Editorials

Is this the bionic man? p109

Systems that allow a brain to control a computer are inching ever closer to reality — but their most important applications may be different from those envisaged by science fiction.

doi:10.1038/442109a

Full Text | PDF (123K)

Building bridges p110

An American geneticist advocates a rapprochement with religion.

doi:10.1038/442110a

Full Text | PDF (105K)

The beautiful game p110

Punditry took a hiding in Germany.

doi:10.1038/442110b

Full Text | PDF (105K)

Research Highlights

Research highlights p112

doi:10.1038/442112a

Full Text | PDF (382K)

News

Family tragedy spotlights flu mutations p114

Human-to-human transmission raises demand for DNA data.

Declan Butler

doi:10.1038/442114a

Full Text | PDF (290K)

Genomics luminary weighs in on US faith debate p114

Top geneticist asks the God question.

Erika Check

doi:10.1038/442114b

Full Text | PDF (290K)

Snapshot: Deep-sea wonders p116

From the whimsical to the downright scary, images featuring creatures from the deep are showcased in the BP Kongsberg Underwater Image Competition being held this week at the 11th International Deep-Sea Biology Symposium, UK. Narelle Towie takes a look at some of the most striking entries.

doi:10.1038/442116a

Full Text | PDF (651K)

PS I want all the rights p118

Stakes raised in open-access debate.

Emma Marris

doi:10.1038/442118a

Full Text | PDF (213K)

City state hopes research cash will buy global status p118

Singapore to double research budget.

Ichiko Fuyuno and David Cyranoski

doi:10.1038/442118b

Full Text | PDF (213K)

Sidelines p119

doi:10.1038/442119a

Full Text | PDF (153K)

Is India's 'patent factory' squandering funds? p120

Research agency slammed for patenting everything.

K. S. Jayaraman

doi:10.1038/442120a

Full Text | PDF (77K)

News in brief p121

doi:10.1038/442121a

Full Text | PDF (169K)

Business

Giving it away p122

Charities are starting to operate like venture capitalists, putting their cash into fledgling drug companies. Virginia Gewin reports.

doi:10.1038/442122a

Full Text | PDF (237K)

In brief p123

doi:10.1038/442123a

Full Text | PDF (152K)

Market watch p123

Colin Macilwain

doi:10.1038/442123b

Full Text | PDF (152K)

News Features

Neuroprosthetics: In search of the sixth sense p125

Implants in the brain could one day help paralysed people move robotic arms and legs. But first, scientists need to work out how our brains know where our limbs are, says Alison Abbott.

doi:10.1038/442125a

Full Text | PDF (651K)

See also: Editor's summary

Geology: The start of the world as we know it p128

Plate tectonics has created oceans and pushed up mountain ranges. But when did the process that shapes the planet get going? Alexandra Witze joins the geologists debating the issue.

doi:10.1038/442128a

Full Text | PDF (1,442K)

See also: Editor's summary

Correspondence

Misconduct: forum should not be used to settle scores p132

Guosheng Wu

doi:10.1038/442132a

Full Text | PDF (110K)

Misconduct: China needs university ethics courses p132

Qizhi Wang

doi:10.1038/442132b

Full Text | PDF (110K)

Rushed decision on collider would limit useful options p132

Robert Aymar

doi:10.1038/442132c

Full Text | PDF (110K)

Speaking for Taiwan about colours, maps and politics p132

Michael Chen

doi:10.1038/442132d

Full Text | PDF (110K)

Commentary

Does gender matter? p133

The suggestion that women are not advancing in science because of innate inability is being taken seriously by some high-profile academics. Ben A. Barres explains what is wrong with the hypothesis.

doi:10.1038/442133a

Full Text | PDF (683K)

See also: Editor's summary

Books and Arts

God is bred p137

Religious belief can be viewed as an adaptation that was favoured as the human brain evolved.

Crispin Tickell reviews Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief by Lewis Wolpert

doi:10.1038/442137a

Full Text | PDF (240K)

Keep it in the family p138

Svenn Torgersen reviews Genes and Behavior: Nature–Nurture Interplay Explained by Michael Rutter

doi:10.1038/442138a

Full Text | PDF (144K)

Throwaway culture p139

John Emsley reviews Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America by Giles Slade

doi:10.1038/442139a

Full Text | PDF (338K)

The politics of space p139

Steven Beckwith reviews The Last of the Great Observatories: Spitzer and the Era of Faster, Better, Cheaper by George Rieke

doi:10.1038/442139b

Full Text | PDF (338K)

Science in Culture p140

PowerPoint presentations and the culture of pitch.

Martin Kemp

doi:10.1038/442140a

Full Text | PDF (210K)

See also: Editor's summary

News and Views

Neuroscience: Converting thoughts into action p141

There is a clear need to help people who have brain or spinal-cord damage to communicate and interact with the outside world. Progress to that end is being made with brain-implantation technology.

Stephen H. Scott

doi:10.1038/442141a

Full Text | PDF (353K)

See also: Editor's summary

Quantum physics: New spin on the Hall effect p143

The spin Hall effect occurs when electrons with opposite spins go their separate ways in an electric field. The phenomenon is crucial to spin-based electronics, and its electrical signal has just been spotted.

Andrew D. Kent

doi:10.1038/442143a

Full Text | PDF (212K)

Atmospheric chemistry: Radicals follow the Sun p145

Hydroxyl free radicals are part of a complex network of atmospheric chemical reactions. But a long-term study shows that their concentration can be predicted by the intensity of ultraviolet sunlight alone.

Paul O. Wennberg

doi:10.1038/442145a

Full Text | PDF (215K)

See also: Editor's summary

Palaeontology: A ghost with a bite p146

Witness a snail scraping microbial films from the inside of an aquarium. Go back 505 million years, and this looks to have been the way an enigmatic early animal made its living (but without the aquarium).

Stefan Bengtson

doi:10.1038/442146a

Full Text | PDF (170K)

See also: Editor's summary

Solid-state physics: Supersolid simulations p147

Supersolids — substances that are crystalline but also behave as free-flowing superfluids — can exist, according to quantum theory. Models now suggest a route to the clinching experimental evidence.

Dieter Jaksch

doi:10.1038/442147a

Full Text | PDF (152K)

Music: Calculated tones p149

Richard Webb

doi:10.1038/442149a

Full Text | PDF (135K)

Obituary: Raymond Davis Jr (1914–2006) p150

Father of solar neutrino detection.

James R. Distel

doi:10.1038/442150a

Full Text | PDF (180K)

Brief Communications

Quantum engineering: An atom-sorting machine p151

Laser-trapped atoms in strings can be deftly rearranged and the spacing between them precisely adjusted.

Yevhen Miroshnychenko, Wolfgang Alt, Igor Dotsenko, Leonid Förster, Mkrtych Khudaverdyan, Dieter Meschede, Dominik Schrader and Arno Rauschenbeutel

doi:10.1038/442151a

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (198K) | Supplementary information

Brief Communications Arising

Embryology: Does prepatterning occur in the mouse egg? pE3

Takashi Hiiragi, Sophie Louvet-Vallée, Davor Solter and Bernard Maro

doi:10.1038/nature04907

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (365K)

Embryology: Does prepatterning occur in the mouse egg? (Reply) pE4

Berenika Plusa, Anna-Katerina Hadjantonakis, Dionne Gray, Karolina Piotrowska-Nitsche, Agnieszka Jedrusik, Virginia E. Papaioannou, David M. Glover and Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz

doi:10.1038/nature04908

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (365K)

Review

Clarifying the mechanics of DNA strand exchange in meiotic recombination p153

Matthew J. Neale and Scott Keeney

doi:10.1038/nature04885

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (346K)

See also: Editor's summary

Articles

A soft-bodied mollusc with radula from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale p159

Jean-Bernard Caron, Amélie Scheltema, Christoffer Schander and David Rudkin

doi:10.1038/nature04894

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (595K) | Supplementary information

See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Bengtson

Neuronal ensemble control of prosthetic devices by a human with tetraplegia p164

Leigh R. Hochberg, Mijail D. Serruya, Gerhard M. Friehs, Jon A. Mukand, Maryam Saleh, Abraham H. Caplan, Almut Branner, David Chen, Richard D. Penn and John P. Donoghue

doi:10.1038/nature04970

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (648K) | Supplementary information

See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Scott

Letters

Energy input and response from prompt and early optical afterglow emission in -ray bursts p172

W. T. Vestrand, J. A. Wren, P. R. Wozniak, R. Aptekar, S. Golentskii, V. Pal'shin, T. Sakamoto, R. R. White, S. Evans, D. Casperson and E. Fenimore

doi:10.1038/nature04913

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (293K)

See also: Editor's summary

Direct electronic measurement of the spin Hall effect p176

S. O. Valenzuela and M. Tinkham

doi:10.1038/nature04937

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (501K) | Supplementary information

See also: News and Views by Kent

Ultrasensitive solution-cast quantum dot photodetectors p180

Gerasimos Konstantatos, Ian Howard, Armin Fischer, Sjoerd Hoogland, Jason Clifford, Ethan Klem, Larissa Levina and Edward H. Sargent

doi:10.1038/nature04855

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (253K) | Supplementary information

See also: Editor's summary

Strong correlation between levels of tropospheric hydroxyl radicals and solar ultraviolet radiation p184

Franz Rohrer and Harald Berresheim

doi:10.1038/nature04924

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (1,246K) | Supplementary information

See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Wennberg

Low-frequency earthquakes in Shikoku, Japan, and their relationship to episodic tremor and slip p188

David R. Shelly, Gregory C. Beroza, Satoshi Ide and Sho Nakamula

doi:10.1038/nature04931

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (2,950K) | Supplementary information

See also: Editor's summary

Isolation of a novel acidiphilic methanogen from an acidic peat bog p192

Suzanna L. Bräuer, Hinsby Cadillo-Quiroz, Erika Yashiro, Joseph B. Yavitt and Stephen H. Zinder

doi:10.1038/nature04810

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (153K) | Supplementary information

See also: Editor's summary

A high-performance brain–computer interface p195

Gopal Santhanam, Stephen I. Ryu, Byron M. Yu, Afsheen Afshar and Krishna V. Shenoy

doi:10.1038/nature04968

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (329K) | Supplementary information

See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Scott

A germline-specific class of small RNAs binds mammalian Piwi proteins p199

Angélique Girard, Ravi Sachidanandam, Gregory J. Hannon and Michelle A. Carmell

doi:10.1038/nature04917

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (524K) | Supplementary information

See also: Editor's summary

A novel class of small RNAs bind to MILI protein in mouse testes p203

Alexei Aravin, Dimos Gaidatzis, Sébastien Pfeffer, Mariana Lagos-Quintana, Pablo Landgraf, Nicola Iovino, Patricia Morris, Michael J. Brownstein, Satomi Kuramochi-Miyagawa, Toru Nakano, Minchen Chien, James J. Russo, Jingyue Ju, Robert Sheridan, Chris Sander, Mihaela Zavolan and Thomas Tuschl

doi:10.1038/nature04916

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (364K) | Supplementary information

See also: Editor's summary

Three-dimensional structure of the myosin V inhibited state by cryoelectron tomography p208

Jun Liu, Dianne W. Taylor, Elena B. Krementsova, Kathleen M. Trybus and Kenneth A. Taylor

doi:10.1038/nature04719

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (421K) | Supplementary information

See also: Editor's summary

The cargo-binding domain regulates structure and activity of myosin 5 p212

Kavitha Thirumurugan, Takeshi Sakamoto, John A. Hammer, III, James R. Sellers and Peter J. Knight

doi:10.1038/nature04865

First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (288K) | Supplementary information

See also: Editor's summary

Naturejobs

Prospect p217

Being a good scientist means finding a balance between efficiency and enjoyment.

Paul Smaglik

doi:10.1038/nj7099-217a

Full Text | PDF (168K)

Physical exercise p218

The opening of the Large Hadron Collider in Europe will offer high-powered opportunities for particle physicists to decode the mysteries of the Universe. Virginia Gewin finds out more.

Virginia Gewin

doi:10.1038/nj7099-218a

Full Text | PDF (545K)

Jim Peacock, chief scientist, Canberra, Australia p220

Jim Peacock takes helm as Australia's chief scientist.

Virginia Gewin

doi:10.1038/nj7099-220a

Full Text | PDF (95K)

Science without the red tape p220

Small Chilean centre is big on collaboration and innovation.

Gene Russo

doi:10.1038/nj7099-220b

Full Text | PDF (95K)

Bowled over (but not out) p220

Cricket games teach science lesson.

Mhairi Dupre

doi:10.1038/nj7099-220c

Full Text | PDF (95K)

Futures

The Republic of George's Island p222

One man against the elements.

Donna McMahon

doi:10.1038/442222a

Full Text | PDF (139K)