Table of contents
Volume 432 Number 7014 pp131-255
(this content only available online) indicates content that is available online only
Editorials
Burning issues p131
The Kyoto Protocol is just a small first step in restricting man's influence on climate. If we can't prevent fires in Indonesia, such international efforts to limit the effects of climate change could be in vain.
doi:10.1038/432131a
The stem-cell state p131
California's citizens have changed the landscape of a key area of biology — with intriguing implications for everyone else.
doi:10.1038/432131b
News
Watchdogs call academies to account over conflicts of interest p133
Coal-mining committee accused of unhealthy ties to industry.
Tony Reichhardt
doi:10.1038/432133a
Trust gives warm welcome to open access p134
Wellcome Trust endorses public archive for biomedical research.
Jim Giles
doi:10.1038/432134a
Leukaemia sleuths accuse state of nuclear cover-up p134
German cancer commission members resign in protest over 'secret lab'.
Barbara Simm
doi:10.1038/432134b
Joys match fears as California agrees to stem-cell proposal p135
State programme bypasses federal opposition to research.
Jonathan Knight
doi:10.1038/432135a
Bush set to keep core science team for second term p135
US President's line-up of science advisers shapes up.
Emma Marris
doi:10.1038/432135b
Herbicide critic dropped from pollution conference p136
Biologist accuses officials of censorship for cancelling his talk.
Rex Dalton
doi:10.1038/432136a
Hopes rise for RNA therapy as mouse study hits target p136
Safety concerns eased for promising medical technique.
Erika Check
doi:10.1038/432136b
Creative Commons ponders share options p137
Alternative licensing scheme for scientists set to launch.
Paula Gould
doi:10.1038/432137a
WHO seeks system for tracking global clinical trials p137
Groundswell of support seen for easy-access register of medical data.
Erika Check
doi:10.1038/432137b
News Features
Zoology: A mole in hand... p142
A strange Australian mole has eluded scientific study for more than a century. Now biologists are teaming up with Aboriginal trackers to unearth the secrets of the itjaritjari. Carina Dennis checks on their progress.
doi:10.1038/432142a
Land remediation: Borneo is burning p144
Vast tracts of Indonesia's peat swamps have been drained in a misguided attempt to turn them into rice plantations. Now the landscape burns every year, belching smoke and hastening global warming. Peter Aldhous investigates.
doi:10.1038/432144a
Correspondence
Linear models can't keep up with sport gender gap p147
Will women runners ever overtake men at the Olympics? Don't hold your breath.
Weia Reinboud
doi:10.1038/432147a
Sprint research runs into a credibility gap p147
Kenneth Rice
doi:10.1038/432147b
Biology students find holes in gap study p147
Advanced Placement Biology Class
doi:10.1038/432147c
Mind the gap: women racers are falling behind p147
N. C. Craig Sharp
doi:10.1038/432147d
Mind the gap: women racers are falling behind p147
doi:10.1038/432147e
Books and Arts
The science of life and death p149
A look at the development of biological weapons and the threat they carry.
Malcolm Dando reviews Biological Weapons: From the Invention of State-Sponsored Programs to Contemporary Bioterrorism by Jeanne Guillemin
doi:10.1038/432149a
The view from Budapest p150
Henryk Eisenberg reviews Our Lives: Encounters of a Scientist by István Hargittai
doi:10.1038/432150a
The art of seeing science p151
Stefano Grillo reviews Leonardo by Martin Kemp
doi:10.1038/432151a
Film: The story of life p151
Federica Castellani
doi:10.1038/432151b
Essay
Turning pointsMaking waves p153
How a stroll in the park led to the beginning of quantum electronics.
Charles H. Townes
doi:10.1038/432153a
News and Views
Medicine: A cholesterol connection in RNAi p155
RNA interference — RNAi for short — might provide a way to silence disease-associated genes, but problems of delivery have hampered progress. Those problems may have been solved, at least in animal studies.
John J. Rossi
doi:10.1038/432155a
Earth science: Mantle mapped in the desert p156
How does variation in ocean-floor rocks arise from differences in the temperature of their mantle source? A new angle on the question comes from painstaking work on one of the geological wonders of the world.
Georges Ceuleneer
doi:10.1038/432156a
DNA repair: Big engine finds small breaks p157
When a break occurs in the DNA double helix, it must be dealt with rapidly. The structure of one of the cellular machines responsible is now revealed, offering insights into its impressive speed and flexibility.
Anna Marie Pyle
doi:10.1038/432157a
Ecology: Hope in the hills for tundra? p159
Will global warming cause northern forests to spread into arctic tundra? A study of black spruce suggests that the answer is complex and varies according to latitude and altitude.
Peter D. Moore
doi:10.1038/432159a
100 and 50 years ago p160
doi:10.1038/432160a
Animal behaviour: Rank crime and punishment p160
In paper wasps, facial markings are cheap 'status badges' that would seem to be susceptible to cheating. But wasps punish those whose markings lie. Social competition is, it appears, a strong selective force.
Joan E. Strassmann
doi:10.1038/432160b
Plant development: A bunch of leaves p161
Christopher Surridge
doi:10.1038/432161a
Condensed-matter physics: A magnetic pendulum p162
Where two oppositely magnetized regions meet, there is a so-called domain wall. Under the right conditions, this wall can be made to oscillate like a pendulum, suggesting a new approach to electronics.
Claude Chappert and Thibaut Devolder
doi:10.1038/432162a
Brief Communications
Laser beams: Knotted threads of darkness p165
Dark lines within a laser beam can be manipulated to form stable vortex knots.
Jonathan Leach, Mark R. Dennis, Johannes Courtial and Miles J. Padgett
doi:10.1038/432165a
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (257K) | Supplementary information
Plant genetics: Gene transfer from parasitic to host plants p165
Jeffrey P. Mower,
Sa
a Stefanovi
,
Gregory J. Young
and
Jeffrey D. Palmer
doi:10.1038/432165b
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (257K) | Supplementary information
Top of page
Brief Communications Arising
Evolution: How do characters evolve?
Andy Purvis
doi:10.1038/nature03092
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (41K)
Evolution: How do characters evolve? (reply)
Robert E. Ricklefs
doi:10.1038/nature03093
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (41K)
Articles
Mantle segmentation along the Oman ophiolite fossil mid-ocean ridge p167
Laurent Le Mée, Jacques Girardeau and Christophe Monnier
doi:10.1038/nature03075
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (847K) | Supplementary information
See also: News and Views by Ceuleneer
Therapeutic silencing of an endogenous gene by systemic administration of modified siRNAs p173
Jürgen Soutschek, Akin Akinc, Birgit Bramlage, Klaus Charisse, Rainer Constien, Mary Donoghue, Sayda Elbashir, Anke Geick, Philipp Hadwiger, Jens Harborth, Matthias John, Venkitasamy Kesavan, Gary Lavine, Rajendra K. Pandey, Timothy Racie, Kallanthottathil G. Rajeev, Ingo Röhl, Ivanka Toudjarska, Gang Wang, Silvio Wuschko, David Bumcrot, Victor Koteliansky, Stefan Limmer, Muthiah Manoharan and Hans-Peter Vornlocher
doi:10.1038/nature03121
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (332K) | Supplementary information
See also: News and Views by Rossi
The netrin receptor UNC5B mediates guidance events controlling morphogenesis of the vascular system p179
Xiaowei Lu, Ferdinand le Noble, Li Yuan, Quingjan Jiang, Benjamin de Lafarge, Daisuke Sugiyama, Christiane Bréant, Filip Claes, Frederik De Smet, Jean-Léon Thomas, Monica Autiero, Peter Carmeliet, Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Anne Eichmann
doi:10.1038/nature03080
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (714K) | Supplementary information
Crystal structure of RecBCD enzyme reveals a machine for processing DNA breaks p187
Martin R. Singleton, Mark S. Dillingham, Martin Gaudier, Stephen C. Kowalczykowski and Dale B. Wigley
doi:10.1038/nature02988
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (410K)
See also: News and Views by Pyle
Letters to Nature
A characteristic size of 
10 Mpc for the ionized bubbles at the end of cosmic reionization p194
J. Stuart B. Wyithe and Abraham Loeb
doi:10.1038/nature03033
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (147K)
Strong coupling in a single quantum dot–semiconductor microcavity system p197
J. P. Reithmaier,
G. S
k,
A. Löffler,
C. Hofmann,
S. Kuhn,
S. Reitzenstein,
L. V. Keldysh,
V. D. Kulakovskii,
T. L. Reinecke
and
A. Forchel
doi:10.1038/nature02969
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (228K) | Supplementary information
Vacuum Rabi splitting with a single quantum dot in a photonic crystal nanocavity p200
T. Yoshie, A. Scherer, J. Hendrickson, G. Khitrova, H. M. Gibbs, G. Rupper, C. Ell, O. B. Shchekin and D. G. Deppe
doi:10.1038/nature03119
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (370K)
Current-induced resonance and mass determination of a single magnetic domain wall p203
Eiji Saitoh, Hideki Miyajima, Takehiro Yamaoka and Gen Tatara
doi:10.1038/nature03009
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (215K)
See also: News and Views by Chappert & Devolder
A fast low-power optical memory based on coupled micro-ring lasers p206
Martin T. Hill, Harmen J. S. Dorren, Tjibbe de Vries, Xaveer J. M. Leijtens, Jan Hendrik den Besten, Barry Smalbrugge, Yok-Siang Oei, Hans Binsma, Giok-Djan Khoe and Meint K. Smit
doi:10.1038/nature03045
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (207K)
Prolonged KREEP magmatism on the Moon indicated by the youngest dated lunar igneous rock p209
Lars E. Borg, Charles K. Shearer, Yemane Asmerom and James J. Papike
doi:10.1038/nature03070
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (183K)
Nonindependence of mammalian dental characters p211
Aapo T. Kangas, Alistair R. Evans, Irma Thesleff and Jukka Jernvall
doi:10.1038/nature02927
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (194K) | Supplementary information
Disposable-soma senescence mediated by sexual selection in an ungulate p215
Juan Carranza, Susana Alarcos, Cristina B. Sánchez-Prieto, Juliana Valencia and Concha Mateos
doi:10.1038/nature03004
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (339K) | Supplementary information
A socially enforced signal of quality in a paper wasp p218
Elizabeth A. Tibbetts and James Dale
doi:10.1038/nature02949
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (328K)
See also: News and Views by Strassmann
Environmental biosafety and transgenic potato in a centre of diversity for this crop p222
Carolina Celis, Maria Scurrah, Sue Cowgill, Susana Chumbiauca, Jayne Green, Javier Franco, Gladys Main, Daan Kiezebrink, Richard G. F. Visser and Howard J. Atkinson
doi:10.1038/nature03048
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (217K) | Supplementary information
A pancreatic islet-specific microRNA regulates insulin secretion p226
Matthew N. Poy, Lena Eliasson, Jan Krutzfeldt, Satoru Kuwajima, Xiaosong Ma, Patrick E. MacDonald, Sébastien Pfeffer, Thomas Tuschl, Nikolaus Rajewsky, Patrik Rorsman and Markus Stoffel
doi:10.1038/nature03076
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (488K) | Supplementary information
Processing of primary microRNAs by the Microprocessor complex p231
Ahmet M. Denli, Bastiaan B. J. Tops, Ronald H. A. Plasterk, René F. Ketting and Gregory J. Hannon
doi:10.1038/nature03049
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (700K) | Supplementary information
The Microprocessor complex mediates the genesis of microRNAs p235
Richard I. Gregory, Kai-ping Yan, Govindasamy Amuthan, Thimmaiah Chendrimada, Behzad Doratotaj, Neil Cooch and Ramin Shiekhattar
doi:10.1038/nature03120
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (529K) | Supplementary information
Technology Features
Cell signalling: Making connections p243
Technological innovations in detecting and studying protein–protein interactions are providing new ways of doing research in cell signalling. Diane Gershon investigates.
Diane Gershon
doi:10.1038/432243a
In the market-place p243
doi:10.1038/432243b
Quantum dots show their true colours p247
doi:10.1038/432247a
Probing real-time protein interactions p249
doi:10.1038/432249a
Table of suppliers p250
doi:10.1038/432250a
Naturejobs
ProspectsThe secrets of success p253
Paul Smaglik
doi:10.1038/nj7014-253a
Special Report
Getting on the fast-track to full-time employment p254
The road to your first full-time position can be long and tortuous. But some researchers have found a shortcut to success. Eugene Russo reports.
Eugene Russo
doi:10.1038/nj7014-254a