Volume 487 Issue 7407, 19 July 2012

Changes to Canadian science raise questions that the government must answer.

The battle for gold is about to begin — and science is taking its place behind the podium.

As temperatures soar, forests blaze and houses burn, the media and public may be forced to face up to the reality of a changing climate, says Max A. Moritz.

The week in science: FDA spied on employees; GSK buys up Human Genome Sciences; and Hubble finds a fifth moon around Pluto.

Tortoise’s death spurs Galapagos conservation efforts.

But usurpers of ‘standard model’ have little to chew on.

With close to one million gene-expression data sets now in publicly accessible repositories, researchers can identify disease trends without ever having to enter a laboratory.

US regulators seek to mitigate risks of combined pill.

Partners line up to join the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.

Britain plans to dip in to research funding to pay for results to be freely available.

Biotech firm’s bid to control dengue fever using genetically modified insects faces growing public opposition.

Enhancements such as doping are illegal in sport — but if all restrictions were lifted, science could push human performance to new extremes.

The Olympics is a vast experiment in human performance, sport technology and global travel. Nature meets some of the scientists behind the scenes.

Steven G. Deeks and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi present an international research agenda to seek out a cure for AIDS.

Humans evolved to run. This helps to explain our athletic capacity and our susceptibility to modern diseases, argue Timothy Noakes and Michael Spedding.

Future Olympic Games may allow handicaps and gene therapy for people born without genes linked to athleticism, predict Juan Enriquez and Steve Gullans.

Michael G. Sargent enjoys a discussion of twin studies that aims to unpick the effects of nurture on nature.

Artworks confronting the ethical dimensions of pathology specimens intrigue Alison Abbott.

The US television series Alphas features an unusual breed of superhero: ordinary people with extreme abilities. In the run-up to the second season, head writer Bruce Miller explains how he sifts through the latest scientific findings to craft an array of superpowers.

The genome sequence of a fetus can be inferred from the relative numbers of variants of DNA sequences in a pregnant woman's blood. This advance in non-invasive diagnostics comes with some ramifications. See Article p.320

The discovery that marine algal blooms deposit organic carbon to the deep ocean answers some — but not all — of the questions about whether fertilizing such blooms is a viable strategy for mitigating climate change. See Article p.313

Heart attacks occur when lipoprotein-driven inflammation called atherosclerosis triggers blood clotting in the arteries. It seems that the attacks can, in turn, accelerate atherosclerosis by fanning the inflammation. See Letter p.325

Most proteins in the human body are difficult targets for small-molecule drugs. This problem may have been overcome with the discovery of molecules that induce protein degradation, suggesting fresh, modular approaches to drug discovery.

Certain light nuclei can be described in terms of crystal-like arrangements of α-particles, which consist of two protons and two neutrons. The nature of the strong interaction within nuclei may explain such structures. See Letter p.341

Because mammals have such high metabolic rates, it has long been thought that their growth is invulnerable to seasonal variation. But their bones turn out to contain annual lines, just as those of cold-blooded animals do. See Letter p.358

The study of an iron-fertilized phytoplankton bloom dominated by diatoms, which takes up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, shows that a substantial proportion of the bloom eventually sinks to the deep-sea floor, sequestering the carbon for timescales of centuries or more.

Prenatal testing usually requires invasive sampling; here molecular counting of parental haplotypes in the maternal plasma allows the fetal genome to be deciphered and molecular counting of individual alleles enables the fetal exome to be captured.

Myocardial infarction accelerates atherosclerosis through activation of the sympathetic nervous system, and the consequent release of haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells.

The Cancer Genome Atlas consortium reports on their genome-wide characterization of somatic alterations in colorectal cancer; in addition to revealing a remarkably consistent pattern of genomic alteration, with 24 genes being significantly mutated, the study identifies new targets for therapeutic intervention and suggests an important role for MYC-directed transcriptional activation and repression.

A rare grand-design spiral galaxy is identified at redshift greater than 2; the rarity of such galaxies may be partly explained by evidence for perturbation by a merging companion.

The theoretical framework of energy-density functionals has been used to show that the depth of the confining nuclear potential has an important role in cluster formation, with a pronounced effect for relativistic functionals.

An innovative technique uses ultrafast below-bandgap electric-field pulses to induce and probe an insulator–metal transition in an oxide thin film on which a metamaterial structure has been deposited.

The well-established self-assembly of surfactant micelles is used to produce a new mesoporous silica structure, a dodecagonal quasicrystal, which offers larger length scales than intermetallic quasicrystals and improved structural quality compared with soft-matter mesoscale quasicrystals.

Iron in partially molten rocks under deep-mantle conditions partitions into the melt phase less than previously reported, suggesting that melt generated near the core–mantle boundary should segregate upwards.

Dinosaurs were not necessarily cold-blooded: the main argument in favour of this, namely the presence of seasonal lines of arrested bone growth, has been demolished by a comprehensive study of extant ruminants.

The widespread use of Bt crops reduces the outbreaks of certain targeted pests and the need for insecticide use, leading to enhanced biocontrol of other potential pest species in the Bt crops; neighbouring non-Bt crops may also benefit.

Adaptive radiation of cichlid fishes in the African Great Lakes is predictable, but only when species traits and environmental factors are jointly considered.

Novel protein-coding genes can arise either from pre-existing genes or de novo; here it is shown that functional genes emerge de novo through transitory proto-genes generated by widespread translational activity in non-genic sequences.

Next-generation sequencing is used here to analyse Plasmodium falciparum genome variation directly from clinical blood samples, as well as cultured isolates, from Africa, Asia and Oceania.

SHARP1, which is itself regulated by the p63 metastasis suppressor, regulates the invasive and metastatic phenotype in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) through inhibition of hypoxia-inducible factors, and this process operates independently from oxygen levels.

A hybrid cryo-electron microscopy/tomography approach is used to solve the structure of the immature Mason–Pfizer monkey virus Gag lattice at a resolution of 8 Å, allowing the derivation of a model for the structure of retroviral capsid in the immature Gag shell.

A single-molecule approach is used to investigate the kinetics of assembly of the translation initiation complex, revealing that there is more than one pathway by which the necessary factors can assemble.

Transformative research projects can bring big rewards. But securing funding requires a particular set of strategies.

Union membership could reopen for US research assistants.

Programme aims to broaden career options of biomedical students.

Global coalition will promote improved work conditions for early-career researchers.

A helping hand.