Mental health: Depression needs large human-genetics studies
To understand the molecular mechanisms of depression, collect genetic data from more than 100,000 people, says Steven Hyman.
Infectious disease: Tough choices to reduce Ebola transmission
Christopher J. M. Whitty and colleagues explain why the United Kingdom is funding many small community centres to isolate suspected cases in Sierra Leone.
Film: Enigma variations
Robert P. Crease ponders a brace of biopics on Alan Turing and Stephen Hawking.
Review of The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything
Morten Tyldum & James Marsh
Q&A: Space-time visionary
Thanks to theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, real science is embedded in Christopher Nolan's film Interstellar, in which explorers seek a new home for humankind. Thorne talks about what he learned from the film's unprecedented visualizations of black holes and wormholes, what it and his accompanying book can teach, and the likelihood of humans escaping the Solar System.
Review of Interstellar and The Science of Interstellar
Christopher Nolan & Kip Thorne
Books in brief
Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week's best science picks.
Sickle-cell disease
Lauren Gravitz &
Stephen Pincock
Epidemiology: A moving target
Simon Pleasants
Drug development: A complicated path
Courtney Humphries
Q&A: Healthy progress
Smriti Mallapaty
Neurobiology: Life beyond the pain
Bianca Nogrady
Perspective: We need a global solution
Isaac Odame
Gene therapy: Editorial control
Katharine Gammon
Stem cells: Creating a cure-all
Andrew R. Scott
Perspective: Thinking beyond survival
Michael R. DeBaun
Forum
Depression: The best way forward
Lisa M. Monteggia,
Robert C. Malenka &
Karl Deisseroth
Condensed-matter physics: Magnetic fields without magnetic fields
Jonathan Simon
See also
Letter by Jotzu et al.
See also
Letter by Roushan et al.
Palaeontology: Mystery of the horrible hands solved
Thomas R. Holtz Jr
See also
Letter by Lee et al.
High-temperature superconductivity: Electron mirages in an iron salt
Jan Zaanen
See also
Letter by Lee et al.
Neurobiology: Building a bigger brain
Forrest O. Gulden &
Nenad Šestan
See also
Letter by Lui et al.
Neuroscience: Towards unified vesicle endocytosis
Vladan Lučić
See also
Article by Watanabe et al.
Articles
Top
Synaptic, transcriptional and chromatin genes disrupted in autism
Silvia De Rubeis,
Xin He,
Arthur P. Goldberg,
Christopher S. Poultney,
Kaitlin Samocha
+ et al.
Whole-exome sequencing in a large autism study identifies over 100 autosomal genes that are likely to affect risk for the disorder; these genes, which show unusual evolutionary constraint against mutations, carry de novo loss-of-function mutations in over 5% of autistic subjects and many function in synaptic, transcriptional and chromatin-remodelling pathways.
The contribution of de novo coding mutations to autism spectrum disorder
Ivan Iossifov,
Brian J. O’Roak,
Stephan J. Sanders,
Michael Ronemus,
Niklas Krumm
+ et al.
Family-based exome sequencing in a large autism study has identified 27 high-confidence gene targets and accurately estimates the contribution of both de novo gene-disrupting and missense mutations to the incidence of simplex autism, with target genes in affected females overlapping those in males of lower but not higher IQ; targets also overlap known targets for intellectual disability and schizophrenia, and are enriched for chromatin modifiers, FMRP-associated genes and embryonically expressed genes.
Evolution of mosquito preference for humans linked to an odorant receptor
Carolyn S. McBride,
Felix Baier,
Aman B. Omondi,
Sarabeth A. Spitzer,
Joel Lutomiah
+ et al.
The mosquito Aedes aegypti includes two subspecies, one of which shows a preference for biting humans, whereas the other prefers to bite non-human animals; genetic analysis reveals that changes in the mosquito odorant receptor Or4 contribute to the behavioural difference—in human-preferring mosquitoes, Or4 is more highly expressed and more sensitive to sulcatone, a compound present at high levels in human odour.
Clathrin regenerates synaptic vesicles from endosomes
Shigeki Watanabe,
Thorsten Trimbuch,
Marcial Camacho-Pérez,
Benjamin R. Rost,
Bettina Brokowski
+ et al.
Ultrastructural analysis of synaptic vesicle recycling reveals that clathrin is not required for the initial rapid step of vesicle recycling by ultrafast endocytosis at the plasma membrane and instead clathrin acts later at an endosome to regenerate synaptic vesicles; however, when ultrafast endocytosis does not occur (for example, in experiments at room temperature rather than physiological temperature), clathrin-mediated endocytosis does happen at the plasma membrane.
See also
News & Views by Lučić
Letters
Top
The expanding fireball of Nova Delphini 2013
G. H. Schaefer,
T. ten Brummelaar,
D. R. Gies,
C. D. Farrington,
B. Kloppenborg
+ et al.
High spatial resolution is needed to study the early development of a nova; here measurements of the angular size and radial velocity of Nova Delphini 2013 reveal early structures in the ejected material and a geometric distance to the nova of about 4.5 kiloparsecs from the Sun.
Experimental realization of the topological Haldane model with ultracold fermions
Gregor Jotzu,
Michael Messer,
Rémi Desbuquois,
Martin Lebrat,
Thomas Uehlinger
+ et al.
The Haldane model, which predicts complex topological states of matter, has been implemented by placing ultracold atoms in a tunable optical lattice that was deformed and shaken.
See also
News & Views by Simon
See also
Letter by Roushan et al.
Observation of topological transitions in interacting quantum circuits
P. Roushan,
C. Neill,
Yu Chen,
M. Kolodrubetz,
C. Quintana
+ et al.
Superconducting quantum circuits are used to directly observe and characterize topological phase transitions; this approach promises to be a powerful and general platform for characterizing topological phenomena in quantum systems.
See also
News & Views by Simon
See also
Letter by Jotzu et al.
Interfacial mode coupling as the origin of the enhancement of Tc in FeSe films on SrTiO3
J. J. Lee,
F. T. Schmitt,
R. G. Moore,
S. Johnston,
Y.-T. Cui
+ et al.
High-resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy reveals bosonic modes in a SrTiO3 substrate coupling to electrons in an FeSe overlayer to facilitate high-temperature superconductivity.
See also
News & Views by Zaanen
Formic-acid-induced depolymerization of oxidized lignin to aromatics
Alireza Rahimi,
Arne Ulbrich,
Joshua J. Coon &
Shannon S. Stahl
A method for the depolymerization of oxidized lignin under mild conditions in aqueous formic acid is described that results in more than 60 wt% yield of low-molecular-mass aromatics.
Subduction-driven recycling of continental margin lithosphere
A. Levander,
M. J. Bezada,
F. Niu,
E. D. Humphreys,
I. Palomeras
+ et al.
Seismic images of the subducted Atlantic slab under northeastern South America and the Alboran slab beneath the Gibraltar arc region show that subducting oceanic plates viscously entrain and remove the bottom of the continental thermal boundary layer from adjacent continental margins, driving surface tectonics and pre-conditioning the margins for further deformation.
Resolving the long-standing enigmas of a giant ornithomimosaur Deinocheirus mirificus
Yuong-Nam Lee,
Rinchen Barsbold,
Philip J. Currie,
Yoshitsugu Kobayashi,
Hang-Jae Lee
+ et al.
Two almost complete skeletons are presented for the theropod dinosaur Deinocheirus mirificus, revealing a humpbacked form with a duckbill-like skull.
See also
News & Views by Holtz
Comparative population genomics in animals uncovers the determinants of genetic diversity
J. Romiguier,
P. Gayral,
M. Ballenghien,
A. Bernard,
V. Cahais
+ et al.
Genome-wide DNA polymorphism analysis across 76 animal species reveals a strong effect of ecological strategies, and particularly parental investment, on species levels of genetic diversity.
Radial glia require PDGFD–PDGFRβ signalling in human but not mouse neocortex
Jan H. Lui,
Tomasz J. Nowakowski,
Alex A. Pollen,
Ashkan Javaherian,
Arnold R. Kriegstein
+ et al.
The transcriptional profiles of radial glia are compared between humans and mice during neurogenesis, implicating the growth factor PDGFD and its receptor, PDGFRβ, in human but not mouse neocortical development.
See also
News & Views by Gulden & Šestan
The participation of cortical amygdala in innate, odour-driven behaviour
Cory M. Root,
Christine A. Denny,
René Hen &
Richard Axel
The cortical amygdala is necessary and sufficient for processing odours that evoke aversive and attractive responses without learning.
A three-dimensional human neural cell culture model of Alzheimer’s disease
Se Hoon Choi,
Young Hye Kim,
Matthias Hebisch,
Christopher Sliwinski,
Seungkyu Lee
+ et al.
Early-onset familial Alzheimer’s disease mutations induce both amyloid-β and tau pathologies in differentiated human neural stem cells in 3D cultures.
Piezo1 integration of vascular architecture with physiological force
Jing Li,
Bing Hou,
Sarka Tumova,
Katsuhiko Muraki,
Alexander Bruns
+ et al.
The Piezo1 calcium-permeable channel is revealed to have a role in the vascular cellular response to shear stress; a mouse knockout reveals that this channel is also important for normal vascular development.
The complete structure of the large subunit of the mammalian mitochondrial ribosome
Basil J. Greber,
Daniel Boehringer,
Marc Leibundgut,
Philipp Bieri,
Alexander Leitner
+ et al.
The structure of the 39S large mitoribosome subunit is solved by cryo-electron microscopy at an impressive 3.4 Å resolution, revealing the location of 50 ribosomal proteins, the peptidyl transferase centre, the tRNAs within this active site, and the nascent peptide chain within the exit tunnel.
Structural basis for the assembly of the Sxl–Unr translation regulatory complex
Janosch Hennig,
Cristina Militti,
Grzegorz M. Popowicz,
Iren Wang,
Miriam Sonntag
+ et al.
The crystal structure of the RNA binding domains of Sxl and Unr with msl2 RNA shows that interwoven interactions establish cooperative assembly of the ternary complex, highlighting how binding of relatively general RNA binding domains to RNA can result in a unique and specific protein–RNA architecture.