Volume 402 Issue 6763, 16 December 1999

The NIH has an opportunity to make its commitment to openness more purposeful.

[PARIS]

IBM's choice of protein folding as the focus of its project to develop the supercomputer Blue Gene is part of a strategy to position itself as a leader in computational biology.

[PARIS]

A $100 million research effort by IBM to build a ‘petaflop’ computer 500 times faster than today's most powerful supercomputer is being hailed by biologists as likely to herald a paradigm shift in our understanding of cellular biology.

[MUNICH]

A widely-heralded strategy paper arguing for a significantly higher public investment in German genomics research appears to have been put on hold, leading to concern that the move could threaten German efforts to catch up with other countries.

[WASHINGON]

Gene therapy researchers using adenoviral vectors should apply stricter quality controls and more precise monitoring because of the ‘narrow window’ that separates their potential efficacy from toxicity, says a National Institutes of Health advisory panel.

[WASHINGTON]

The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee of the National Institutes of Health has been urged to recommend that gene-therapy researchers be required to report all ‘adverse events’ occuring during their trials.

[PARIS]

French science minister Claude Allègre has asked the directors of France's main research agency to come up with more moderate changes to the agency's structure than those proposed last year.

[LONDON]

Twenty five British schools have been piloting a new approach to teaching physics to 16 to 19 year olds that is already being hailed as successfully attracting back those who have been deserting the subject.

[LONDON]

The UK government and the Wellcome Trust have announced the largest investment in British university science infrastructure for forty years.

[SAN DIEGO]

A federal judge in San Francisco ruled last week that the patent for the natural occurring form of the widely used reagent taq DNA polymerase was fraudulently obtained and has ruled it invalid.

[WASHINGTON]

The target chamber from the Nova laser experiment at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California was last week shipped to France, where it will be use as part of a huge new laser facility to be built near Bordeaux.

[MUNICH]

All vacancies for scientific directors at Germany's Max Planck Institutes will in future be advertised, and a world-wide search for new institute heads will be co-ordinated by central search commissions.

[BEIJING]

China's desire to strengthen its scientific links with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has been confirmed by the announcement of 14 research projects funded jointly by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong.

The failure of the Mars Polar Lander may have been the result of NASA's high demands. But aiming lower could mean cancelling missions.

The term proteome, coined in 1994 as a linguistic equivalent to the concept of genome, is used to describe the complete set of proteins that is expressed, and modified following expression, by the entire genome in the lifetime of a cell. It is also used in a less universal sense to describe the complement of proteins expressed by a cell at any one time.

The new science of proteomics promises exciting insights into the working of the cell. But major technical hurdles remain to be overcome.

The two key steps in classical proteomics are the separation of proteins in a sample derived from cells or tissues, and their subsequent identification. The best separation method is 2D gel electrophoresis, in which spots of a carefully prepared mixture of proteins extracted from cells or tissues are applied to a polyacrylamide gel.

Automated chip-based technologies for analysing thousands of proteins simultaneously, analogous to the cDNA chip-based technologies that have facilitated transcriptomics, could provide a leap forward for proteomics research, whose progress is limited by the cumbersome multi-step methods currently available.

One of the first funding agencies to recognize the potential of protein analysis was the US National Science Foundation. In 1989 it agreed to support the start of a ten-year programme at the University of Washington in Seattle to create a centre in molecular biotechnology, specializing in the development of proteomics tools.

A biological slant on the conundrum of our relationship with time.

The tortuous path from skull measurements to theories of racial superiority.

The simplicity of a single equation holds the key to human happiness.

The first completely sequenced plant chromosomes, from the mustard Arabidopsis thaliana, reveal a dynamic genome that is constantly being rearranged.

Astronomers have previously inferred the existence of giant extrasolar planets from the wobble they generate in their parent star. Now, the shadow caused by a planet passing in front of its star, and the probable detection of reflected light from a planet orbiting a very bright star, provide direct evidence for their existence. Such studies offer a way to probe the chemical composition and atmospheres of extrasolar planets.

It used to be thought that fish larvae, at the mercy of the currents, drifted vast distances through the open ocean. But two studies of reef fish show that a surprisingly high proportion of them never leave the waters in which they were spawned. This finding has implications for the management of marine ecosystems.

Conventional semiconductor devices rely on the transport and storage of electronic charge. But electrons have spin as well as charge, and spin electronics is an emerging field that has already delivered commercial devices based on metallic materials. The goal of making similar devices from semiconductors is getting nearer thanks to two studies that show how to inject spin into a semiconductor.

In many snakes, males have longer tails than females, a characteristic that seems to have arisen early in evolution. From studies of mating red-sided gartersnakes in Manitoba, Canada, it seems that male tail length correlates with copulation success, but the selective force for longer tails remains a matter of surmise.

The neurodegeneration characteristic of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies is caused by changes in the metabolism of the prion protein (PrP^C). In most cases, PrP^C is converted to an abnormal protease-resistant form, PrP^Sc. But in some genetically inherited forms of the disease another abnormal form — ^CtmPrP — accumulates. A new study shows that CtmPrP may be a neurotoxic molecule that is common to both the genetic and acquired forms of prion diseases.

The first bacterial glutamate receptor has been identified, and has an unexpected property: it is very selective for potassium ions. The receptor's amino-acid sequence shows similarity to both glutamate receptors and potassium channels, raising the exciting prospect that both originated from a common ancestor.

Studies of phenomena called hotspots and superswells, evident at Earth's surface, offer the best clues as to the dynamic state of the underlying mantle. Their essential features have for the first time been reproduced in laboratory simulations of mantle convection scaled to Earth-like conditions.

The study of lifespan in worms has mainly evolved around the dauer-formation-2 gene (daf-2), which, when mutated, results in a dramatic extension of lifespan. A similar extension has now been observed in worms mutated in a range of genes that also affect the shape and function of sensory neurons. These results imply that sensory neurons can exert a strong effect on lifespan, and this link is thought to involve an insulin-signalling pathway.

This week Daedalus further explores the consequences for citation indexes of Internet-based publication. He proposes a system involving publication of referees' comments along with a paper, and predicts the emergence of ‘citing regions’ — the biggest of which would be the domain of authoritative and consensual opinion.

Jan van Paradijs: high-energy astrophysicist who hunted big astronomical game.

It is now possible to make clones, or exact genetic copies, of sheep, cows, goats, mice and, probably, humans. This opens the way towards the production of replacement body parts from adult cells.

The huge eyes of these extinct reptiles may have been useful deep in the ocean.

Hiding messages in DNA microdots C. Taylor Clelland, V. Risca, C. Bancroft Ageing, fitness and neurocognitive function A. F. Kramer et al. Dichromatism in macaque monkeys A. Onishi et al. Parasitoid behaviour and Bt plantsT. H. Schuler, R. P. J. Potting, I. Denholm, G. M. Poppy

This special Collection of immunology papers, all of which have appeared in our pages in 1999, presents the breadth of the field, and we are very pleased to acknowledge Biogen, whose financial support helped to make this supplement possible. Indeed, Naturehas published many of the landmark studies over the past 40 years and we aim to continue to be at the forefront.