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Volume 432 Issue 7013, 4 November 2004

Volume 432 Issue 7013

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Editorial

  • There is no place for ageism in reproductive medicine.

    Editorial

    Advertisement

  • The research of an environmental regulator is unlikely to win public trust if it relies on money from industrial lobby groups.

    Editorial
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News

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News in Brief

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Correction

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News Feature

  • Recent studies are pointing the way for new uses of an ancient treatment — leeches. Helen Pilcher wades in to find out how these creatures could help the arthritic.

    • Helen Pilcher
    News Feature

  • Can an ambitious plan to protect unique marine habitats in the open ocean turn the tide of destruction? Henry Nicholls plunges in.

    • Henry Nicholls
    News Feature
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Correspondence

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Books & Arts

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Essay

  • Proprioception: is the sensory system that supports body posture and movement also the root of our understanding of physical laws?

    • Victor Smetacek
    • Franz Mechsner
    Essay
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News & Views

  • A small matter of head anatomy has long been a cause of controversy among those interested in vertebrate evolution. An answer that may prove generally palatable now emerges from an ancient fossil fish.

    • Philippe Janvier
    News & Views

  • The most successful piezoelectric ceramics are based on lead zirconate and lead titanate. Environmental concerns over their lead content could disappear with the advent of a new ceramic that is lead-free.

    • Eric Cross
    News & Views

  • A new structure of the ‘head’ region of an integrin protein explains the remarkable vertical extension that enables these molecules to rise to the task of mediating cell adhesion.

    • A. Paul Mould
    • Martin J. Humphries
    News & Views

  • A new analysis of the effect of climatic variation on forest fires goes back several thousand years. One take-home message is that a one-size-fits-all forest management strategy is, literally, short-sighted.

    • Cathy Whitlock
    News & Views
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Research Highlights

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Brief Communication

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Outlook

    • Peter Aldhous
    • Natalie DeWitt
    Outlook

  • Across the developed world, birth rates are plummeting. Is this just a social phenomenon, or is our biological fertility also declining? We don't yet know, and that is worrying, says Declan Butler.

    • Declan Butler
    Outlook

  • Advances in reproductive medicine hint that female fertility might be extended into late middle age and beyond. But will the methods be safe? And is society ready for this demographic shift? Kendall Powell investigates.

    • Kendall Powell
    Outlook

  • Contraceptive research is seriously in need of revitalization.

    • Jerome F. Strauss III
    • Michael Kafrissen
    Outlook

  • Greg Bear glimpses the future of human reproduction.

    Outlook

  • During the past few decades, worries about environmental threats to human health have centred on the possible induction of cancers. Now risks to the male germ line, both real and potential, are also causing disquiet.

    • R. John Aitken
    • Peter Koopman
    • Sheena E. M. Lewis
    Outlook

  • A child's genes are not all equal: in some cases, the copy from either the mother or the father is turned off. This affects the child's ability to acquire resources in the womb, after birth, and perhaps throughout life.

    • Miguel Constância
    • Gavin Kelsey
    • Wolf Reik
    Outlook
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Article

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Letter

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Prospects

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Regions

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Nature Outlook

  • "All couples and individuals have the basic right to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information, education and means to do so." Few would disagree with this statement, agreed by world leaders at the United Nations' International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, a decade ago.

    Nature Outlook
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