Volume 459 Issue 7246, 28 May 2009

Researchers who use genetically modified primates need to gear up for the inevitable public debate.

Taxpayers deserve to know the cost of ITER, the international fusion project they are paying for.

A hyped-up fossil find highlights the potential dangers of publicity machines.

International partners are likely to scale back the first version of the ITER reactor.

New flu strains are more likely to arise in equatorial countries, where influenza is present the year round and surveillance is poor.

Monitors rush to confirm test of nuclear bomb.

Newly created transgenic primate may become an alternative disease model to rhesus macaques.

Republican opposition fails to halt measures to tackle emissions.

Charles Bolden lined up to take over space agency.

Chemist Allen Goldstein has spent his career tracking elusive compounds emitted by trees. Erik Vance joined him for a tour of the woods.

Could hydrogen sulphide be the new nitric oxide? Katharine Sanderson reports on the rotten-egg gas that is earning a reputation in human physiology.

Before they were touted as invisibility cloaks, metamaterials promised a perfect lens. Geoff Brumfiel reports on the struggle for superior vision.

Patients and politicians anxiously await and increasingly demand a 'cure' for cancer. But trying to control the disease may prove a better plan than striving to cure it, says Robert A. Gatenby.

A century ago, artists and writers from Italy imagined a world governed by science and technology. But their vision of modernity also glorified violence and misogyny, finds Ziauddin Sardar.

Genetically engineered monkeys carrying a foreign gene that is passed on to their offspring provide a potentially valuable bridge between mouse models of disease and treatment for human disorders.

The ability to produce arbitrarily superposed quantum states is a prerequisite for creating a workable quantum computer. Such highly complex states can now be generated on demand in superconducting electronic circuitry.

Viral infection has long been implicated in the development of type 1 diabetes. Fresh evidence shows how some rare genetic variations might mediate a viral contribution to this autoimmune disorder.

Both birdsong and human language are learned, requiring complex social input. New findings show, however, that bird populations 'seeded' with aberrant song input transform it to normal song in a few generations.

The noble gases emitted from deep inside the Earth have been sending mixed messages to those intent on deciphering them. A model that promises to help clear up the confusion is now on offer.

The mammalian olfactory system does more than just detect food odours and pheromones. The discovery of a novel class of olfactory receptor provides evidence that mammals can also sniff out cell damage and disease.

The common marmoset is an attractive candidate for transgenic modification, and has potential as a non-human primate animal model in biomedical research. Here, for the first time in non-human primates, an integrated transgene is transmitted through the germ line to the offspring, in which it continues to be expressed.

Although structural variation has been previously associated with autism spectrum disorders, this study reports a genome-wide significant association of common variants with susceptibility to this disorder group. The results implicate neuronal cell-adhesion molecules in the pathogenesis of this group of neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders.

Theta oscillations are essential to temporal encoding in the hippocampus; they clock hippocampal activity during awake behaviour and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Although these 4–10-Hz oscillations are widely believed to be synchronized throughout the hippocampus, they are now demonstrated to form waves that travel across the hippocampal circuit, making the organization of time in the hippocampus similar to that on Earth—a progression of local time zones.

Emission arising from a transition of an electron from the iron K shell to the ground state (the K line) is prominent in the reflection spectrum created by the hard X-ray continuum irradiating the dense accreting matter around a black hole. Here the presence of both iron K and L emission is reported in the spectrum of the active galaxy 1H 0707-495. There is a 'reverberation lag' with a timescale comparable to the light-crossing time of the innermost radii around a supermassive black hole.

Hot Jupiters are a class of extrasolar planet that orbit their parent stars at very short distances and are expected to be tidally locked, which can lead to a large temperature difference between the dayside and the nightside. Here, the day–night contrast of the transiting extrasolar planet HD 188733b is 'mapped' using infrared observations; the data are consistent with the nightside hemisphere being entirely black, with the dayside flux dominating the optical phase curve.

The superposition principle is a fundamental tenet of quantum mechanics, allowing a quantum system to be 'in two places at the same time'. Here, the preparation and measurement of arbitrary quantum states in an electromagnetic resonator is demonstrated; states with different numbers of photons are superposed in a completely controlled and deterministic manner.

The fact that photons of light carry momentum and can therefore exert mechanical force is not just an academic curiosity; such forces have already been harnessed for a variety of applications. Here, an extreme optomechanical regime is created using a system of simple photonic structures engineered in such a way that light and mechanical energy are localized in a tiny volume on a silicon chip, so that the mechanical rigidity of the resulting structure is dominated by the optical forces.

Permafrost thaw and microbial decomposition is considered one of the most likely positive climate feedbacks from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere in a warmer world, but the rate of carbon release from permafrost soil remains highly uncertain. Here, net ecosystem carbon exchange is measured in a tundra landscape undergoing permafrost thaw to determine the influence of old carbon loss on ecosystem carbon balance. The results reveal significant losses of soil carbon over decadal time scales, overwhelming the increased carbon uptake from plants.

An essentially undegassed mantle reservoir is thought to be required to balance the Earth's ⁴⁰Ar budget and an undegassed lower mantle reservoir is traditionally believed to be responsible for the high ³He/⁴He ratios sampled at many ocean islands. On the other hand, geophysical and geochemical observations suggest slab subduction into the lower mantle; the subsequent process of partial melting over the history of the Earth would leave noble gases in both upper and lower mantle extensively outgassed. A simple solution to this contradiction is now proposed, which lies in the recycling and mixing of noble-gas-depleted slabs.

Although culture is often considered to be passed on through social learning, there are species-typical constraints to cultural diversity that could have genetic origins. By studying the establishment of socially learned birdsong in an island colony of naive zebra finches with a song much different from wild type, it is now revealed that over as few as 3–4 generations the tutored song approaches that of the wild type. Thus, species-typical song culture can develop de novo, giving insight into language change and evolution in humans.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by impairments in social and communication skills. Accumulating evidence suggests a genetic component to ASDs, and here a two-stage, genome-wide approach is used to identify candidate genomic loci enriched in ASD cases. The majority of these loci are found to be involved in neuronal adhesion and ubiquitin degradation, suggesting novel susceptibility mechanisms.

Two different G-protein-coupled receptor families are known to mediate pheromonal cues in the mammalian vomeronasal organ. Here, members of a third family of receptors, the formyl peptide receptor-related gene family (FPRs), are shown to be expressed in the vomeronasal epithelium, with those cells expressing FPRs responding to ligands associated with disease and inflammation. This raises the possibility that FPRs detect the health status of individuals.

The rapid turnover and exfoliation of mucosal epithelial cells provides an innate defence system against bacterial infection. The Shigella virulence factor OspE, which is highly conserved among some other enteropathogenic bacteria, is now shown to target host intergrin-linked kinase, enhancing host cell adherence and thereby preventing the detachment of infected cells.

The fruits of Arabidopsis thaliana split open (dehisce) along the valve margins, leading to seed dispersal. A transcription factor called INDEHISCENT (IND) is known to be important for differentiation of valve margin cells by an unknown mechanism. IND is now shown to be responsible for the formation of a local auxin minimum, necessary for specification of cells in the dehiscence zone.

Humans are exposed to cell-damaging radiation from environmental and medical sources, causing cells to mount complex responses that rely on modifying gene expression. The regulators responsible for this are now mapped through genetic linkage and association studies, using radiation-induced changes in gene expression as quantitative traits and providing new insight into the architecture of gene expression regulation in response to stress.

The eukaryotic cell cycle comprises an ordered series of events orchestrated by cyclin-dependent kinases (Cdks), with unidirectional cell-cycle transitions being required for its successful completion. Proteolytic degradation of cyclins has been assumed to be responsible for the irreversible transitions, but here it is shown that, although forced cyclin degradation can drive mitotic exit, the re-synthesis of cyclin means that this is not sufficient for irreversibility. Rather, mitotic exit only become irreversible after activation of a double-negative feedback loop.

Ca²⁺ mobilization from intracellular stores represents an important cell signalling process that is regulated, in mammalian cells, by inositol-1,4,5-trisphosphate (InsP₃), cyclic ADP ribose and nicotinic acid adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NAADP). While the nature of the receptors for InsP₃ and cyclic ADP ribose are known, here the lysosomal two-pore channel, TPC2, is shown to be the molecular target of NAADP.

An extensive collaborative analysis concludes that the perception is unwarranted, say Herbert Marsh and Lutz Bornmann.

Australia is investing Aus$8.6 billion in science and innovation.

Top physicist takes over as dean at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard.

Schmooze to the left, mingle to the right! I network it at a major conference as I hunt for my elusive dream job.

Women engineers at a Taiwanese manufacturer felt more productive when they had a positive relationship with their supervisor.

UK poll finds executives believe US will rule biotech again.

Study finds university science research boosts economic prosperity.

It just doesn't add up.