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Volume 445 Issue 7126, 25 January 2007

Editorial

  • A summit of Africa's leaders marks a deepening commitment to science and technology in the continent.

    Editorial

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Research Highlights

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News

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News in Brief

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Business

  • Sophisticated new genetic tests face an uncertain future — unless they can win clear-cut approval from regulators, insurers and, most importantly, doctors. Virginia Gewin reports.

    Business
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News Feature

  • Next week, African leaders will come together to talk about science and technology at a summit in Ethiopia. This presents an opportunity to allot some foreign aid and, if they get it right, to launch projects that will draw further donations from abroad, says Michael Cherry.

    • Michael Cherry
    News Feature
  • Taking hormones to replace those lost during menopause helps many women with their symptoms, yet it may also cause cognitive decline. Could the age at which hormones are taken determine whether they will be beneficial or harmful? Tom Siegfried reports.

    • Tom Siegfried
    News Feature
  • By 2020 the semiconductor industry wants a memory device that can store a trillion bits of information in an area the size of a postage stamp. As companies race towards this goal, chemists are coming up with an unusual approach. Philip Ball reports.

    • Philip Ball
    News Feature
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Correspondence

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Books & Arts

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Connections

  • The emerging picture of microbes as gene-swapping collectives demands a revision of such concepts as organism, species and evolution itself.

    • Nigel Goldenfeld
    • Carl Woese
    Connections
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News & Views

  • Searching for the source of a smell is hampered by the absence of pervasive local cues that point the searcher in the right direction. A strategy based on maximal information could show the way.

    • Dominique Martinez
    News & Views
  • In a trail-blazing experiment 50 years ago, it was observed that photons from far-off stars bunch up. But in fact there's a more general distinction among free, non-interacting particles: bosons bunch, and fermions 'antibunch'.

    • Maciej Lewenstein
    News & Views
  • Modifier proteins, such as ubiquitin, are passed sequentially between trios of enzymes, like batons in a relay race. Crystal structures suggest the mechanism of transfer between the first two enzymes.

    • Jean-François Trempe
    • Jane A. Endicott
    News & Views
  • Chemical analysis of a plume emanating from near the south pole of Enceladus indicates that the interior of this saturnian moon is hot. Could it have been hot enough for complex organic molecules to be made?

    • John Spencer
    • David Grinspoon
    News & Views
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News and Views Q&A

  • The natural habitat of eukaryotic genomes is the cell nucleus, where each chromosome is confined to a discrete region, referred to as a chromosome territory. This spatial organization is emerging as a crucial aspect of gene regulation and genome stability in health and disease.

    • Karen J. Meaburn
    • Tom Misteli
    News and Views Q&A
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Progress

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Article

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Letter

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Prospects

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Special Report

  • English is the language of science. So to what extent are researchers who are non-native English speakers at a disadvantage? Bonnie Lee La Madeleine talks to scientists hailing from Japan to Germany.

    • Bonnie Lee La Madeleine
    Special Report
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Recruitment

  • There's a growing career path for students who like science, but don't want to be academics.

    • Michael S. Teitelbaum
    • Virginia T. Cox
    Recruitment
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Authors

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