Volume 495 Issue 7439, 7 March 2013

The United States must not follow through with its plans to scale back its Federal Emergency Management Agency, argues Donald Moynihan.

The week in science: ‘Sequester’ cuts hit US science; health report from Fukushima; and infant cured of HIV.

Biologists track species on flotsam from Japan to US shores.

Scientists face difficult choice for Europe’s next Earth-observation mission.

Scientists reconstruct a battered traveller’s final moments.

Materials that flip from insulator to conductor could make energy-efficient transistors.

Antares test could challenge dominance of Falcon 9 rocket.

Critics fear that a proposed megaproject could crowd out other biological research.

A special section of Nature finds that there is still much to do to achieve gender equality in science

Despite improvements, female scientists continue to face discrimination, unequal pay and funding disparities.

The number of women in scientific research is going up — but where academia crosses into industry, men still rule.

What's being female got to do with anything, ask the scientists who are starting labs and having kids.

Let's move beyond denial, own up to our prejudices against women and retrain our brains to overcome them, says Jennifer Raymond.

Eight experts give their prescriptions for measures that will help to close the gender gap in nations from China to Sweden.

Measures to give women a fair chance in science should be based on evidence, warns Isabelle Vernos, or they could make matters worse.

Providing equal opportunities for women in science requires change at every level, argue Brigitte Mühlenbruch and Maren A. Jochimsen.

Biographies of female scientists perpetuate stereotypes, laments Patricia Fara

Two analyses challenge the idea of the Internet as a panacea for social ills, finds Nicholas Carr.

Alison Abbott enjoys a scientific history of a family integral to the Renaissance.

A bacterial enzyme that uses guide RNA molecules to target DNA for cleavage has been adopted as a programmable tool to site-specifically modify genomes of cells and organisms, from bacteria and human cells to whole zebrafish.

By having a highly accurate value for the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy, astronomers can get a better measure of cosmic 'dark energy'. Using binary stars, they have now achieved a value accurate to 2.2%. See Letter p.76

A long-standing ambiguity has been whether quiescent cells located in intestinal crypt structures are stem cells. The answer seems to be yes and no, depending on how one defines the term stem cell. See Article p.65

A ruthenium catalyst has been developed that, at a few parts per million, releases hydrogen gas from methanol, a simple bulk chemical. The advance might allow methanol to be used as a hydrogen source for fuelling vehicles. See Letter p.85

Exactly when motor-planning neurons function to produce a bird's song is debatable. New data suggest that bursts of activity in these cells mark sudden changes in the commands to the vocal organ. See Article p.59

A bacterium and a fungus both use gene sequences that fail to optimize the production of circadian-clock proteins. Two studies reveal different reasons for the advantages of producing less protein. See Letters p.111 & p.116

The auditory response of song premotor HVC neurons in sleeping birds, and HVC activity in singing birds, is synchronized with particular moments of vocal motor movements as defined by a dynamical systems model of song production; this HVC activity could be used as a ‘forward’ model to predict behaviour and evaluate feedback.

A new method to trace the lineage of slow cycling label-retaining cells (LRCs) in vivo identifies a population of LRCs that have features of committed Paneth cells but still express stem-cell markers such as Lgr5; the slow cycling cells differentiate into Paneth cells without cell division, but after injury can also repopulate the stem-cell niche and contribute to the regeneration of all intestinal lineages.

The crystal structure of a complete yeast exosome (Exo-10) bound to a region of the Rrp6 nuclease and an RNA substrate is determined, demonstrating that the exosome binds and degrades RNA molecules with a channelling mechanism that is largely conserved in all kingdoms of life and is similar to the mechanism used by the proteasome to degrade polypeptides.

Observations of eight long-period, late-type eclipsing-binary systems composed of cool, giant stars are used to determine a distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud accurate to 2.2 per cent, providing a base for a determination of the Hubble constant to an accuracy of 3 per cent.

A series of porous crystalline materials known as metal–organic materials are prepared, and a full sorption study shows that controlled pore size (rather than large surface area) coupled with appropriate chemistry lead to materials exhibiting fast and highly selective CO₂ sorption.

An efficient, low-temperature, aqueous-phase method of producing hydrogen gas from methanol using ruthenium complexes is described, which could make the transport of hydrogen — and hence its use for clean-energy generation — feasible.

Extensive glaciations, possibly even a globally ice-covered Snowball Earth, took place in the Neoproterozoic era, and here the possible ocean circulation at that time, under a kilometre of ice, is described.

New strashilid fossils from the Middle Jurassic epoch of Daohugou, China, show that they are highly specialized flies, and suggest that larval abdominal respiratory gills were retained in adult males, indicating that adult strashilids were probably aquatic or amphibious, with mating occurring in water.

NFIB, a transcription factor expressed by epithelial hair follicle stem cells, is shown to coordinate the synchronous maturation of hair follicle stem cells and melanocyte stem cells, thus controlling hair regeneration and pigmentation.

A post-transcriptional switch that controls spatiotemporal and mutually exclusive expression of two alternative gene products from a single transcript is reported; these gene products—miR-198 and FSTL1—are found to have opposing functions on keratinocyte migration and wound healing.

A role is demonstrated for miR-34a, a microRNA that is upregulated in the ageing heart; miR-34a downregulates PNUTS, a protein that protects cardiomyocytes and telomeres, silencing of miR-34a is therefore a promising therapeutic target.

The frq gene, essential for circadian clock function, is shown to differ from most other genes in Neurospora by exhibiting non-optimal codon usage; by contrast, optimization of codon usage is unexpectedly found to affect the structure and function of the coded protein, subsequently impairing circadian feedback loops.

Central circadian proteins in cyanobacteria unexpectedly use non-optimal codons, and optimizing their codes is shown to cause a change in an adaptive response to environmental conditions.

CPEB1 is known to regulate cytoplasmic polyadenylation, and is now shown to have a second function in the nucleus; it associates with the cleavage and polyadenylation machinery, thereby promoting usage of an upstream poly(A) signal in many messenger RNAs, and affecting alternative splicing.

US scientists passionate about teaching can find rewarding work at community colleges.

The training fast track helps an ecologist to get a major grant for coral research.

When two worlds collide.