Volume 491 Issue 7422, 1 November 2012

Japan’s media have played a large part in exacerbating the effects of a fraud.

Independence of academic institutions is crucial if nations are to rebuild.

Rana Dajani argues that true equality for women scientists requires recognition of their family roles as well.

The week in science: Fisheries fund deal disappoints, Siemens sells solar business and China lifts ban on new nuclear reactors.

Global backlash greets sentencing of Italian scientists who assessed earthquake risk.

Siemens’ decision to pull out of DESERTEC reignites doubts.

Dozens of chimpanzees retired from research may have to continue to live in lab-like conditions.

Framework offers starting point to explaining how particles cope with fluctuations in gravity.

Success of Chinese biotech partnership raises hopes for prevention of overlooked diseases.

Acrylamide levels still too high in Europe’s food, says report.

An impoverished African nation was making promising strides in medicine — before the government clamped down on its foreign partnerships.

Sequencing DNA from individual cells is changing the way that researchers think of humans as a whole.

The tiny number of model organisms constrains research in ways that must be acknowledged and addressed, warns Jessica Bolker.

Without better regulation, non-invasive prenatal genetic tests will be targeted by US anti-abortion lobbyists, argues Jaime S. King.

Gisbert Glaser urges the United Nations' working group to do their research.

Charles Fernyhough enjoys a bold exploration of how the mind extracts meaning from what we read or hear.

Jennifer Rampling relishes a masterful take on the age-old allure of alchemy.

Andrew Robinson follows the feet, wheels, ships and space stations that have circled the globe.

By controlling the placement of 'sticky' patches on particles, assemblies can be made that mimic atomic bonding in molecules. This greatly expands the range of structures that can be assembled from small components. See Article p.51

A study showing the effects of two pesticides on bumblebees highlights the need for risk assessments to consider multiple species and the complex chain of factors that determines insect exposure to chemicals. See Letter p.105

Can some of the ageing effects on asteroid surfaces be caused by an interplanetary rain of carbon-rich Solar System debris? Observations from the Dawn space mission suggest that the answer is yes. See Letters p.79 & p.83

Carbon nanotubes interact strongly with light — a property that makes them ideal components of holographic devices. The realization of such a device opens up fresh opportunities for holography.

The origin of life on Earth remains one of the great unsolved mysteries. A new study suggests that cooperation among molecules could have contributed to the transition from inanimate chemistry to biology. See Article p.72

A general method of creating colloidal particles that can self-assemble into ‘colloidal molecules’ is described: surface patches with well-defined symmetries are functionalized using DNA with single-stranded sticky ends and imitate hybridized atomic orbitals to form highly directional bonds.

This report from the 1000 Genomes Project describes the genomes of 1,092 individuals from 14 human populations, providing a resource for common and low-frequency variant analysis in individuals from diverse populations; hundreds of rare non-coding variants at conserved sites, such as motif-disrupting changes in transcription-factor-binding sites, can be found in each individual.

Transient overexpression of the transcription factors NKX2-1 and PAX8 in a murine cell model is shown to direct the differentiation of embryonic stem cells towards a thyroid follicular cell lineage; the resulting three-dimensional thyroid follicles created by subsequent thyrotropin treatment show hallmarks of thyroid function in vitro and rescue thyroid function in vivo when transplanted into athyroid mice, adding to our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying thyroid development.

In models of early life it has been suggested that life and evolution would be more easily achieved if RNA molecules could interact, rather than function independently; here an in vitro system is designed with several RNA fragments that can assemble into a ribozyme, showing that cooperative networks formed by these fragments outcompete self-catalytic RNA fragments.

Whereas space weathering of some airless bodies, such as the Moon, occurs through the accumulation on regolith of nanophase metallic particles, spectroscopic data show that space weathering of the asteroid Vesta occurs through the small-scale mixing of diverse surface components, which gradually generates locally homogenized upper regolith.

From spectra and images of Vesta, it is suggested that the dark patches on Vesta are formed of infalling hydrated carbonaceous material and the bright patches are uncontaminated Vesta soil.

High-resolution, in situ imaging of Rydberg atoms in a Mott insulator reveals the emergence of spatially ordered excitation patterns with random orientation but well-defined geometry.

The fluvial response in western Colorado to the Palaeocene/Eocene thermal maximum involves a large increase in sediment flux that lasted much longer than the vegetation, monsoon and carbon dioxide changes of the thermal maximum.

Excesses of ¹⁴²Nd previously found in 3.7-billion-year-old rocks from Isua, southwest Greenland, imply their derivation from a depleted mantle formed in the Hadean eon; the signature of a complementary Hadean enriched reservoir is now reported in 3.4-billion-year-old mafic dykes found in Isua.

Laboratory experiments and seismological observations show that increased fault healing causes a disproportionately large amount of high-frequency seismic radiation to be produced during fault rupture, which may help to explain recent observations of large megathrust earthquakes.

Chronic exposure of bumblebees to two pesticides (a neonicotinoid and a pyrethroid) independently and in combination, at concentrations approximating field-level exposure, impairs natural foraging behaviour and increases worker mortality, with knock-on effects for brood development and colony success.

The cell death of inhibitory neurons, which originate far from the cortical areas to which they migrate during embryonic development, is determined autonomously rather than by competition for trophic signals from other cell types.

Although zebrafish is an important animal model for basic vertebrate biology and human disease modelling, rapid targeted genome modification has not been possible in this species; here a technique based on improved artificial transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) allows precise sequence modifications at pre-determined genomic locations.

A meta-analysis of previous genome-wide association studies of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, the two most common forms of inflammatory bowel disease, with a combined total of more than 75,000 cases and controls, finds that most loci contribute to both phenotypes and other immune-mediated disorders.

Schlafen proteins are produced in response to interferon signalling, which can be activated by retroviral infection; this study shows that human schlafen 11 inhibits the late stages of HIV-1 production by binding non-specifically to tRNAs, thus preventing the expression of viral proteins.

Indian rhesus macaques are vaccinated with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV)-restricted CD8⁺ T-cell epitopes, and these vaccinated animals are shown to mediate elite control of virus replication.

Ultrahigh-resolution X-ray crystallography study of a phosphate-binding protein from Pseudomonas fluorescens yields insight into how phosphate ions essential for life are discriminated from the arsenate ions inimical to it, even in arsenate-rich environments.

A high-throughput mutagenesis study in a PDZ domain shows that biochemical function and adaptation primarily originate from a collectively evolving amino acid network within the structure termed a protein sector.

Transient changes to the genome make its code more complex to interpret but they still put a gleam in the eye of drug and technology developers.

Food science is fun — and boasts better job prospects than many other industry niches.

An early stab at leadership can help a young scientist to imagine heading a group, argues Katharina Genreith.

Campaign to draw women to science seeks video teaser submissions

'Credit' time-swap system aims to give faculty more schedule flexibility.

Dream sequence.

Researchers are digging into the myriad causes of autism to refine its definition and find elusive biological signatures.

Solving the riddle of autism genetics will require looking beyond the growing list of candidate genes to epigenetics and personalized medicine.

Because infants born into families with autism are more likely to develop the condition, studying them might lead to ways to diagnose people in the general population earlier.

We know little about autism past adolescence, but a well-studied generation of children with autism will change that.

Draft diagnostic guidelines are raising concerns that mild forms of the disorder may no longer be recognized.

After years of making do with drugs developed for other conditions, doctors and scientists are eagerly pursuing drugs that target the social symptoms of autism.

Several studies in the past two years have claimed that brain scans can diagnose autism, but this assertion is deeply flawed, says Nicholas Lange.

The study of autism around the globe must account for a variety of behavioural norms in different societies.

Head movement can bias brain imaging results, undermining a leading theory on the cause of autism, say Ben Deen and Kevin Pelphrey.

As recently as the mid-1990s, autism was thought to be a rare disorder that led to severe mental disability. But since then its reported incidence has ballooned, and it is thought to encompass conditions that vary widely in character and severity. Still, its causes, treatments and even definition remain to be pieced together.