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Volume 530 Issue 7589, 11 February 2016

The computer industry is about to formally announce that the era of Moore’s law � the expectation that the number of transistors on a microprocessor chip and hence its performance will double every two years � is at an end. Industry insiders agree though that this does not mean the end of progress. Improvements could come through better materials or even new types of computing. Plus the new era of mobile devices has changed the game in terms of the microprocessor chips of the future. Mitch Waldrop takes a look at some of the exciting new ideas that could help keep the information technology revolution on track.

Editorial

  • A swift and effective response to emerging infectious diseases demands that researchers have ready access to the latest data on the pathogens responsible. There is still a long way to go to ensure this.

    Editorial

    Advertisement

  • Jimmy Carter’s efforts to eradicate Guinea worm should be applauded.

    Editorial
  • Governments must stop proposing solutions and invest in large-scale removal of carbon dioxide.

    Editorial
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World View

  • Universities and their senior staff must do more to deter, detect and punish all forms of inappropriate behaviour, says Joan Schmelz.

    • Joan Schmelz
    World View
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Research Highlights

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Social Selection

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Seven Days

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News

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Correction

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News Feature

  • The semiconductor industry will soon abandon its pursuit of Moore's law. Now things could get a lot more interesting.

    • M. Mitchell Waldrop
    News Feature
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Comment

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Books & Arts

  • Michael Blanton enjoys a history of cosmology focused on large-scale structure in the 'spongy' Universe.

    • Michael Blanton
    Books & Arts
  • Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week's best science picks.

    • Barbara Kiser
    Books & Arts
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Correspondence

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News & Views

  • The identification of a set of genetic variations that are strongly associated with the risk of developing schizophrenia provides insights into the neurobiology of this destructive disease. See Article p.177

    • Ryan S. Dhindsa
    • David B. Goldstein
    News & Views
  • Newly mapped features on the floor of the Arctic Ocean suggest that the Arctic basin was once covered by a one-kilometre-thick, flowing ice shelf derived from large ice sheets in eastern Siberia, Arctic Canada and the Barents Sea.

    • Eugene Domack
    News & Views
  • The selective elimination of cells that have adopted an irreversible, senescent state has now been shown to extend the lifespan of mice and to ameliorate some age-related disease processes. See Article p.184

    • Jesús Gil
    • Dominic J. Withers
    News & Views
  • Injecting electrons that have been accelerated by a laser-powered plasma wave into a second plasma wave represents a two-step electron accelerator. With 100 such steps, collider applications become possible. See Letter p.190

    • Brigitte Cros
    News & Views
  • The part that the mouse gene Prdm9 plays in generating double-strand breaks in DNA has now been linked to its putative role in speciation, thanks to experiments that use a 'humanized' version of the gene. See Article p.171

    • Jiri Forejt
    News & Views
  • A method has been devised that extends the resolution of X-ray crystal structures beyond the diffraction limit. This might help to improve the visualization of structures of proteins that form 'poorly diffracting' crystals. See Letter p.202

    • Jian-Ren Shen
    News & Views
  • Planets develop from the disk of dust and gas that surrounds a newly formed star. Observations of gaps in the disks of four such systems have allowed us to start unravelling the processes by which planets form.

    • Paul Ho
    News & Views
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Article

  • PRDM9 is a DNA-binding protein that controls the position of double-strand breaks in meiosis, and the gene that encodes it is responsible for hybrid infertility between closely related mouse species; this hybrid infertility is eliminated by introducing the zinc-finger domain sequence from the human version of the PRDM9 gene, a change which alters both the position of double-strand breaks and the symmetry of PRDM9 binding and suggests that PRDM9 may have a more general but transient role in the early stages of speciation.

    • Benjamin Davies
    • Edouard Hatton
    • Peter Donnelly
    Article
  • WebSchizophrenia is associated with genetic variation at the major histocompatibility complex locus; this study reveals that alleles at this locus associate with schizophrenia in proportion to their tendency to generate greater expression of complement component 4 (C4A) genes and that C4 promotes the elimination of synpases.

    • Aswin Sekar
    • Allison R. Bialas
    • Steven A. McCarroll
    Article
  • When senescent cells accumulate during adulthood they negatively influence lifespan and promote age-dependent changes in several organs; clearance of these cells delayed tumorigenesis in mice and attenuated age-related deterioration of several organs without overt side effects, suggesting that the therapeutic removal of senescent cells may be able to extend healthy lifespan.

    • Darren J. Baker
    • Bennett G. Childs
    • Jan M. van Deursen

    Milestone:

    Article
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Letter

  • Laser-plasma particle accelerators offer much higher acceleration than conventional methods, which could enable high-energy applications; here two separate accelerator stages, driven by two independent lasers, are coupled using plasma-based optics.

    • S. Steinke
    • J. van Tilborg
    • W. P. Leemans
    Letter
  • WebSpontaneous translational symmetry breaking is experimentally observed in a dipolar Bose–Einstein condensate of dysprosium atoms, whereby an instability causes a spontaneous transition from an unstructured superfluid to an ordered arrangement of droplet crystals, which is surprisingly long-lived.

    • Holger Kadau
    • Matthias Schmitt
    • Tilman Pfau
    Letter
  • In material systems with several interacting degrees of freedom, the complex interplay between these factors can give rise to exotic phases; now superlattices consisting of alternating layers of PbTiO3 and SrTiO3 are found to exhibit an unusual form of ferroelectric ordering in the PbTiO3 layers, in which the electric dipoles arrange themselves into regular, ordered arrays of vortex–antivortex structures.

    • A. K. Yadav
    • C. T. Nelson
    • R. Ramesh
    Letter
  • Crystal lattice disorder, which gives rise to a continuous diffraction pattern, is exploited to determine the structure of the integral membrane protein complex photosystem II to a higher resolution than could be achieved using Bragg diffraction alone.

    • Kartik Ayyer
    • Oleksandr M. Yefanov
    • Henry N. Chapman
    Letter
  • A reconstruction of changes in ocean oxygenation throughout the last glacial cycle shows that respired carbon was removed from the deep Southern Ocean during deglaciation and Antarctic warm events, consistent with a prominent role of reduced iron fertilization and enhanced ocean ventilation, modifying atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over the past 80,000 years.

    • Samuel L. Jaccard
    • Eric D. Galbraith
    • Robert F. Anderson
    Letter
  • An analysis of above-ground biomass recovery during secondary succession in forest sites and plots, covering the major environmental gradients in the Neotropics.

    • Lourens Poorter
    • Frans Bongers
    • Danaë M. A. Rozendaal
    Letter
  • Until recently, complex multi-parameters were required for the isolation and identification of haematopoietic stem cells, complicating study of their biology in situ; here the authors have found that expression of a single gene, Hoxb5, defines haematopoietic stem cells with long-term reconstitution capacity, and that these cells are mainly found in direct contact with endothelial cells.

    • James Y. Chen
    • Masanori Miyanishi
    • Irving L. Weissman
    Letter
  • A nanopore DNA sequencer is used for real-time genomic surveillance of the Ebola virus epidemic in the field in Guinea; the authors demonstrate that it is possible to pack a genomic surveillance laboratory in a suitcase and transport it to the field for on-site virus sequencing, generating results within 24 hours of sample collection.

    • Joshua Quick
    • Nicholas J. Loman
    • Miles W. Carroll
    Letter
  • Although several X-ray crystal structures of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) have been reported, relatively little is known about the conformational dynamics of these important membrane proteins; here, the authors used NMR spectroscopy to monitor the conformational changes that occur in the turkey β1-adrenergic receptor in the presence of antagonists, partial agonists, and full agonists.

    • Shin Isogai
    • Xavier Deupi
    • Stephan Grzesiek
    Letter
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Corrigendum

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Erratum

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Column

  • PhD holders should not underestimate their value to industry and the business sector, says Peter Fiske.

    • Peter Fiske
    Column
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Q&A

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Futures

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