Table of contents
Volume 459 Number 7244 pp139-290
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Editorials
Politics proves its worth p139
The European Parliament has reaffirmed its legislative value by reversing the potentially disruptive restrictions in the draft directive for protecting laboratory animals.
doi:10.1038/459139a
Bracing for the unknown p139
Last year's earthquake in China is a salutary reminder about preparing for risk in the face of uncertainty.
doi:10.1038/459139b
A measure of marine life p140
The extraordinary emerging images of ocean microbiology need the fourth dimension of time.
doi:10.1038/459140a
Research Highlights
Migration: The long bask p142
doi:10.1038/459142a
Ecology: Bouillabaisse p142
doi:10.1038/459142b
Astronomy: Strange star p142
doi:10.1038/459142c
Quantum physics: Atomic painting p142
doi:10.1038/459142d
Geosciences: The forever landscape p142
doi:10.1038/459142e
Imaging: Seeing beyond skin deep p142
doi:10.1038/459142f
Materials: Everlasting memory p143
doi:10.1038/459143a
Polymer chemistry: Doughnut machine p143
doi:10.1038/459143b
Microbiology: On the surface p143
doi:10.1038/459143c
Conservation: Amphibian additions p143
doi:10.1038/459143d
News
Vaccine decisions loom for new flu strain p144
World Health Organization considers live attenuated vaccines for swine-associated H1N1 outbreak.
Declan Butler
doi:10.1038/459144a
Stem-cell therapy faces more scrutiny in China p146
But regulations remain unclear for companies that supply treatments.
David Cyranoski
doi:10.1038/459146a
Exome sequencing takes centre stage in cancer profiling p146
Researchers question focus on coding regions.
Brendan Maher
doi:10.1038/459146b
Deep concerns p148
The United States' flagship underground laboratory is running into challenges over its relations with local Native Americans. Rex Dalton reports.
Rex Dalton
doi:10.1038/459148a
Austria quits CERN after 50 years p151
Physicists stunned by by government's plans.
Geoff Brumfiel
doi:10.1038/459151a
Social scientists join synthetic-biology centre p152
doi:10.1038/459152a
South Africa's cabinet a mixed bag for science p152
doi:10.1038/459152b
University fined after safety-failure lab death p152
doi:10.1038/459152c
Human space-flight review in US budget proposals p152
doi:10.1038/459152d
Japan to pay firms to relieve postdoc glut p152
doi:10.1038/459152e
Quiet Sun enters new sunspot cycle p152
doi:10.1038/459152f
News Features
Seismology: The sleeping dragon p153
The great Sichuan earthquake of 12 May 2008 caught Earth scientists off guard. A year on, Alexandra Witze reports from the shattered towns on how researchers have learned from their failures.
doi:10.1038/459153a
Microbiology: Tinker, bacteria, eukaryote, spy p159
Bacteria and their hosts may reside in different kingdoms, but that doesn't stop them from intercepting each other's communications. Asher Mullard reports.
doi:10.1038/459159a
Correspondence
Leading the tributes to editor John Maddox p163
David Davies
doi:10.1038/459163a
Water: conflicts set to arise within as well as between states p163
Ismail Serageldin
doi:10.1038/459163b
Water: resistance on the route towards a fair share for all p163
Mark Zeitoun
doi:10.1038/459163c
Essay
Is free will an illusion? p164
Scientists and philosophers are using new discoveries in neuroscience to question the idea of free will. They are misguided, says Martin Heisenberg. Examining animal behaviour shows how our actions can be free.
Martin Heisenberg
doi:10.1038/459164a
Books and Arts
The otherness of the oceans p166
As scientists discover more about the genomes of marine microorganisms, new views of their physiology and ecosystem networks are opening up, explain Alexandra Z. Worden and Darcy McRose.
Alexandra Z. Worden & Darcy McRose
doi:10.1038/459166a
Ecology lost and found p167
Jon Christensen reviews Paradise Found: Nature in America at the Time of Discovery by Steve Nicholls
doi:10.1038/459167a
The dangers of denying HIV p168
John P. Moore reviews Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy by Seth Kalichman
doi:10.1038/459168a
Q&A: Origami unfolded p169
In her documentary Between the Folds, film director Vanessa Gould explores the expression of mathematics through origami. She tells Nature how she became captivated by the art and science of transforming sheets of paper into three-dimensional geometric shapes — and exposed a hidden subculture.
Roxanne Khamsi
doi:10.1038/459169a
Art tied up p169
Colin Martin reviews Ravelling, Unravelling
doi:10.1038/459169b
News and Views
Origins of life: Systems chemistry on early Earth p171
Understanding how life emerged on Earth is one of the greatest challenges facing modern chemistry. A new way of looking at the synthesis of RNA sidesteps a thorny problem in the field.
Jack W. Szostak
doi:10.1038/459171a
See also: Editor's summary
Molecular microbiology: A key event in survival p172
The parasitic microorganism Trypanosoma brucei evades recognition by its host's immune system by repeatedly changing its surface coat. The switch in coat follows a risky route, though: DNA break and repair.
Dave Barry & Richard McCulloch
doi:10.1038/459172a
See also: Editor's summary
Astrophysics: Cosmic crystals caught in the act p173
The outburst of a Sun-like star offers a rare opportunity to witness the making of silicate crystals in the star's planet-forming disk, providing key information about the formation of comets and the Solar System.
Aigen Li
doi:10.1038/459173a
See also: Editor's summary
Microbiology: Signals for change p175
Sadaf Shadan
doi:10.1038/459175a
See also: Editor's summary
Archaeology: Origins of the female image p176
Discovery of the sexually explicit figurine of a woman, dating to 35,000 years ago, provides striking evidence of the symbolic explosion that occurred in the earliest populations of Homo sapiens in Europe.
Paul Mellars
doi:10.1038/459176a
See also: Editor's summary
50 & 100 years ago p177
doi:10.1038/459177a
Insight: Microbial oceanography -
Insight: Microbial oceanography
Microbial oceanography p179
Claudia Lupp
doi:10.1038/459179a
Microbial oceanography in a sea of opportunity p180
Chris Bowler, David M. Karl & Rita R. Colwell
doi:10.1038/nature08056
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (1,794K)
The life of diatoms in the world's oceans p185
E. Virginia Armbrust
doi:10.1038/nature08057
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (4,328K)
Microbial community structure and its functional implications p193
Jed A. Fuhrman
doi:10.1038/nature08058
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (1,521K)
The microbial ocean from genomes to biomes p200
Edward F. DeLong
doi:10.1038/nature08059
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (2,147K)
Viruses manipulate the marine environment p207
Forest Rohwer & Rebecca Vega Thurber
doi:10.1038/nature08060
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (2,377K)
Articles
A surface transporter family conveys the trypanosome differentiation signal p213
The differentiation of the parasite Trypanosoma brucei, the cause of sleeping sickness, from the human blood to the tsetse fly stage is known to require two signals – low temperature and citrate and/or cis-aconitate – but how these signals were perceived was unknown. The trypanosome carboxylate-transporter family PAD is now revealed to be essential in this process.
Samuel Dean, Rosa Marchetti, Kiaran Kirk & Keith R. Matthews
doi:10.1038/nature07997
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (645K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Shadan
Select Drosophila glomeruli mediate innate olfactory attraction and aversion p218
Individual odorant molecules have been shown to activate several distinct classes of olfactory neurons at once, suggesting a combinatorial code. Using a new behavioural assay and cutting-edge genetic control of specific neurons in the fruitfly, attraction to low concentrations of vinegar is now shown to rely exclusively on one or two of the six activated neuronal centres.
Julia L. Semmelhack & Jing W. Wang
doi:10.1038/nature07983
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (3,604K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
Letters
Episodic formation of cometary material in the outburst of a young Sun-like star p224
Our Solar System originated in a cloud of interstellar gas and amorphous dust, but cometary dust is mainly crystalline—and it is not clear how this crystallization occurred. The outburst spectrum of the young solar-like star EX Lupi shows mid-infrared features, attributed to crystalline forsterite, that were not present in quiescence, suggesting that crystals were produced via thermal annealing by heat from the outburst. This represents a new mechanism of crystal formation in protoplanetary disks.
P. Ábrahám, A. Juhász, C. P. Dullemond, Á. Kóspál, R. van Boekel, J. Bouwman, Th. Henning, A. Moór, L. Mosoni, A. Sicilia-Aguilar & N. Sipos
doi:10.1038/nature08004
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (150K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Li
Radiation-pressure mixing of large dust grains in protoplanetary disks p227
Dusty disks around young stars are formed out of interstellar dust that consists of amorphous submicrometre grains. Yet the grains found in comets, meteorites and traced in the spectra of young stars include big crystalline grains in environments considered too cold for crystallinity to occur. Here it is shown that infrared light arising from the dusty disk can loft grains bigger than one micrometre out of the hot inner disk, whereupon they are pushed outwards by stellar radiation pressure.
Dejan Vinkovi
doi:10.1038/nature08032
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (317K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Li
Thermal vestige of the zero-temperature jamming transition p230
When the packing fraction is increased sufficiently, loose particulates jam together to form a rigid solid in which the constituents are no longer free to move. Although in typical granular materials and foams the thermal energy is too small to produce structural rearrangements, thermal motion becomes relevant when the particles are small enough. Here, colloidal experiments and computer simulations are used to investigate the overlap distance between neighbouring particles beyond the zero-temperature limit, revealing some surprising behaviour.
Zexin Zhang, Ning Xu, Daniel T. N. Chen, Peter Yunker, Ahmed M. Alsayed, Kevin B. Aptowicz, Piotr Habdas, Andrea J. Liu, Sidney R. Nagel & Arjun G. Yodh
doi:10.1038/nature07998
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (468K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
White organic light-emitting diodes with fluorescent tube efficiency p234
Light-emitting diodes based on organic materials (known as OLEDs) have a number of attractive qualities that could make them the light sources of choice for the future. Unfortunately until now they have never reached the power efficiencies of fluorescent tubes. Here, the engineering of white OLEDs with power efficiencies at least as high as that of standard fluorescent tubes brings the future a little closer.
Sebastian Reineke, Frank Lindner, Gregor Schwartz, Nico Seidler, Karsten Walzer, Björn Lüssem & Karl Leo
doi:10.1038/nature08003
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (435K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
Synthesis of activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides in prebiotically plausible conditions p239
At some stage in the origin of life, an information-carrying polymer must have formed by purely chemical means. That polymer might have been RNA, but until now this theory has been hampered by a lack of evidence for a plausible route in which the ribonucleotides could have formed on prebiotic Earth. Here, just such a route is reported.
Matthew W. Powner, Béatrice Gerland & John D. Sutherland
doi:10.1038/nature08013
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (321K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Szostak
Interior pathways of the North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation p243
Labrador Sea Water (LSW) is an important determinant of the strength of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and thus of the main oceanic mechanism of energy redistribution. By using a combination of neutral buoyancy floats and modelling 'e-floats', the dominant pathway of export of LSW into the North Atlantic is shown to be via internal pathways rather than the Deep Western Boundary Current, as previously thought.
Amy S. Bower, M. Susan Lozier, Stefan F. Gary & Claus W. Böning
doi:10.1038/nature07979
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (3,133K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
A female figurine from the basal Aurignacian of Hohle Fels Cave in southwestern Germany p248
The 'Venus of Hohle Fels', discovered in a cave in southern Germany, may be the oldest-known example of figurative art. The mammoth-ivory carving of a woman with grotesquely exaggerated sexual features is at least 35,000 years old, and may be 5,000 years older than the next-oldest example of so-called 'Venus' figurines.
Nicholas J. Conard
doi:10.1038/nature07995
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (615K)
See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Mellars
Snowdrift game dynamics and facultative cheating in yeast p253
Yeast secrete invertase to break down sucrose into monosaccharides that they can metabolize. However, 99% of the monosaccharides diffuse away where they can be used by other yeast cells, making this a cooperative behaviour that is susceptible to cheating by cells that do not secrete invertase. Here this is shown to be a snowdrift game, in which cheating can be profitable, but is not necessarily the best strategy if others are cheating too.
Jeff Gore, Hyun Youk & Alexander van Oudenaarden
doi:10.1038/nature07921
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (288K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
Two-year-olds with autism orient to non-social contingencies rather than biological motion p257
Human infants preferentially look at motions that make sense biologically as opposed to non-biological movements within the first days of life, an ability which is seen as a precursor for attributing intentions to others. Here it is shown that two-year-olds with autism fail to look towards point-light displays of biological motion but are attracted by other properties ignored by control children, a behavioural difference which may reflect changes in the functioning of autistic brains.
Ami Klin, David J. Lin, Phillip Gorrindo, Gordon Ramsay & Warren Jones
doi:10.1038/nature07868
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (700K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
Single Lgr5 stem cells build crypt–villus structures in vitro without a mesenchymal niche p262
Lrg5+ is a protein which has been shown to mark cycling stem cells that renew the tissue of the intestine. Here, Lrg5+ stem cells were used in the establishment of long-term culture conditions capable of generating organoids with all the cell types and architecture of intestinal crypts present in adult mammals.
Toshiro Sato, Robert G. Vries, Hugo J. Snippert, Marc van de Wetering, Nick Barker, Daniel E. Stange, Johan H. van Es, Arie Abo, Pekka Kujala, Peter J. Peters & Hans Clevers
doi:10.1038/nature07935
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (1,410K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
Metatranscriptomics reveals unique microbial small RNAs in the ocean's water column p266
Microbial gene expression in the environment has recently been assessed via pyrosequencing of total RNA extracted directly from natural, uncultured microbial communities. This technique, known as metatranscriptomics, is used to show that a significant fraction of transcripts extracted from an oceanic sample are small RNAs.
Yanmei Shi, Gene W. Tyson & Edward F. DeLong
doi:10.1038/nature08055
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (686K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
Discovery of dual function acridones as a new antimalarial chemotype p270
Malaria drug development remains an important public health goal, especially in light of the emergence of drug resistance. Here a new class of malaria drugs is presented: an acridone derivative containing a chemosensitizing domain that may prevent the occurrence of parasite drug resistance.
Jane X. Kelly, Martin J. Smilkstein, Reto Brun, Sergio Wittlin, Roland A. Cooper, Kristin D. Lane, Aaron Janowsky, Robert A. Johnson, Rozalia A. Dodean, Rolf Winter, David J. Hinrichs & Michael K. Riscoe
doi:10.1038/nature07937
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (251K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
qiRNA is a new type of small interfering RNA induced by DNA damage p274
High-throughput sequencing has highlighted a vast reservoir of small non-coding RNAs, the function of which, for the most part, remains to be determined. Here a new class of small RNAs, termed qiRNAs, is identified from the fungus Neurospora. The production of qiRNAs is dependent on DNA damage, and it is proposed that they may have a role in the DNA damage response.
Heng-Chi Lee, Shwu-Shin Chang, Swati Choudhary, Antti P. Aalto, Mekhala Maiti, Dennis H. Bamford & Yi Liu
doi:10.1038/nature08041
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (428K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary
A yeast-endonuclease-generated DNA break induces antigenic switching in Trypanosoma brucei p278
Sleeping sickness is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma brucei. This parasite outwits the human immune system by periodically changing its coat protein in a process known as VSG switching. Here, the first in vitro system that recapitulates VSG switching is established, indicating that a spontaneous double-stranded DNA break upstream of the gene encoding the code protein initiates the process.
Catharine E. Boothroyd, Oliver Dreesen, Tatyana Leonova, K. Ina Ly, Luisa M. Figueiredo, George A. M. Cross & F. Nina Papavasiliou
doi:10.1038/nature07982
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (683K) | Supplementary information
See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Barry & McCulloch
Naturejobs
NewsExpanding energy frontiers p285
New US energy research centres will create 1,100 new posts for postdocs, graduate students and technicians.
Virginia Gewin
doi:10.1038/nj7244-285a
Postdoc journal
A Cajun-style meeting p285
Could attending an annual meeting help me decide on academia versus industry?
Bryan Venters
doi:10.1038/nj7244-285b
In Brief
High cost, high reward p285
US legislators aim to boost number of federally supported teaching-hospital posts.
doi:10.1038/nj7244-285c
FASEB on Facebook p285
US biomedical research coalition launches pages on Facebook and Twitter.
doi:10.1038/nj7244-285d
ZymoGenetics cuts back p285
Biotech axes 129 R&D jobs to focus on immunology research.
doi:10.1038/nj7244-285e
Region
Ahead of the pack p286
The Boston-area biotechnology cluster is one of the most successful on the planet. But competition is growing from other states and countries. Heidi Ledford reports on what the region is doing to maintain its edge.
Heidi Ledford
doi:10.1038/nj7244-286a
