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Volume 509 Issue 7502, 29 May 2014

Editorial

  • If the threat of antibiotic resistance is to be managed, existing drugs must be marshalled more effectively and new medicines must get to market fast.

    Editorial

    Advertisement

  • Improved biomass stoves are not popular, people everywhere deserve modern cooking methods.

    Editorial
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World View

  • A plan for improved environmental protection is a good first step, but all levels of society will need to work together for it to succeed, says Hong Yang.

    • Hong Yang
    World View
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Research Highlights

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Seven Days

  • The week in science: Germany announces research windfall; new crater is spotted on Mars; and Pfizer admits defeat in its pursuit of AstraZeneca.

    Seven Days
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News

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Correction

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News Feature

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Comment

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Books & Arts

  • Francis Halzen is exhilarated by an account of the hunt for the particles of dark matter.

    • Francis Halzen
    Books & Arts
  • US astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of New York's Hayden Planetarium, currently hosts the television series Cosmos — an update of Carl Sagan's 1980 show — broadcast in 181 countries and 45 languages. As it winds down, Tyson talks about the rich mix of science and pop culture, the 'neurosynaptic snapshot' of public responses to his tweets, and his momentous meeting with Sagan.

    • Ron Cowen
    Books & Arts
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Correspondence

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Obituary

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News & Views

  • The finding that semi-arid ecosystems in the Southern Hemisphere may be largely responsible for changes in global concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide has repercussions for future levels of this greenhouse gas. See Letter p.600

    • Daniel B. Metcalfe
    News & Views
  • Despite identifying abundant genes capable of conferring antibiotic resistance in soil microorganisms, a study finds that few are shared by human pathogens and that there is little transfer of the genes within the soil communities. See Letter p.612

    • Morten O. A. Sommer
    News & Views
  • Cables and wires are used to conduct electricity, but can they also store energy? The answer is a resounding 'yes', if they are encased by a supercapacitor device — a finding that might open up many applications.

    • Yury Gogotsi
    News & Views
  • Sex determination in the silkworm Bombyx mori has been found to depend on the presence or absence of a small RNA. This is thought to be the first example of a molecule other than a protein mediating this process. See Letter p.633

    • František Marec
    News & Views
  • A record measurement of the proton's magnetism has been achieved by confining a single proton in a device called a double Penning trap. The result opens the way to exploring one of nature's fundamental symmetries. See Letter p.596

    • V. Alan Kostelecký
    News & Views
  • Exposure to atmospheric oxygen in the days after a mammal's birth causes its heart muscle cells to stop proliferating. The finding may explain why zebrafish, which live in a hypoxic environment, can regenerate their hearts as adults.

    • Katherine E. Yutzey
    News & Views
  • Tracking B cells in germinal centres — hotspots of B-cell proliferation and mutation during an immune response — reveals that those cells presenting the most antigen on their surface are programmed to dominate. See Letter p.637

    • David M. Tarlinton
    News & Views
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Correction

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Article

  • A draft map of the human proteome is presented here, accounting for over 80% of the annotated protein-coding genes in humans; some novel protein-coding regions, including translated pseudogenes, non-coding RNAs and upstream open reading frames, are identified.

    • Min-Sik Kim
    • Sneha M. Pinto
    • Akhilesh Pandey
    Article
  • A mass-spectrometry-based draft of the human proteome and a public database for analysis of proteome data are presented; assembled information is used to estimate the size of the protein-coding genome, to identify organ-specific proteins, proteins predicting drug resistance or sensitivity, and many translated long intergenic non-coding RNAs, and to reveal conserved control of protein abundance.

    • Mathias Wilhelm
    • Judith Schlegl
    • Bernhard Kuster
    Article
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Letter

  • Analysis of the metallicities of more than 400 stars hosting 600 candidate extrasolar planets shows that the planets can be categorized by size into three populations — terrestrial-like planets, gas dwarf planets with rocky cores and hydrogen–helium envelopes, and ice or gas giant planets — on the basis of host star metallicity.

    • Lars A. Buchhave
    • Martin Bizzarro
    • Geoffrey W. Marcy
    Letter
  • Concurrent observations at multiple locations indicate that storm-generated ocean waves propagating through Antarctic sea ice can transport enough energy to break first-year sea ice hundreds of kilometres from the ice edge, which is much farther than would be predicted by the commonly assumed exponential wave decay.

    • A. L. Kohout
    • M. J. M. Williams
    • M. H. Meylan
    Letter
  • A description of the gill skeleton of a very early fossil shark-like fish shows that it bears more resemblance to gill skeletons from bony fishes rather than to those from modern cartilaginous fishes, suggesting that modern sharks are not anatomically primitive, as previously thought.

    • Alan Pradel
    • John G. Maisey
    • Jon Mallatt
    Letter
  • Functional metagenomic selections for resistance to 18 antibiotics in 18 different soils reveal that bacterial community composition is the primary determinant of soil antibiotic resistance gene content.

    • Kevin J. Forsberg
    • Sanket Patel
    • Gautam Dantas
    Letter
  • The cellular basis of touch has long been debated, in particular the relationship between sensory neurons and non-neuronal cells; a mouse study uses optogenetics to identify their distinct and collaborative roles, with skin-derived Merkel cells both transducing touch and actively tuning responses of touch-sensitive neurons.

    • Srdjan Maksimovic
    • Masashi Nakatani
    • Ellen A. Lumpkin
    Letter
  • Activation of Esr1+ neurons of the mouse ventromedial hypothalamus initiates graded social behavioural responses–weak activation triggers close investigation (sniffing) during a social encounter that often leads, with continued stimulation, to mounting behaviours by males towards either gender; mounting behaviour transitions to aggressive attacks with greater stimulation intensity.

    • Hyosang Lee
    • Dong-Wook Kim
    • David J. Anderson
    Letter
  • It is known that in the silkworm (Bombyx mori), males have two Z sex chromosomes whereas females have Z and W and the W chromosome has a dominant role in female determination; here a single female-specific W-chromosome-derived PIWI-interacting RNA is shown to be the feminizing factor in B. mori.

    • Takashi Kiuchi
    • Hikaru Koga
    • Susumu Katsuma
    Letter
  • During development of myointimal hyperplasia in human arteries, smooth muscle cells have hyperpolarized mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm), high proliferation and apoptosis resistance; PDK2 is a key regulatory protein whose activation is necessary for myointima formation, and its blockade with dichloroacetate prevents Δψm hyperpolarization, facilitates apoptosis and reduces myointima formation in injured arteries, without preventing vessel re-endothelialization, possibly representing a novel strategy to prevent proliferative vascular diseases.

    • Tobias Deuse
    • Xiaoqin Hua
    • Sonja Schrepfer
    Letter
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Technology Feature

  • The first draft of the complete human proteome has been more than a decade in the making. In the process, the effort has also delivered lessons about technology and biology.

    • Vivien Marx

    Collection:

    Technology Feature
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Feature

  • Safer, more efficient methods to deliver therapeutic genetic material are generating jobs for savvy scientists.

    • Laura Cassiday
    Feature
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Q&A

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Futures

  • The importance of a good education.

    • William Meikle
    Futures
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Outlook

    • Herb Brody
    Outlook
  • Despite a huge amount of funding and research, regional and individual differences in cancer trends make it a hard disease to wipe out. By Mike May.

    • Mike May
    Outlook
  • Tailoring cancer treatment to individual and evolving tumours is the way of the future, but scientists are still hashing out the details.

    • Lauren Gravitz
    Outlook
  • A subterranean species that seems to be cancer-proof is providing promising clues on how we might prevent the disease in humans.

    • Sarah Deweerdt
    Outlook
  • Carcinogens are all around us, so scientists are broadening their ideas of environmental risk.

    • Rebecca Kessler
    Outlook
  • Much of the world is ill-equipped to cope with its rising cancer burden and are pushing prevention and screening.

    • Eric Bender
    Outlook
  • Genomics can provide powerful tools against cancer — but only once clinical information can be made broadly available, says John Quackenbush.

    • John Quackenbush
    Outlook
  • Even as cancer therapies improve, basic questions about drug resistance, tumour spread and the role of normal tissue remain unanswered.

    • Katherine Bourzac
    Outlook
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Collections

  • PROMOTIONAL FEATURE. The success of the Max Planck Society - one of the world's most prestigious basic research organizations - is underpinned by its focus on challenging the scientific status quo. The Research Perspectives series identifies particularly promising fields which are being prioritized by Max Planck for their potential to make an impact in future. From nanorobots to exoplanets, these pages summarize the Society's Research Perspectives for 2014.

    Collection
  • Cancer kills millions of people across the globe every year. But the development of targeted medicines, novel drug delivery technologies and clinical research data offer a glimpse towards a cancer-free future. This Outlook — a joint publication by NatureandScientific American— examines the scientific advances that are needed to propel us into a world where this ancient scourge loses its lethality.

    Nature Outlook
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