerton
News and Views
Neurobiology: All change at the synapse p591
Two groups, using different approaches, have provided the first quantitative evidence that neurotransmitter release in the brain often occurs by a long-sought 'kiss-and-run' process.
Silvio O. Rizzoli and William J. Betz
Biogeochemistry: Ancient oceans and oxygen p592
The ocean chemistry of 1.5 billion years ago, inferred from rocks of that age, supports the view that marine conditions then were very different from those that pertained at earlier and later times.
Matthew T. Hurtgen
Cancer: Out of air is not out of action p593
Starving cancers of oxygen would seem to be a good way of killing them, but the presence of oxygen-deprived areas in tumours appears to correlate with poor prognosis. A molecular explanation for this has now been found.
Donald P. Bottaro and Lance A. Liotta
Condensed-matter physics: Hydrogen falls into line p595
Hydrogen ions, both positive and negative, have a pervasive influence on the properties of materials and solutions. A unified picture of the behaviour of these ions has now been drawn.
Richard M. Martin and Giulia Galli
100 and 50 years ago p595
Signal transduction: A regulator branches out p596
The cellular signalling pathway that leads to activation of the NF-
B protein has been studied for many years, and one might think that there's little left to learn. But it still has some surprises in store.
Alain Israël
news and views in brief p598
News and Views Feature
The double puzzle of diabetes p599
Why is the prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus now exploding in most populations, but not in Europeans? The genetic and evolutionary consequences of geographical differences in food history may provide the answer.
Jared Diamond
Brief Communications
Palaeobotany: Ice-age steppe vegetation in east Beringia p603
Tiny plant fossils indicate how this frozen region once sustained huge herds of mammals.
Grant D. Zazula, Duane G. Froese, Charles E. Schweger, Rolf W. Mathewes, Alwynne B. Beaudoin, Alice M. Telka, C. Richard Harington and John A. Westgate
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (95K)
Insect behaviour: Motion camouflage in dragonflies p604
Akiko Mizutani, Javaan S. Chahl and Mandyam V. Srinivasan
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (173K)
Electromagnetic waves: Negative refraction by photonic crystals p604
Ertugrul Cubukcu, Koray Aydin, Ekmel Ozbay, Stavroula Foteinopoulou and Costas M. Soukoulis
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (173K)
Social networks (communication arising): Sexual contacts and epidemic thresholds p605
James Holland Jones and Mark S. Handcock
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (168K)
Social networks (communication arising): Sexual contacts and epidemic thresholds p606
Fredrik Liljeros, Christofer R. Edling, H. Eugene Stanley, Y. Åberg and Luis A. N. Amaral
Articles
Three modes of synaptic vesicular recycling revealed by single-vesicle imaging p607
Sunil P. Gandhi and Charles F. Stevens
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (505K) | Supplementary information
See also: News and Views by Rizzoli & Betz
Insights into IgA-mediated immune responses from the crystal structures of human Fc
RI and its complex with IgA1-Fc p614
Andrew B. Herr, Edward R. Ballister and Pamela J. Bjorkman
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (760K) | Supplementary information
Letters to Nature
An extragalactic supernebula confined by gravity p621
J. L. Turner, S. C. Beck, L. P. Crosthwaite, J. E. Larkin, I. S. McLean and D. S. Meier
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (244K)
A strong decrease in Saturn's equatorial jet at cloud level p623
A. Sánchez-Lavega, S. Pérez-Hoyos, J. F. Rojas, R. Hueso and R. G. French
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (280K) | Supplementary information
Universal alignment of hydrogen levels in semiconductors, insulators and solutions p626
Chris G. Van de Walle and J. Neugebauer
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (171K)
See also: News and Views by Martin & Galli
Chaperonin-mediated stabilization and ATP-triggered release of semiconductor nanoparticles p628
Daisuke Ishii, Kazushi Kinbara, Yasuhiro Ishida, Noriyuki Ishii, Mina Okochi, Masafumi Yohda and Takuzo Aida
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (380K) | Supplementary information
Evidence for low sulphate and anoxia in a mid-Proterozoic marine basin p632
Yanan Shen, Andrew H. Knoll and Malcolm R. Walter
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (251K) | Supplementary information
See also: News and Views by Hurtgen
Stability of forest biodiversity p635
James S. Clark and Jason S. McLachlan
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (251K)
Scaling metabolism from organisms to ecosystems p639
Brian J. Enquist, Evan P. Economo, Travis E. Huxman, Andrew P. Allen, Danielle D. Ignace and James F. Gillooly
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (1,294K) | Supplementary information
Single synaptic vesicles fusing transiently and successively without loss of identity p643
A. M. Aravanis, J. L. Pyle and R. W. Tsien
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (437K)
See also: News and Views by Rizzoli & Betz
Fission yeast mod5p regulates polarized growth through anchoring of tea1p at cell tips p647
Hilary A. Snaith and Kenneth E. Sawin
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (310K) | Supplementary information
Sphingolipid signalling in Arabidopsis guard cells involves heterotrimeric G proteins p651
Sylvie Coursol, Liu-Min Fan, Hervé Le Stunff, Sarah Spiegel, Simon Gilroy and Sarah M. Assmann
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (326K) | Supplementary information
Histone H3 phosphorylation by IKK- is critical for cytokine-induced gene expression p655
Yumi Yamamoto, Udit N. Verma, Shashi Prajapati, Youn-Tae Kwak and Richard B. Gaynor
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (526K)
See also: News and Views by Israël
A nucleosomal function for I
B kinase- in NF-B-dependent gene expression p659
Vasiliki Anest, Julie L. Hanson, Patricia C. Cogswell, Kris A. Steinbrecher, Brian D. Strahl and Albert S. Baldwin
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (506K) | Supplementary information
See also: News and Views by Israël
Naturejobs
ProspectsFood for thought p665
Paul Smaglik
SPECIAL REPORT
Science and Law: Swapping the lab for the law p666
For scientists who want a career in law, the options are greater than ever — and some don't even involve going back to school, says Amy Wilson.
Amy Wilson