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Volume 524 Issue 7565, 20 August 2015

A coated ‘dirty� diamond, created when a microinclusion-bearing fibrous coat is overgrown on a monocrystalline clear diamond. Most of the diamonds found near the Earth’s surface arose at depths of more than 150 km in the roots of old continents. Chemical impurities bottled up in dirty diamonds therefore hold valuable information about these deep, inaccessible regions of the Earth. Yaakov Weiss and co-authors present geochemical data from inclusions within a suite of eleven diamonds from the Ekati mine from the Northwest Territories, Canada. The data contain a clear chemical evolutionary trend that indicates the involvement of highly saline solutions in the formation of silicic and carbonatitic deep mantle melts. The chemistry of the saline fluids and the timing of host diamond formation suggest a subducting plate under western North America as the source of the fluids, implying a strong association between subduction, mantle metasomatism and fluid-rich diamond formation. This new model provides a context for resolving the effects of the compositional spectrum of mantle fluids, which alter the deep lithosphere globally and play key roles in diamond formation. Cover: Graham Pearson

Editorial

  • From the oceans to the soil, technology is changing the part that amateurs can play in research. But this greater involvement raises concerns that must be addressed.

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  • People who fund or manage many research projects could do it better with mindful analysis.

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World View

  • As post-earthquake conditions increase the risk of a typhoid epidemic, Buddha Basnyat calls for a widespread vaccination programme.

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  • As marijuana use becomes more acceptable, researchers are scrambling to answer key questions about the drug.

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Comment

  • Ten years after the devastation of the US Gulf coast, Edward B. Barbier calls for coastal protection plans like that adopted by Louisiana for the world's most vulnerable nations.

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News & Views

  • Damaged organelles called mitochondria were once thought to be disposed of by a simple signalling cascade. Cell-based analyses now reveal that a network of complicated molecular interactions initiates disposal. See Article p.309

    • Noriyuki Matsuda
    • Keiji Tanaka
    News & Views
  • A human antibody against dengue virus serotype 2 has been shown to protect mice against disease. Structures of the antibody bound to the virus illuminate how it binds different viral forms to prevent virus entry into cells.

    • Leslie Goo
    • Theodore C. Pierson
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  • The report of a light-activated catalyst that generates usually inaccessible nickel intermediates provides a general strategy that might allow elusive catalytic reactions to be realized. See Letter p.330

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    • Paolo Melchiorre
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  • The crystal structures of two proteins that respond to reduced tissue oxygen levels — hypoxia-inducible factors — provide insight into their function and reveal sites for rational drug design. See Article p.303

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  • A study of DNA sequences from more than 1,800 organisms on Mount Kinabalu in Borneo reveals the evolutionary mechanisms that led to the mountain's high and unique biodiversity. See Letter p.347

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  • The G2 cloud in our Galaxy's core has survived an encounter with the central black hole and failed to trigger a major flare-up in the black hole's activity. A promising theory endeavours to explain the cloud's nature.

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Article

  • This study describes the long-awaited crystal structures for hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) heterodimers, including complexes bound to small molecules and DNA; the HIF–ARNT architecture is distinct from the bHLH-PAS-containing CLOCK–BMAL1 heterodimer, and HIF mutations linked to cancer can be mapped to important structural regions, with the structures providing future reference for small-molecule drug discovery efforts.

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  • The PINK1 ubiquitin kinase is shown to recruit the two autophagy receptors NDP52 and OPTN to mitochondria to activate mitophagy directly, independently of the ubiquitin ligase parkin; once recruited to mitochondria, NDP52 and OPTN recruit autophagy initiation components, and parkin may amplify the phospho-ubiquitin signal generated by PINK1, resulting in robust autophagy induction.

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  • X-ray crystallography and molecular dynamics simulations of the μ-opioid receptor reveal the conformational changes in the extracellular and intracellular domains of this G-protein-coupled receptor that are associated with its activation.

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Letter

  • Gas-giant planets are widely thought to form from solid ‘cores’ of roughly ten Earth masses; simulations now show that such cores can be produced from ‘pebbles’ (centimetre-to-metre-sized objects) provided that the pebbles form sufficiently slowly, leading to the formation of one to four gas giants in agreement with the observed structure of the Solar System.

    • Harold F. Levison
    • Katherine A. Kretke
    • Martin J. Duncan
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  • A position sensor is demonstrated that is capable of resolving the zero-point motion of a nanomechanical oscillator in the timescale of its thermal decoherence; it achieves an imprecision that is four orders of magnitude below that at the standard quantum limit and is used to feedback-cool the oscillator to a mean photon number of five.

    • D. J. Wilson
    • V. Sudhir
    • T. J. Kippenberg
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  • Despite advances in carbon–carbon fragment couplings, the ability to forge carbon–oxygen bonds in a general fashion via nickel catalysis has been largely unsuccessful; here, visible-light-excited photoredox catalysts are shown to provide transient access to Ni(iii) species that readily participate in reductive elimination, leading to carbon–oxygen coupling.

    • Jack A. Terrett
    • James D. Cuthbertson
    • David W. C. MacMillan
    Letter
  • Geochemical data from inclusions within diamonds from the Northwest Territories, Canada, indicate that saline fluids are parental to silicic and carbonatitic deep mantle melts, via fluid–rock interaction; a subducting plate under western North America is suggested to be the source of the fluids.

    • Yaakov Weiss
    • John McNeill
    • Chris J. Ottley

    Collection:

    Letter
  • Investigating the evolutionary origins of montane biodiversity by sampling the entire biota from a single mountain, Mount Kinabalu in Borneo, allows for a better understanding not only of the origins of endemism, but also of this biota’s forecasted response to environmental change.

    • Vincent S. F. T. Merckx
    • Kasper P. Hendriks
    • Menno Schilthuizen
    Letter
  • This study provides insights into conformational changes that lead to phospho-ubiquitin-induced PARKIN activation and how PARKIN is recruited to phospho-ubiquitin chains on mitochondria; the crystal structure of PARKIN in complex with phospho-ubiquitin also indicates that the pocket within PARKIN where phospho-ubiquitin binds carries amino acid residues that are mutated in patients with autosomal-recessive juvenile Parkinsonism.

    • Tobias Wauer
    • Michal Simicek
    • David Komander
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  • NMR spectroscopy reveals the conformational changes of the μ-opioid receptor that are associated with receptor activation, helping to explain why the allosteric coupling between the agonist-binding pocket and the cytoplasmic G-protein-coupling interface of this receptor is relatively weak.

    • Rémy Sounier
    • Camille Mas
    • Sébastien Granier
    Letter
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Column

  • The key to a strong grant application is a well-considered and detailed outline of expenses, says grant director Ingrid Eisenstadter.

    • Ingrid Eisenstadter
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Futures

  • Career opportunities.

    • S. R. Algernon
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