Articles in 2013

How influential are the various factors involved in curbing global warming? A study finds that the timing of emissions reduction has the largest impact on the probability of limiting temperature increases to 2 °C. See Letter p.79

Two studies refute an enzyme’s essential role in remembering and forgetting.

The world is starting to win the war against tuberculosis, but drug-resistant forms pose a new threat.

Birger Schmitz weighs up an exploration of how the Universe permeates us.

Nanoscale imaging reveals that bacterial and fungal enzymes use different mechanisms to deconstruct plant cell walls. The finding may provide clues about how to enhance the efficiency of liquid-biofuel production from biomass.

Asian researchers and engineers are too rarely made US science leaders, say Lilian Gomory Wu and Wei Jing

A detailed simulation of the packing behaviour of deformable particles settles the debate about whether soft matter can adopt an unconventional crystal structure at high densities — it can. The hunt is now on for a real-world example.

A biologist turned careers adviser writes a book offering pointers to scientists.

Sustained activity of the brain-specific enzyme PKM-ζ is thought to underlie the maintenance of long-term memories. Studies in PKM-ζ-deficient mice, however, cast the importance of this protein into question. See Letters p.416 & p.420

Deep-imaging observations of the Andromeda galaxy and its surroundings have revealed a wide but thin planar structure of satellite galaxies that all orbit their host in the same rotational direction. See Letter p.62

The infrared luminosity of a young protostar (about 10⁵ years old) is found to increase by a factor of ten in roughly one week every 25.34 days; this is attributed to pulsed accretion associated with an unseen binary companion.

Modelling that integrates the effects of uncertainties in relevant geophysical, technological, social and political factors on the cost of keeping transient global temperature increase to below certain limits shows that political choices have the greatest effect on the cost distribution.

About half of the satellites in the Andromeda galaxy (M 31), all with the same sense of rotation about their host, form a planar subgroup that is extremely wide but also very thin.

It was proposed that protein kinase M-ζ (PKM-ζ) is a key factor in long-term potentiation (LTP) and memory maintenance on the basis of the disruption of LTP and memory by inhibitors of PKM-ζ; however, here mice that do not express PKM-ζ are shown to have normal LTP and memory, thus casting doubts on a critical role for PKM-ζ in these processes.

Genetically removing PKM-ζ in mice has no effect on memory, and despite absence of this kinase, the original peptide inhibitor of PKM-ζ still disrupts memory in these mutant mice; these data re-open the exploration for key molecules regulating maintenance of long-term plasticity processes.

Two giant, linearly polarized radio lobes have been found emanating from the Galactic Centre, and are thought to originate in a biconical, star-formation-driven outflow from the Galaxy’s central 200 parsecs that transports a huge amount of magnetic energy, about 10⁵⁵ ergs, into the Galactic halo

Observations of the young star HD 142527, whose disk is separated into inner and outer regions by a gap suggestive of the formation of a gaseous giant planet, show that accretion onto the star is maintained by a flow of gas across the gap, in agreement with dynamical models of planet formation.

The oxygen fugacity of the deepest rock samples from Earth’s mantle is found to be more oxidized than previously thought, with the result that carbon in the asthenospheric mantle will be hosted as graphite or diamond but will be oxidized to produce carbonate melt through the reduction of Fe³⁺ in silicate minerals during upwelling.

Nature looks ahead to the key findings and events that may emerge in 2013.