Volume 489 Issue 7415, 13 September 2012

US military furtiveness is hindering progress and the development of technology.

After several years of wrangling, zoologists can now name new species online only.

Journals that exploit the author-pays model damage scholarly publishing and promote unethical behaviour by scientists, argues Jeffrey Beall.

The week in science: Arctic oil drilling begins, shale-gas warnings, and a vaccine offers partial protection from dengue.

Record shrinkage confounds models and portends atmospheric and ecological change.

Spread of disease-carrying mosquitoes prompts guidelines for boosting surveillance.

Politicians will spend the next few months negotiating cuts to Horizon 2020’s budget.

Psychologist Marc Hauser admits errors but not fraud.

A pair of detectors that measure minute distortions in images of distant galaxies will probe the riddle of cosmic acceleration.

Drug regulator aims to restrict over-the-counter sales.

The US flagship submersible Alvin is getting a partial upgrade. But deep-sea exploration faces some rough water.

Despite 50 years of research on high-power microwaves, the us military has yet to produce a usable weapon.

Daniel E. Acuna, Stefano Allesina and Konrad P. Kording present a formula to estimate the future h-index of life scientists.

An added layer of review for elite grant-holders upholds the mission of the National Institutes of Health, says Jeremy M. Berg.

Joshua Glenn explores the dark, fascinating, largely forgotten science fiction of the early twentieth century.

For six years, photographer James Balog has trained his lens on ice, capturing time-lapse images that have helped scientists to study how glaciers and ice sheets respond to climate conditions. With the documentary Chasing Ice soon to debut in US cinemas, Balog talks about the loss of landscapes.

Daniel Cressey marvels at a gleaming depiction of the subatomic by the world's leading information designer.

According to previous studies, a low-calorie diet provides health benefits and increases lifespan in mammals, including primates. Yet a long-term investigation in rhesus monkeys finds no effect on longevity. See Letter p.318

Past research implied that positive feedback might exist between climate change and greenhouse-gas emissions from soil. A study finds that drought-induced declines in such emissions from tropical forests could counter climate change.

A Facebook message sent out during the 2010 US congressional elections influenced the voting behaviour of millions of people. The experiment illustrates the power of digital social networks to spread behavioural change. See Letter p.295

Biochemicals known as prostaglandins are challenging targets for synthetic organic chemistry. Yet by channelling the reactivity of a simple reactant, a powerful synthesis of one such compound has been achieved. See Letter p.278

It has been unclear whether a uniform group of stem cells gives rise to most cells in the epidermis. A study reveals the presence of at least two stem-cell populations that have different proliferative abilities. See Article p.257

An investigation of naturally occurring water recycling in rainforests finally marries the results of global climate models with observations. Alarmingly, it also suggests that deforestation can greatly reduce tropical rainfall. See Letter p.282

Whether a single group of stem cells or multiple populations contribute to the homeostasis of the interfollicular epidermis is controversial; here the authors use lineage tracing and mathematical modelling to show that the progenitors that maintain mouse epidermis are underpinned by slow-cycling stem cells that become mobilized on injury.

This study shows that nematodes without a germ line re-allocate resources to the soma, resulting in elevated proteasome activity, clearance of damaged proteins and increased longevity; this activity is associated with the increased expression of rpn-6 mediated by the transcription factor DAF-16.

The benchmark for a global quantum internet — quantum teleportation of independent qubits using active feed-forward over a free-space link whose attenuation corresponds to the path between a satellite and a ground station — has now been successfully achieved over a distance of 143 km, between the Canary Islands of La Palma and Tenerife.

Textured superhydrophobic surfaces—well known for their water-repelling properties—can be used to control the boiling state of a liquid in contact with a hot surface, suppressing the unwanted nucleation of bubbles.

A concise new synthesis of the most complex of the prostaglandins—diverse hormone-like chemical messengers—should make existing prostaglandin-based drugs cheaper and also facilitate other related syntheses.

Remote sensing and simulated atmospheric transport patterns are used to show that air passage over tropical forests produces about twice as much rain as passage over sparse vegetation; in an idealized Amazonian deforestation scenario, a reduction in seasonal precipitation of approximately 12–21% is estimated.

Bottom trawling is a fishing technique whereby heavy nets and gear scrape along the sea bed, and is shown here to disturb sediment fluxes and modify the sea floor morphology over large spatial scales.

Analysis of changes in functional groups of species and potential drivers of environmental change for protected areas across the world’s major tropical regions reveals large variation between reserves that have been effective and those experiencing an erosion of biodiversity, and shows that environmental changes immediately outside reserves are nearly as important as those inside in determining their ecological fate.

Political mobilization messages delivered to 61 million Facebook users during the 2010 US congressional elections directly influenced political self-expression, information seeking and real-world voting behaviour of millions of people and their friends, with social transmission occurring mainly between close friends and having a greater effect than the direct effect of the messages themselves.

Imaging of activity in long-range axons is reported in mice performing tactile object-localization with their whiskers; the feedback projection from the motor cortex to the somatosensory cortex provides information to integrate whisker movement information and touch, which are key components of object identification.

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) are shown to have high 26S/30S proteasome activity owing to increased expression of the 19S proteasome subunit PSMD11; FOXO4 regulates proteasome activity in hESCs by modulating PSMD11 expression, and the high proteasome activity decreases after induced differentiation.

B-cell receptor (BCR) signalling in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) is found not to be dependent on exogenous antigens; instead, signalling may involve the binding of the BCR heavy-chain complementarity-determining region to self epitopes on the same receptor, a finding that may have important implications for understanding the pathogenesis of CLL and potential therapeutic approaches.

The deacetylase enzyme HDAC8 is identified as a crucial regulator of cohesin in humans, and loss-of-function mutations in the HDAC8 gene are found in patients with Cornelia de Lange syndrome.

The results of a 23-year study of caloric restriction in rhesus macaques are reported; restricted caloric intake did not increase survival, but improved the metabolic profile of monkeys started at older ages and showed a trend towards delaying age-associated disease in monkeys started at a young age.

A guinea-pig model of cardiac injury is used to show that human embryonic stem-cell-derived cardiomyocyte grafts can electrically integrate into the injured heart, improving mechanical function and reducing spontaneous and induced ventricular tachycardia; this is a major step towards clinical adoption of cell replacement therapies for cardiovascular diseases using human cardiomyocytes.

The right administrative system can ease the job search for dual-career couples, argues Mary Anne Holmes.

Astrobiologist's passion for Mars science creates job opportunities in the United States and Europe.

The ties that bind.

The interplay between the microbes that colonize the gut and the human host are the subject of research initiatives. This Insight focuses on the ecological principles that govern microbiota composition; interactions of the microbiota with the immune system and metabolic processes; and genomic tools that can aid in the analysis of microbial communities.