Volume 447 Issue 7141, 10 May 2007

Scientific élites retain a severe gender imbalance.

The use of 'black box' techniques carries risks.

The cost of fighting global warming may not be as high as feared.

Is too much physics bad for astronomy?

Satellite images reveal shrimp trawlers' turbulent trails.

NIH gives initiative $220 million.

Cats far more lethal than turbines.

Microorganisms deemed less important than their environment.

US politicians are pushing to create an advanced research agency to tackle the energy challenges the nation faces. David Goldston explores why the current proposition may be ill-prepared for the task.

As AstraZeneca shells out $15 billion for a mid-sized US biotech firm, Heidi Ledford reports on the startling cost of staying in the drugs business.

Long marginalized as a dubious idea, altering the climate through 'geoengineering' has staged something of a comeback. Oliver Morton reports.

Imaging fluorescent molecules in live cells is revolutionizing cell biology. But a pretty image is not necessarily a good one, and many biologists are learning this the hard way, finds Helen Pearson.

Why do chemists make compounds that could blow up in their faces? Emma Marris finds out... from a safe distance.

Locking carbon up in soil makes more sense than storing it in plants and trees that eventually decompose, argues Johannes Lehmann. Can this idea work on a large scale?

The rise and potential fall of the US electricity grid.

An exhibition in London explores the art of blending into the background.

Do differences in history, culture and education influence whether scientists focus on pieces and particulars, or make broad connections?

In mice, two treatments — environmental enrichment and a chemical that regulates gene expression — boost new memory formation and restore the recall of old memories that seemed to have been lost.

The domination of metals in catalysis is under threat as organic catalysts gain ground. The latest example may expand chemical reactivity beyond the achievements of traditional metal complexes.

Molecular studies of tunicate development show that genetic programmes for early embryonic patterning can change radically during evolution, without completely disrupting the basic chordate body plan.

A distant planet traversing its orbit shows variations in its infrared brightness, providing the first map of its climate. These variations paint a picture of a dynamic world, with efficient redistribution of stellar heat.

The availability of short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) to silence gene expression has revolutionized research in molecular cell biology. But these synthetic siRNAs rely on cellular enzymes for their activity.

The spins of a layer of manganese atoms on a tungsten surface form a spiral pattern with a unique turning sense. Such 'chiral magnetic order' might exist in other, similar contexts, and could have many useful applications.

Humans perceive the properties of a surface by interpreting visual input. When estimating gloss and lightness, it seems that neural discrimination of simple image statistics plays a large part.

Chronicler of declining fish populations.

A plan to identify and integrate normal structural variation into the human genome sequence.

The genome of the grey short-tailed opossum Monodelphis domestica has been sequenced and analyzed, giving a first peek at a marsupial's genetic code. Of particular interest are the genetics of the immune system, which has been studied as a model for humans, and of the X chromosome for historical reasons.

In transgenic mice with temporally and spatially restricted neurodegeneration, fear memories formed before induction of neuronal loss can be restored by environmental enrichment, even though the degeneration does not recover. Histone deacetylase inhibitors mimic the effects of environmental enrichment .

Elements in the alkali metal series are regarded as unlikely superconductors because of their monovalent character. This paper reports that lithium (the lightest alkali element) is a superconductor at ambient pressure with a transition temperature of 0.4 mK.

Spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy, where a magnetized tip probes the surface, is used to study an atomic layer of manganese. Magnetic order with a specific chirality is observed; a 'left-rotating' spin spiral structure with a period of about 12 nm. The findings confirm the significance of homochirality for nanoscale magnets, which could play a role in the design novel spintronic devices.

A natural tracer-release experiment (an injection of helium by submarine volcanoes into the current that flows around Antarctica) is used to measure the rates of mixing and upwelling in the southwest Atlantic sector of the current. Results indicate that the rough topography of the ocean floor in this region leads to both rapid mixing across density surfaces and rapid upwelling along density surfaces, which together create a 'short circuit' in the global oceanic overturning circulation.

Evidence for the presence of two layers of anisotropy with different orientations in the North American upper mantle is presented. At asthenospheric depths, the fast axis is sub-parallel to the plate motion, confirming the presence of shear related to current tectonic processes, whereas within the lithosphere, the orientation is significantly different, indicating that anisotropy at these shallower depths was 'frozen-in' long ago.

Sexual dimorphism has not been integrated into studies of adaptive radiation, despite the potential for the two sexes to occupy different niches. This paper reports that sexual differences contribute substantially to the ecomorphological diversity produced by the adaptive radiations of West Indian anolis lizards.

In the root epidermis of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, the hair/non-hair progenitor cells are specified depending on the GL2 homoebox gene expression. The GEM (GL2-expression modulator), a novel component of the pathway that controls both cell division potential and expression of patterning genes by regulating their epigenetic status, is identified.

Although the C-terminal domain of the protein Nbs1 is required for interaction with ATM, it is unexpectedly not required for most downstream ATM-dependent damage repair events. Instead, the most notable effect seen when this interaction domain is absent is loss of the ability of ATM to induce apoptosis.

During tRNA splicing, the 5' end of the 3' exon must be phosphorylated for subsequent ligation of the two exons to occur. The kinase which performs this reaction, human Clp1, is identified, is also able to phosphorylate exogenously introduced siRNAs.

Cancer geneticist leaves Sloan Kettering for Harvard

Young scientists come together to tackle the complexities of climate change

Starting a completely new project has been just as daunting as I'd expected

In the age of e-commerce, sales reps must give more than just information: they must be trusted advisers.

Marsupial genome reveals the treasure hidden in junk DNA.