Table of contents
Volume 458 Number 7240 pp807-938
(this content only available online) indicates content that is available online only
Editorials
John Maddox 1925–2009 p807
In memory of a transformative editor of Nature.
Philip Campbell
doi:10.1038/458807a
Healthy outlook p807
China's first steps towards health care for all will require careful implementation.
doi:10.1038/458807b
A magnificence to share p808
Tourism in the Antarctic needs to be regulated, but should not be banned.
doi:10.1038/458808a
Research Highlights
Animal behaviour: Deafening dolphins p810
doi:10.1038/458810a
Neuroscience: The thief within p810
doi:10.1038/458810b
Astronomy: Twinkle twinkle, lots of stars p810
doi:10.1038/458810c
Animal behaviour: Regarding jackdaws p810
doi:10.1038/458810d
DNA: Acid–base boogie p810
doi:10.1038/458810e
Biosensing: Merry-go-round sensing p810
doi:10.1038/458810f
Neuroscience: Tetrapack protein p811
doi:10.1038/458811a
Nanotechnology: The new heat order p811
doi:10.1038/458811b
Locomotion: Elegant flappers p811
doi:10.1038/458811c
Cancer: Dual aspect p811
doi:10.1038/458811d
News
Time to sequence the 'red and the dead' p812
New projects could tackle the genomics of species both critically endangered and already extinct.
Henry Nicholls
doi:10.1038/458812a
Q&A: Bomb spurs research rally p813
Neuroscientist David Jentsch talks about the firebombing that led him to set up a demonstration in support of animal research.
Rex Dalton
doi:10.1038/458813a
NASA ponders 'carbon copy' of crashed mission p814
Replica spacecraft for monitoring carbon dioxide could fly in a couple of years if money can be found.
Eric Hand
doi:10.1038/458814a
Collision debris increases risk to Earth-observing satellites p814
European study finds wreckage from recent collision in the spaceways.
Geoff Brumfiel
doi:10.1038/458814b
Little progress seen at climate talks p815
Money and targets separate developed and developing countries.
Quirin Schiermeier
doi:10.1038/458815a
Forensic labs warn of deuterated drug threat p817
New formulations could undermine crucial chromatography.
Katharine Sanderson
doi:10.1038/458817a
A synthetic-biology reality check p818
Is the abrupt closure of prominent player Codon Devices an omen for the field?
Erika Check Hayden & Heidi Ledford
doi:10.1038/458818a
Hope for new telescopes as Mauna Kea plan approved p819
doi:10.1038/458819a
America's science adviser speaks p819
doi:10.1038/458819b
Genome Canada cancels stem-cell project funding p819
doi:10.1038/458819c
Argentina's dengue-fever outbreak reaches capital p819
doi:10.1038/458819d
Japanese stimulus provides green boost p819
doi:10.1038/458819e
Capture of wild jaguar raises eyebrows p819
doi:10.1038/458819f
Correction p819
doi:10.1038/458819g
News Features
Cosmology: The test of inflation p820
As the launch of the Planck spacecraft approaches, Eric Hand investigates what the mission could mean for the predominant theory of the moments after the Big Bang.
doi:10.1038/458820a
Reproduction: Two by two p826
Could genes explain the remarkable rate of identical twins born in some remote villages around the world? David Cyranoski investigates a long-standing biological curiosity.
doi:10.1038/458826a
Correspondence
Polar science: global partnership to work on data sharing p830
Mark A. Parsons
doi:10.1038/458830a
Polar science: bid for freely accessible biodiversity archive p830
Bruno Danis & Huw Griffiths
doi:10.1038/458830b
Canadian government reaffirms support for science and discovery p830
Gary Goodyear
doi:10.1038/458830c
Dormant microbes: scouting ahead or plodding along? p831
Peter H. Janssen
doi:10.1038/458831a
Dormant microbes: time to revive some old ideas p831
Douglas Kell
doi:10.1038/458831b
Technology takes on deadlines for fetal human rights p831
Michael C. Wendl
doi:10.1038/458831c
More acclaim for Darwin's theory of sexual selection p831
David J. Hosken
doi:10.1038/458831d
Essay
Can evolution explain how minds work? p832
Biologists have tended to assume that closely related species will have similar cognitive abilities. Johan J. Bolhuis and Clive D. L. Wynne put this evolutionarily inspired idea through its paces.
Johan J. Bolhuis & Clive D. L. Wynne
doi:10.1038/458832a
Books and Arts
A measure of importance p834
Astronomer François Arago of the Paris Observatory defied war, disease and death to survey the meridian running through his city — and helped define the metric system we use today, explains Andrew Robinson.
Andrew Robinson
doi:10.1038/458834a
Decisions, decisions... p835
Adam Kepecs reviews How We Decide/The Decisive Moment by Jonah Lehrer
doi:10.1038/458835a
Songs on the brain p835
Roxanne Khamsi reviews Rock-It Science
doi:10.1038/458835b
Flashes of cosmic brilliance p836
Tim Otto Roth's minimalist art installation reflects the complexity of cosmic radiation, explains Martin Kemp.
Martin Kemp
doi:10.1038/458836a
Q&A: Tom Wolfe on language and the mind p837
Behind the novelist's eye of Tom Wolfe — bestselling author of Bonfire of the Vanities — lies a keen interest in brain science. Discussing the origin of language this week with Steven Pinker at the Brainwave festival in New York, Wolfe explains why he sees human behaviour as more than mechanistic, and genetic theory as little more than literature.
Jascha Hoffman
doi:10.1038/458837a
News and Views
Obesity: Be cool, lose weight p839
To lose weight, would you rather diet, exercise or subject yourself to cool temperatures? The last choice is not such an odd one, as adult humans have brown fat tissue that burns calories in response to cold.
Stephen R. Farmer
doi:10.1038/458839a
Biochemistry: Anchors away p840
Nature often adopts several approaches to crack the same problem. The finding that the mechanism of a crucial enzyme in certain disease-causing bacteria differs from that in mammals offers scope for drug discovery.
Maria Paola Costi & Stefania Ferrari
doi:10.1038/458840a
See also: Editor's summary
Solid-state physics: Bouncing spins p841
The conventional approach to flipping electron spins in a semiconductor requires an external alternating field. It seems that the same job can be accomplished without external excitation of any kind.
Lieven M. K. Vandersypen
doi:10.1038/458841a
See also: Editor's summary
Neuroscience: A bar code for differentiation p843
Regulating neuronal development can be complicated. But genetic control of neurotransmitter expression — as exemplified by differentiation of dopamine-secreting neurons — turns out to be relatively straightforward.
Nicholas C. Spitzer
doi:10.1038/458843a
See also: Editor's summary
Imaging: Nanoscale MRI p844
Magnetic resonance imaging offers rich three-dimensional pictures, but with limited resolution. Imaging at the nanometre scale has now become possible using highly sensitive force-detection techniques.
P. C. Hammel
doi:10.1038/458844a
Materials science: Nanotubes unzipped p845
Nanotubes are single sheets of graphite rolled up into a cylinder. But no one thought that nanotubes could be cut along their axis and flattened out to make such sheets. Until now.
Mauricio Terrones
doi:10.1038/458845a
See also: Editor's summary
Brief Communications Arising
Tbx18 and the fate of epicardial progenitors pE8
Vincent M. Christoffels, Thomas Grieskamp, Julia Norden, Mathilda T. M. Mommersteeg, Carsten Rudat & Andreas Kispert
doi:10.1038/nature07916
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (628K)
Cai et al. reply pE9
Chen-Leng Cai, Jody C. Martin, Yunfu Sun, Li Cui, Lianchun Wang, Kunfu Ouyang, Lei Yang, Lei Bu, Xingqun Liang, Xiaoxue Zhang, William B. Stallcup, Christopher P. Denton, Andrew McCulloch, Ju Chen & Sylvia M. Evans
doi:10.1038/nature07917
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (628K)
Review
The dawn of the particle astronomy era in ultra-high-energy cosmic rays p847
Cosmic rays are charged particles arriving at Earth from space. Those at the highest energies are particularly interesting because the physical processes that could create or accelerate them are at the limit of our present knowledge. The Pierre Auger Observatory is the largest cosmic-ray detector on Earth, and as such is beginning to resolve past observational disagreements regarding the origin and propagation of these particles.
Pablo M. Bauleo & Julio Rodríguez Martino
doi:10.1038/nature07948
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (839K)
See also: Editor's summary
Articles
Kinetochore geometry defined by cohesion within the centromere p852
In this study, Watanabe and colleagues investigate the contribution of kinetochore geometry as a determinant for bipolar versus monopolar attachment. They find that cohesion at the core centromere induces a monopolar attachment seen in meiosis I; in contrast, cohesion at the peri-centromeric region promotes bipolar attachment in mitosis.
Takeshi Sakuno, Kenji Tada & Yoshinori Watanabe
doi:10.1038/nature07876
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (542K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
Design of protein-interaction specificity gives selective bZIP-binding peptides p859
In this manuscript, the authors develop a computational framework to design protein peptide interactions, and they use the method to identify peptides that bind to human bZIP transcription factors. Despite that fact that bZIP proteins share strong sequence and structural similarities, the authors were able to find peptides that selectively bound to one family, but not the 19 other families.
Gevorg Grigoryan, Aaron W. Reinke & Amy E. Keating
doi:10.1038/nature07885
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (832K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
Letters
A massive hypergiant star as the progenitor of the supernova SN 2005gl p865
A key missing piece in the puzzle of supernovae is the difficulty of identifying and studying progenitor stars; in only a single case (SN 1987A) has a star been detected at the supernova location before the explosion. The proposed progenitor of supernova SN 2005gl has now been confirmed by Gal-Yam and Leonard as indeed the progenitor of that supernova; standard stellar evolution predicts that this very massive luminous blue variable should not have exploded in that state.
A. Gal-Yam & D. C. Leonard
doi:10.1038/nature07934
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (310K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
Ballistic spin resonance p868
Electron spin resonance produced by high-frequency magnetic or electric fields has wide applications. The authors report a type of electron spin resonance that does not require external driving fields; electrons bouncing back and forth in micrometre-scale channels of a semiconductor structure undergo spin resonance through an effective magnetic field that oscillates owing to the repeated wall reflections, with typical frequencies (~20-100 GHz) that are attractive for modern spin resonance applications.
S. M. Frolov, S. Lüscher, W. Yu, Y. Ren, J. A. Folk & W. Wegscheider
doi:10.1038/nature07873
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (438K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Vandersypen
Longitudinal unzipping of carbon nanotubes to form graphene nanoribbons p872
Graphene nanoribbons have important electronic properties — as their width increases they change from semiconductor to semi-metal — but it has been difficult to make large quantities. To do so, Tour et al. simply longitudinally unzip multiwalled carbon nanotubes with permanganate in acid to form graphene oxide, which is then reduced to restore electronic conductivity. The ribbons are about 100 nm wide (thinner ones tend to 'mat'), and the authors use them to make field-effect transistors.
Dmitry V. Kosynkin, Amanda L. Higginbotham, Alexander Sinitskii, Jay R. Lomeda, Ayrat Dimiev, B. Katherine Price & James M. Tour
doi:10.1038/nature07872
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (850K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Terrones
Narrow graphene nanoribbons from carbon nanotubes p877
Unlike graphene itself, or carbon nanotubes, very narrow nanoribbons of graphene are completely semiconducting. Dai and colleagues reliably produce bulk quantities of sub-10 nm graphene nanoribbons by partial encapsulation of carbon nanotubes in a polymer. The exposed part of the nanotube can be cut by plasma etching, so that the nanotube unzips when the polymer is removed, leaving a very thin strip of graphene.
Liying Jiao, Li Zhang, Xinran Wang, Georgi Diankov & Hongjie Dai
doi:10.1038/nature07919
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (4,780K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Terrones
Rapid sea-level rise and reef back-stepping at the close of the last interglacial highstand p881
Knowing the rate at which the sea-level rose 4-6 m (highstand) during the last interglacial period could help us assess whether such rapid ice loss could lead to future catastrophic sea-level rise. Blanchon and co-authors date a fossil coral reef from the Yucatan peninsula, Mexico, to present a complete highstand reef-crest sequence and its U-series chronology. They find that the reef back-stepped to 6 m, which they infer occurred rapidly, and was triggered by a 2-3 m jump in sea level during a time of ice-sheet instability.
Paul Blanchon, Anton Eisenhauer, Jan Fietzke & Volker Liebetrau
doi:10.1038/nature07933
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (707K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
Gene regulatory logic of dopamine neuron differentiation p885
The authors reveal that the regulatory protein AST-1 is necessary and sufficient to drive and maintain the terminal differentiation of dopaminergic neurons in C. elegans. Because the protein and its terminal differentiation function are strikingly conserved in mice, the results have direct implications for stem-cell replacement strategies in numerous dopamine-related disorders, such as Parkinson's disease.
Nuria Flames & Oliver Hobert
doi:10.1038/nature07929
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (741K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Spitzer
Neisseria meningitidis recruits factor H using protein mimicry of host carbohydrates p890
Neisseria meningitidis possesses a surface protein called fHbp that binds to the complement regulator factor H, thereby interfering with the host immune response. Now the structure of N. meningitidis fHbp bound to factor H is presented, revealing the molecular interactions between these two molecules.
Muriel C. Schneider, Beverly E. Prosser, Joseph J. E. Caesar, Elisabeth Kugelberg, Su Li, Qian Zhang, Sadik Quoraishi, Janet E. Lovett, Janet E. Deane, Robert B. Sim, Pietro Roversi, Steven Johnson, Christoph M. Tang & Susan M. Lea
doi:10.1038/nature07769
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (917K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
Inactivation of the Fto gene protects from obesity p894
This study shows that mice lacking the Fto gene do not grow properly after birth, and have less adipose tissue and lean body mass. This is due to increased energy expenditure and systemic sympathetic activation, even though these mice move less and eat lots.
Julia Fischer, Linda Koch, Christian Emmerling, Jeanette Vierkotten, Thomas Peters, Jens C. Brüning & Ulrich Rüther
doi:10.1038/nature07848
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (541K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
Identification of a dendritic cell receptor that couples sensing of necrosis to immunity p899
This study shows that dendritic cells use the C-type lectin CLEC9A to sense necrotic cell debris and to mediate cross-presentation of dead-cell-associated antigens.
David Sancho, Olivier P. Joffre, Anna M. Keller, Neil C. Rogers, Dolores Martínez, Patricia Hernanz-Falcón, Ian Rosewell & Caetano Reis e Sousa
doi:10.1038/nature07750
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (666K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
IFN
activates dormant haematopoietic stem cells in vivo p904
This paper shows that in response to treatment of mice with interferon-
(IFN), haematopoietic stem cells
exit the dormant stage and enter an active cell cycle, The data may help to clarify the clinical effects of IFNa on leukaemic cells, and raise the possibility for new applications of type I interferons to target cancer stem cells.
Marieke A. G. Essers, Sandra Offner, William E. Blanco-Bose, Zoe Waibler, Ulrich Kalinke, Michel A. Duchosal & Andreas Trumpp
doi:10.1038/nature07815
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (804K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
Crystal structure of an avian influenza polymerase PAN reveals an endonuclease active site p909
This paper reports the crystal structure of the amino terminus of the PA subunit of the influenza RNA polymerase, and provides evidence that it has endonuclease activity.
Puwei Yuan, Mark Bartlam, Zhiyong Lou, Shoudeng Chen, Jie Zhou, Xiaojing He, Zongyang Lv, Ruowen Ge, Xuemei Li, Tao Deng, Ervin Fodor, Zihe Rao & Yingfang Liu
doi:10.1038/nature07720
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (703K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
The cap-snatching endonuclease of influenza virus polymerase resides in the PA subunit p914
The amino terminal domain of influenza virus polymerase PA subunit is shown to harbour the endonuclease activity required for the cap-snatching mechanism of viral mRNA synthesis.
Alexandre Dias, Denis Bouvier, Thibaut Crépin, Andrew A. McCarthy, Darren J. Hart, Florence Baudin, Stephen Cusack & Rob W. H. Ruigrok
doi:10.1038/nature07745
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (911K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
An unusual mechanism of thymidylate biosynthesis in organisms containing the thyX gene p919
This paper reports an example of thymidylate biosynthesis that occurs without an enzymatic nucleophile, and is found in organisms containing the thyX gene (encoding a flavin-dependent thymidylate synthase). Because several human pathogens depend on this biosynthetic pathway for DNA biosynthesis, it may be possible to develop new, highly selective antibiotics that target this enzyme.
Eric M. Koehn, Todd Fleischmann, John A. Conrad, Bruce A. Palfey, Scott A. Lesley, Irimpan I. Mathews & Amnon Kohen
doi:10.1038/nature07973
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (690K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Costi & Ferrari
Technology Features
Functional Neuroscience: How to get ahead in imaging p925
Advances in magnetic resonance imaging are helping scientists learn more about the structure and function of the brain. Nathan Blow looks at how far the technology has developed and where it could go.
Nathan Blow
doi:10.1038/458925a
Functional Neuroscience: Changing the colour of MRI p926
Nathan Blow
doi:10.1038/458926a
Functional Neuroscience: Table of suppliers p929
doi:10.1038/458929a
Naturejobs
NewsWales woos global graduates p933
Scholarships seek to boost innovation.
Virginia Gewin
doi:10.1038/nj7240-933a
Postdoc journal
Presentation dreams p933
Striving for a better presentation.
Sam Walcott
doi:10.1038/nj7240-933b
In Brief
Applications slowing p933
Applications to US graduate schools are slowing, according to Council of Graduate Schools.
doi:10.1038/nj7240-933c
More PhDs for minorities p933
Report suggests success in attracting more minority PhD students.
doi:10.1038/nj7240-933d
Responsible research p933
NAS releases research ethics guide.
doi:10.1038/nj7240-933e
Careers and Recruitment
Steady breeze p934
Despite the economic downturn, wind energy should be fertile ground for jobseeking engineers and scientists, reports Amanda Leigh Mascarelli.
Amanda Leigh Mascarelli
doi:10.1038/nj7240-934a
Futures
EvoSoap p938
Truly personal hygiene.
Elizabeth Farnsworth, Aaron M. Ellison & Nicholas J. Gotelli
doi:10.1038/458938a
