Volume 486 Issue 7402, 14 June 2012

Political interests, not scientists or inventors, will be the biggest influence on technologies to counter climate change, says Jason Blackstock.

The week in science: Funding for European Extremely Large Telescope; Budget cuts eat into Nobel prize; and ethical thumbs-up for altering embryos to prevent mitochondrial diseases.

Panel set to reshape evaluation of Millennium Villages research after partial retraction of health claims.

Latest venture is part of an explosion of ideas for open-access publishing.

Hungarian far-right politician certified as ‘free of Jewish and Roma’ genes.

Specialize or die is the mantra for medium-sized instruments.

Big money and big ambitions roil state’s research efforts.

Compact device promises to open window on chemical reactions in the lab.

Two physicists say they have forced hydrogen to become an exotic metal thought to exist only in the hearts of giant planets. Now they must face their critics.

Adrian Owen has found a way to use brain scans to communicate with people previously written off as unreachable. Now, he is fighting to take his methods to the clinic.

As the field celebrates its 50th birthday, Martin Elvis asks how to keep this unique window into the Universe open.

Estimates of climate-change impacts will get less, rather than more, certain. But this should not excuse inaction, say Mark Maslin and Patrick Austin.

Water pollution from sewage is causing great damage to India. The nation needs to complete its waste systems and reinvent toilet technologies, says Sunita Narain.

If architecture is 'design for living', one of its greatest challenges is how to live with the masses of waste we excrete. Four pioneers in green sanitation design outline solutions to a dilemma too often shunted down the pan.

Urban campaigner and architect Arif Hasan has been central to a sanitary revolution, transforming Orangi, Karachi, from informal settlement to thriving community. Using his technical know-how, residents built a sewage system, sparking vast social change. Now chair of Pakistan's urbanization task force, he discusses incorporating sustainable design into poor cities.

Microbial inhabitants outnumber our body's own cells by about ten to one. These residents have become the subject of intensive research, which is beginning to elucidate their roles in health and disease. See Articles p.207 & p.215

Elusive theoretical fantasies known as Majorana modes have been observed in a hybrid semiconductor–superconductor system. These emergent exotica open up promising prospects for quantum computation.

An approach to microscopy has been developed that can be used to determine, from a single imaging angle, both the position of a specimen's individual atoms in the plane of observation and the atoms' vertical position. See Letter p.243

The identification of two receptors for salicylic acid reveals how the hormone controls cell death and survival during plant immune responses, in tissues close to and distant from the site of infection. See Letter p.228

Spectroscopic measurements of a galaxy that shines brightly at submillimetre wavelengths place it in the middle of a nascent galaxy cluster at a scant one billion years after the Big Bang. See Letter p.233

A picture of how heavy fermions acquire their mass enhancement has now been obtained using scanning tunnelling spectroscopy.

The Human Microbiome Project Consortium reports the first results of their analysis of microbial communities from distinct, clinically relevant body habitats in a human cohort; the insights into the microbial communities of a healthy population lay foundations for future exploration of the epidemiology, ecology and translational applications of the human microbiome.

The Human Microbiome Project Consortium has established a population-scale framework to study a variety of microbial communities that exist throughout the human body, enabling the generation of a range of quality-controlled data as well as community resources.

The human gut microbiome from a large cohort of more than 500 indivduals living on three continents with three distinct cultures is analysed, emphasizing the effect of host age, diet and environment on the composition and functional repertoire of fecal microbiota.

Plant resistance to pathogen challenge is thought to be mediated through salicylic acid (SA) signalling; here NPR3 and NPR4, paralogues of the transcription cofactor NPR1, are identified as receptors of SA.

Using a millimetre-wave molecular line scan, a redshift has finally been determined for the extremely active star-forming galaxy HDF 850.1 in the Hubble Deep Field, which makes it younger than thought at 1.1 billion years after the Big Bang.

Low-latitude near-infrared spectral images of Titan reveal what are probably dark liquid lakes of methane.

A rapid increase in the ¹⁴C content of Japanese cedar tree rings occurred during ad 774 to 775, and is about 20 times larger than the change attributed to ordinary solar modulation; neither a solar flare nor a local supernova is likely to have been responsible.

A tomography technique based on the idea that Fourier components of scattered electron waves obey a relationship analogous to that expressed in cosmology by Hubble’s law can be used to image at atomic resolution from a single viewing direction.

New analysis of an Acanthodes braincase forces a reappraisal of the phylogeny of gnathosomes, suggesting that the vertebrate head underwent reorganization not only before the emergence of jaws, but also afterwards.

In Bengalese finches, a basal ganglia circuit, the anterior forebrain pathway, can covertly acquire the ability to adaptively modify song without contributing to song production during practice or training.

Altered glutamatergic neurotransmission can lead to the core symptoms of autism, and ProSAP1/Shank2 and ProSAP2/Shank3 proteins seem to serve different interrelated functions at excitatory synapses, especially in glutamate receptor targeting/assembly.

Mutations in SHANK2 have been associated with autism spectrum disorders in humans; here, Shank2 mutant mice are shown to exhibit autistic-like behaviours that can be improved by restoring decreased NMDA receptor function.

An in vivo transposon screen in a pancreatic cancer model identifies frequent inactivation of Usp9x; deletion of Usp9x cooperates with Kras^G12D to accelerate rapidly pancreatic tumorigenesis in mice, validating their genetic interaction.

The Salmonella virulence gene mgtC is regulated by the levels of ATP through an ATP-sensing leader messenger RNA.

The structure of the needle of the type III secretion system of Salmonella typhimurium, used to inject virulence proteins into host cells during infection, has been resolved by a combination of in vitro needle production, solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance, electron microscopy and Rosetta modelling at atomic resolution.

With lay-offs rife in the drug industry, life scientists and chemists are seeking fresh career paths.

Molecular biologist describes how he has held onto a grant for more than 30 years.

Mouthpiece for a generation.