This Week
Editorials
Top
The wrong kind of carbon cut
The repeal of Australia’s carbon-pricing scheme — the first time a nation has reversed action on climate change — sets a worrying example for other countries mulling steps to reduce emissions.
Fusion furore
Soaring construction costs for ITER are jeopardizing alternative fusion projects.
A fate sealed
Exploring how species adapt to climate change requires long-term studies, not snapshots.
World View
Top
Chile needs better science governance and support
Its scientists have much to offer the world, but are being held back by scattered administration and
Delegates mourn MH17 passengers
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AIDS conference tries to draw inspiration from lost scientists.
Katia Moskvitch &
Edward Susman
Anger as Australia dumps carbon tax
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Climate experts decry demise of emissions-control system.
Quirin Schiermeier
Gene-hunt gain for mental health
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Flood of genetic locations linked to schizophrenia helps spark financial boost to research field.
Sara Reardon
China plans super collider
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Proposals for two accelerators could see country become collider capital of the world.
Elizabeth Gibney
Mars slow to yield its secrets
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Scientists seek fresh approaches to deciphering red planet’s history.
Alexandra Witze
Plasma physics: The fusion upstarts
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Fuelled by venture capital and a lot of hope, alternative fusion technologies are heating up.
M. Mitchell Waldrop
Science and politics: Hello, Governor
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When California's governor enlisted the aid of two palaeoecologists, their careers took an unusual turn.
Virginia Gewin
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Medical research: Treat ageing
By 2050, the number of people over the age of 80 will triple globally. These demographics could come at great cost to individuals and economies. Two groups describe how research in animals and humans should be refocused to find ways to delay the onset of frailty.
Correction
Books and Arts
Top
Science visualization: Branching arguments
Kevin Padian considers two books on tree diagrams and what they can represent.
Review of Aristotle's Ladder, Darwin's Tree: The Evolution of Visual Metaphors in Biological Order & The Book of Trees: Visualizing Branches of Knowledge
J. David Archibald & Manuel Lima
Books in brief
Correspondence
Top
BRAIN initiative: Brain secrets cheap at twice the price
Anuj K. Rastogi
Data storage: Overcome hurdles to global databases
Venceslas Goudiaby,
Pieter A. Zuidema &
Godefridus M. J. Mohren
Environment: China's land creation project stands firm
Yansui Liu &
Yuheng Li
Weed control: Tactics to stamp out herbicide resistance
Margaret Mellon
Careers
Features
Top
Diversity: Equal access
Universities seek to recreate the success of one institution's mentorship programme for minorities in science.
Virginia Gewin
research
News & Views
Top
Schizophrenia: Genesis of a complex disease
Jonathan Flint &
Marcus Munafò
See also
Article by Ripke et al.
Earth science: Rain on the parade
Alison M. Anders
Population biology: Fur seals signal their own decline
Tim Coulson &
Sonya Clegg
See also
Letter by Forcada & Hoffman
Climate science: Cold carbon storage
Sebastian Sobek
See also
Letter by Anthony et al.
50 & 100 Years Ago
Gene regulation: Fine-tuned amplification in cells
Chi V. Dang
Articles
Top
Biological insights from 108 schizophrenia-associated genetic loci
Schizophrenia Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium
Schizophrenia is a highly heritable genetic disorder, however, identification of specific genetic risk variants has proven difficult because of its complex polygenic nature—a large multi-stage genome-wide association study identifies 128 independent associations in over 100 loci (83 of which are new); key findings include identification of genes involved in glutamergic neurotransmission and support for a link between the immune system and schizophrenia.
See also
News & Views by Flint & Munafò
Enhancer hijacking activates GFI1 family oncogenes in medulloblastoma
Paul A. Northcott,
Catherine Lee,
Thomas Zichner,
Adrian M. Stütz,
Serap Erkek
+ et al.
Focusing on two ill-characterized subtypes of medulloblastoma (group 3 and group 4), this study identifies prevalent genomic structural variants that are restricted to these two subtypes and independently bring together coding regions of GFI1 family proto-oncogenes with active enhancer elements, leading to their mutually exclusive oncogenic activation.
Structure of an Rrp6–RNA exosome complex bound to poly(A) RNA
Elizabeth V. Wasmuth,
Kurt Januszyk &
Christopher D. Lima
The exosome complex contains two catalytic subunits which degrade RNA in either a distributive (Rrp6) or a processive (Rrp44) manner—previous structures indicated how RNA could be directed to Rrp44, but the path taken to Rrp6 was unclear; here the location of the Rrp6 catalytic domain and the RNA 3′ end are determined and it is found that the RNA lies in an opposite orientation from that of the Rrp44-containing exosome structure, suggesting that the fate of an RNA may be influenced by the manner in which cofactors present it.
Letters
Top
Jet acceleration of the fast molecular outflows in the Seyfert galaxy IC 5063
C. Tadhunter,
R. Morganti,
M. Rose,
J. B. R. Oonk &
T. Oosterloo
The observation of high-velocity warm molecular hydrogen in the galaxy IC 5063 supports the proposal that the powerful jets of particles launched by active galactic nuclei can both accelerate and heat the molecular outflows that influence the evolution of galaxies.
Tracking photon jumps with repeated quantum non-demolition parity measurements
L. Sun,
A. Petrenko,
Z. Leghtas,
B. Vlastakis,
G. Kirchmair
+ et al.
The quantized changes in the photon number parity of a microwave cavity can be tracked on a short enough timescale, and with sufficiently little interference with the quantum state, for this parity observable to be used to monitor the occurrence of error in a recently proposed protected quantum memory.
Spin-transfer torque generated by a topological insulator
A. R. Mellnik,
J. S. Lee,
A. Richardella,
J. L. Grab,
P. J. Mintun
+ et al.
Charge flowing in a thin film of the topological insulator bismuth selenide at room temperature can lead to spin accumulation in the insulator and a resultant strong spin-transfer torque on an adjacent thin film of ferromagnetic nickel–iron alloy, potentially offering a means of controlling the orientation of the alloy’s magnetization.
See also
News & Views by Kim
A shift of thermokarst lakes from carbon sources to sinks during the Holocene epoch
K. M. Walter Anthony,
S. A. Zimov,
G. Grosse,
M. C. Jones,
P. M. Anthony
+ et al.
Observations and modelling show that the deep thermokarst lakes that formed in Siberia and Alaska when the permafrost warmed in the Holocene epoch changed from climate-warming methane sources to climate-cooling carbon sinks about 5,000 years ago.
See also
News & Views by Sobek
Zircons reveal magma fluxes in the Earth’s crust
Luca Caricchi,
Guy Simpson &
Urs Schaltegger
The age distributions of zircons (found in magmatic rocks) enable magma fluxes in the Earth’s crust to be calculated, providing insight into geological processes such as ore deposit formation and volcanic eruptions.
Climate change selects for heterozygosity in a declining fur seal population
Jaume Forcada &
Joseph Ivan Hoffman
Three decades of data on Antarctic fur seals show that reduced prey availability due to climate change leads to selection for increased heterozygosity in breeding females.
See also
News & Views by Coulson & Clegg
C. elegans Punctin specifies cholinergic versus GABAergic identity of postsynaptic domains
Bérangère Pinan-Lucarré,
Haijun Tu,
Marie Pierron,
Pablo Ibáñez Cruceyra,
Hong Zhan
+ et al.
Two presynaptically secreted isoforms of the protein Punctin in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans determine the postsynaptic accumulation of acetylcholine versus GABA receptors, raising the question of whether the related human punctin-2 gene, which has been associated with schizophrenia, may also control synaptic organization.
Modality-specific thalamocortical inputs instruct the identity of postsynaptic L4 neurons
Gabrielle Pouchelon,
Frédéric Gambino,
Camilla Bellone,
Ludovic Telley,
Ilaria Vitali
+ et al.
Sensory modality-specific thalamic inputs are shown to instruct the differentiation and function of postsynaptic target neurons in the cortex, thus controlling the development and functional segregation of cortical circuits.
Receptor binding by H10 influenza viruses
Sebastien G. Vachieri,
Xiaoli Xiong,
Patrick J. Collins,
Philip A. Walker,
Stephen R. Martin
+ et al.
The structure and receptor-binding characteristics are presented of the haemagglutinin (HA) from an avian H10N2 virus that closely resembles an isolate from recent human fatalities; although avian H10 has a marked preference for the avian receptor, it is already able to bind to the human receptor, and its structure in complex with the human receptor shows similarities to HA from pandemic H1 and H7 viruses.
Ultraviolet radiation accelerates BRAF-driven melanomagenesis by targeting TP53
Amaya Viros,
Berta Sanchez-Laorden,
Malin Pedersen,
Simon J. Furney,
Joel Rae
+ et al.
Exposing mice with the BRAF (V600E) mutation to levels of ultraviolet radiation that mimic mild sunburn in humans is shown to induce mutations in the tumour suppressor Trp53 (TP53 in humans), accelerating the development of melanoma; these results support the use of sunscreen in individuals at risk of this cancer.
Activation and repression by oncogenic MYC shape tumour-specific gene expression profiles
Susanne Walz,
Francesca Lorenzin,
Jennifer Morton,
Katrin E. Wiese,
Björn von Eyss
+ et al.
Inducing changes in the levels of the MYC oncoprotein is shown to activate and repress specific sets of target genes that are characteristic of tumour cells, providing an insight into the mechanism by which MYC can stimulate tumorigenesis in contrast to its physiological role.
See also
News & Views by Dang
See also
Letter by Sabò et al.
Selective transcriptional regulation by Myc in cellular growth control and lymphomagenesis
Arianna Sabò,
Theresia R. Kress,
Mattia Pelizzola,
Stefano de Pretis,
Marcin M. Gorski
+ et al.
Global transcriptional and epigenomic analyses in diverse cell types reveal that the primary action of Myc is to up- and downregulate transcription of distinct groups of genes, rather than to amplify transcription of all active genes; general RNA amplification, when observed, is better explained as an indirect consequence of Myc’s action on cellular physiology.
nature, THE INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE
gepflegtes Exemplar, nur kleine Lesespuren
- Verlag:
- NPG Nature publishing group
- Englische Ausgabe
- Artikelnummer:
- B00042558
- Gewicht:
- 400 gr