Editorials

Ignorance is not bliss p385

We are witnessing a catastrophic loss of species that is the direct result of human activities. Yet we remain scandalously ill informed about the processes that give rise to biodiversity, and the consequences of its loss.

doi:10.1038/430385a

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Drug research abused p385

Political pressures threaten to undermine a key agency involved in tackling the problems posed by drugs.

doi:10.1038/430385b

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News

Los Alamos grinds to a halt after classified information vanishes p387

Rex Dalton

doi:10.1038/430387a

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Biologists seek to revamp biowarfare register p388

Helen Pearson

doi:10.1038/430388a

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Budget delays threaten to leave US science in limbo p388

Geoff Brumfiel

doi:10.1038/430388b

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Health minister ignites row over drugs for HIV mothers p389

Erika Check

doi:10.1038/430389a

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Stem-cell specialists split over proposal for US repository p389

Jonathan Knight

doi:10.1038/430389b

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Space group touts 'next steps' for astronauts p390

Tony Reichhardt

doi:10.1038/430390a

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Britain decides 'open access' is still an open issue p390

Declan Butler

doi:10.1038/430390b

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Native Americans voice fears for relics in land-transfer deal p391

Rex Dalton

doi:10.1038/430391a

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Project probes impact of waste carbon dioxide on marine life p391

David Cyranoski

doi:10.1038/430391b

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News in brief p392

doi:10.1038/430392a

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News Features

Science and the war on drugs: A hard habit to break p394

The US National Institute on Drug Abuse has frequently been accused of bowing to the political agenda of its paymasters. But, as Helen Pearson finds out, its new director swears that the agency is being led by science.

doi:10.1038/430394a

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Biodiversity: A tragedy with many players p396

Peter Ng is a man with a mission: to catalogue the huge diversity of life dwelling in habitats long dismissed as uninteresting. It's a race against time, he tells Carina Dennis and Peter Aldhous.

doi:10.1038/430396a

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Correspondence

The animal-care regulatory system is a sham p399

Inspectors often overrate an experiment's value and underestimate the pain it causes.

Dan Lyons

doi:10.1038/430399a

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Label of 'autism' could hold back gifted children p399

Temple Grandin

doi:10.1038/430399b

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Keeping a clear head on effects of illicit drugs p399

Alex Gamma

doi:10.1038/430399c

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Commentary

A question of balance p401

How safe are the medicines that are prescribed to children?

doi:10.1038/430401a

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Books and Arts

Journey of a scientific hero p403

A fictionalized biologist finally gets the biography he deserves.

Jon Christensen reviews Beyond the Outer Shores: The Untold Odyssey of Ed Ricketts, the Pioneering Ecologist Who Inspired John Steinbeck and Joseph Campbell by Eric Enno Tamm

doi:10.1038/430403a

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Peas and helices p404

Garland E. Allen reviews Mendel's Legacy: The Origin of Classical Genetics by Elof A. Carlson

doi:10.1038/430404a

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A window on early animal evolution p405

Zhe-Xi Luo reviews The Cambrian Fossils of Chengjiang, China: The Flowering of Early Animal Life by Xian-Guang Hou, Richard J. Aldridge, Jan Bergström, David J. Siveter, Derek J. Siveter and Xiang-Hong Feng

doi:10.1038/430405a

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Diagrams you can count on p405

Jeremy Gray reviews Cogwheels of the Mind: the Story of Venn Diagrams by A. W. F. Edwards

doi:10.1038/430405b

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Science in culture p406

An ancient Egyptian priest has a virtual life at London's British Museum.

Michael Hopkin

doi:10.1038/430406a

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Essay

A radical reorientation p407

How an annotated book transformed a theoretician into an historian.

Owen Gingerich

doi:10.1038/430407a

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News and Views

Earth science:  Deeper understanding p409

The boundary between the core and mantle is one of the most enigmatic regions of Earth's interior. Analyses of a newly discovered crystalline phase should yield a fuller understanding of this region.

Thomas S. Duffy

doi:10.1038/430409a

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Language:  Children think before they speak p410

A linguistic contrast between English and Korean provides a telling test of different ideas about whether thought precedes the acquisition of language, or whether certain concepts are language-specific.

Paul Bloom

doi:10.1038/430410a

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Palaeontology:  Echinoderm roots p411

A bold claim about the origins of the echinoderms is based on newly discovered fossils from China. But many pieces are still missing from this part of the fragmented puzzle of life's evolutionary history.

Andrew B. Smith

doi:10.1038/430411a

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100 and 50 years ago p412

doi:10.1038/430412a

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Liquid crystals:  A missing phase found at last? p413

Molecules that form liquid crystals are usually rod-like, but bend them and a new liquid-crystal phase — a biaxial nematic — should form. Strong evidence for the existence of this phase has only now emerged.

Geoffrey R. Luckhurst

doi:10.1038/430413a

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Animal behaviour:  A social call p414

An indicator of animal intelligence is thought to be the ability to judge relationships between members of the same species. This talent, previously seen only in primates, seems to be evident in a bird.

Christopher B. Sturdy

doi:10.1038/430414a

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Obituary:  Thomas Gold (1920–2004) p415

Hermann Bondi

doi:10.1038/430415a

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Research highlights p416

doi:10.1038/430416a

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Brief Communications

Animal behaviour: Coalition among male fiddler crabs p417

Seeing off a neighbour's intruder may be easier than negotiating with a larger usurper.

Patricia R. Y. Backwell and Michael. D. Jennions

doi:10.1038/430417a

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (209K)

Corrigendum p417

doi:10.1038/430417b

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Brief Communications Arising

Evolutionary genetics:  Ambiguous role of CCR5 in Y. pestis infection

Stephen J. Elvin, E. Diane Williamson, Joanne C. Scott, Jeremy N. Smith, Guillermo Pérez de Lema, Silvia Chilla, Paul Clapham, Klaus Pfeffer, Detlef Schlöndorff and Bruno Luckow

doi:10.1038/nature02822

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (67K)

Hypothesis

Developmental plasticity and human health p419

Patrick Bateson, David Barker, Timothy Clutton-Brock, Debal Deb, Bruno D'Udine, Robert A. Foley, Peter Gluckman, Keith Godfrey, Tom Kirkwood, Marta Mirazón Lahr, John McNamara, Neil B. Metcalfe, Patricia Monaghan, Hamish G. Spencer and Sonia E. Sultan

doi:10.1038/nature02725

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (93K)

Article

Ancestral echinoderms from the Chengjiang deposits of China p422

D.-G. Shu, S. Conway Morris, J. Han, Z.-F. Zhang and J.-N. Liu

doi:10.1038/nature02648

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (514K)

See also: News and Views by Smith

Letters to Nature

An X-ray outburst from the rapidly accreting young star that illuminates McNeil's nebula p429

J. H. Kastner, M. Richmond, N. Grosso, D. A. Weintraub, T. Simon, A. Frank, K. Hamaguchi, H. Ozawa and A. Henden

doi:10.1038/nature02747

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (230K)

Single-shot read-out of an individual electron spin in a quantum dot p431

J. M. Elzerman, R. Hanson, L. H. Willems van Beveren, B. Witkamp, L. M. K. Vandersypen and L. P. Kouwenhoven

doi:10.1038/nature02693

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (351K) | Supplementary information

Electrical detection of the spin resonance of a single electron in a silicon field-effect transistor p435

M. Xiao, I. Martin, E. Yablonovitch and H. W. Jiang

doi:10.1038/nature02727

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (313K)

Surface transfer doping of diamond p439

P. Strobel, M. Riedel, J. Ristein and L. Ley

doi:10.1038/nature02751

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (178K)

The elasticity of the MgSiO₃ post-perovskite phase in the Earth's lowermost mantle p442

T. Iitaka, K. Hirose, K. Kawamura and M. Murakami

doi:10.1038/nature02702

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (227K) | Supplementary information

See also: News and Views by Duffy

Theoretical and experimental evidence for a post-perovskite phase of MgSiO₃ in Earth's D" layer p445

Artem R. Oganov and Shigeaki Ono

doi:10.1038/nature02701

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (232K)

See also: News and Views by Duffy

Audience drives male songbird response to partner's voice p448

Clémentine Vignal, Nicolas Mathevon and Stéphane Mottin

doi:10.1038/nature02645

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (196K)

See also: News and Views by Sturdy

Anthrax kills wild chimpanzees in a tropical rainforest p451

Fabian H. Leendertz, Heinz Ellerbrok, Christophe Boesch, Emmanuel Couacy-Hymann, Kerstin Mätz-Rensing, Regine Hakenbeck, Carina Bergmann, Pola Abaza, Sandra Junglen, Yasmin Moebius, Linda Vigilant, Pierre Formenty and Georg Pauli

doi:10.1038/nature02722

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (118K) | Supplementary information

Conceptual precursors to language p453

Susan J. Hespos and Elizabeth S. Spelke

doi:10.1038/nature02634

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (262K) | Supplementary information

See also: News and Views by Bloom

Comparison of population coherence of place cells in hippocampal subfields CA1 and CA3 p456

Inah Lee, D. Yoganarasimha, Geeta Rao and James J. Knierim

doi:10.1038/nature02739

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (326K) | Supplementary information

Drosophila long-term memory formation involves regulation of cathepsin activity p460

Daniel Comas, Florian Petit and Thomas Preat

doi:10.1038/nature02726

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (229K) | Supplementary information

Transmission of cutaneous leishmaniasis by sand flies is enhanced by regurgitation of fPPG p463

Matthew E. Rogers, Thomas Ilg, Andrei V. Nikolaev, Michael A. J. Ferguson and Paul A. Bates

doi:10.1038/nature02675

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (377K) | Supplementary information

Reciprocal regulation of haem biosynthesis and the circadian clock in mammals p467

Krista Kaasik and Cheng Chi Lee

doi:10.1038/nature02724

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (323K) | Supplementary information

Role of transposable elements in heterochromatin and epigenetic control p471

Zachary Lippman, Anne-Valérie Gendrel, Michael Black, Matthew W. Vaughn, Neilay Dedhia, W. Richard McCombie, Kimberly Lavine, Vivek Mittal, Bruce May, Kristin D. Kasschau, James C. Carrington, Rebecca W. Doerge, Vincent Colot and Rob Martienssen

doi:10.1038/nature02651

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (593K) | Supplementary information

Periodic cycles of RNA unwinding and pausing by hepatitis C virus NS3 helicase p476

Victor Serebrov and Anna Marie Pyle

doi:10.1038/nature02704

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (347K) | Supplementary information

Detection of an intermediate of photosynthetic water oxidation p480

Juergen Clausen and Wolfgang Junge

doi:10.1038/nature02676

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (316K) | Supplementary information

Addendum: Measuring fast neutrons in Hiroshima at distances relevant to atomic-bomb survivors p483

T. Straume, G. Rugel, A. A. Marchetti, W. Rühm, G. Korschinek, J. E. McAninch, K. Carroll, S. Egbert, T. Faestermann, K. Knie, R. Martinelli, A. Wallner, C. Wallner, S. Fujita, K. Shizuma, M. Hoshi and H. Hasai

doi:10.1038/nature02684

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Naturejobs

Alternative paths p485

Paul Smaglik

doi:10.1038/nj6998-485a

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Making the move into drug sales p486

Ever more scientists are joining drug companies' sales departments. Are they happy there? Marika Willerroider investigates.

Marika Willerroider

doi:10.1038/nj6998-486a

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Graduate Journal:  Moving on p488

Amber Jenkins

doi:10.1038/nj6998-488a

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Recruiters & Industry p488

Tristan Rousselle

doi:10.1038/nj6998-488b

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Movers p488

doi:10.1038/nj6998-488c

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