nature

THIS WEEK

Editorials

Contaminated food for thought ▶

If it is to deal effectively with outbreaks of infectious diseases, Germany must streamline its convoluted systems for reporting and communication.

Full transparency ▶

Nations should release global nuclear-monitoring data to academics and the public.

Great ape debate ▶

Researchers should contribute to a US analysis of the case for chimpanzee research.

World View

Poison in party pills is too much to swallow ▶

The harm caused by designer drugs justifies the law's attempts to keep pace with underground chemists, says Mike Cole.

Seven Days

Seven days: 10-16 June 2011 ▶

The week in science

NEWS IN FOCUS

Studies spy on a river's rage ▶

Investigation into this year's Mississippi floods could shape coastal restoration plans.

Life hackers seek new tools ▶

Field aims to enlist techniques from molecular biology to attack fundamental challenges.

Mouse library set to be knockout ▶

Global effort to disable every mouse gene nears completion.

Species spellchecker fixes plant glitches ▶

Online tool should weed out misspellings and duplications.

Europe tackles huge fraud ▶

Regulators scramble to recover millions of euros awarded to fake research projects.

Egypt invests in its science ▶

Latest budget establishes research as a national priority.

Features

Animal rights: Chimpanzee research on trial ▶

As pressure from activists builds, the United States is considering whether it should end invasive experiments in chimpanzees.

Physics of life: The dawn of quantum biology ▶

The key to practical quantum computing and high-efficiency solar cells may lie in the messy green world outside the physics lab.

COMMENT

Buried by bad decisions ▶

Our brains are hard-wired to make poor choices about harm prevention in today's world. But we can fight it, says Daniel Gilbert.

Democratizing clinical research ▶

Keith Lloyd and Jo White commend a way for patients, clinicians and scientists to set priorities jointly.

Books and Arts

Virology: Potent tiny packages ▶

Carl Zimmer's primer on viruses entertains, but reveals little about their basic traits, says Robin Weiss.

Techniques: Records in the field ▶

Good notebook skills are vital for documenting observations of the natural world, finds Sandra Knapp.

Books in brief ▶

Q&A: The adaptive lyricist ▶

Baba Brinkman is a Canadian rap artist whose award-winning show The Rap Guide to Evolution wowed UK crowds at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival during Charles Darwin's bicentenary year. As the show opens next week for a long summer run off Broadway in New York, Brinkman discusses rhyme, improvisation and scientific certainty.

Correspondence

Extinctions: conserve not collate Megan Evans, Hugh Possingham & Kerrie Wilson | Extinctions: consider all species T. M. Brooks | Making society more resilient Akira S. Mori | Population decline is a long way off Robert Wyman | Brazilian soya: the argument for Rachael Garrett | Brazilian soya: the argument against Brenda Baletti | Peer reviews: some are already public Bernd Pulverer | Change Chinese returnee rules Jun Li | Worm scientist's identity revealed Mark J. F. Brown

Intestinal networks in health and disease ▶

Intestinal homeostasis and its breakdown in inflammatory bowel disease ▶

Genetics and pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease ▶

Microenvironmental regulation of stem cells in intestinal homeostasis and cancer ▶

Human nutrition, the gut microbiome and the immune system ▶

RESEARCH

Latest Online

NMDA receptor blockade at rest triggers rapid behavioural antidepressant responses ▶

Anita E. Autry, Megumi Adachi, Elena Nosyreva, Elisa S. Na, Maarten F. Los et al.

Clinical studies consistently demonstrate that a single sub-psychomimetic dose o...

Structure-based design of non-natural amino-acid inhibitors of amyloid fibril formation ▶

Stuart A. Sievers, John Karanicolas, Howard W. Chang, Anni Zhao, Lin Jiang et al.

Many globular and natively disordered proteins can convert into amyloid fibrils....

Subunit arrangement and phenylethanolamine binding in GluN1/GluN2B NMDA receptors ▶

Erkan Karakas, Noriko Simorowski & Hiro Furukawa

Since it was discovered that the anti-hypertensive agent ifenprodil has neuropro...

Structural basis of steroid hormone perception by the receptor kinase BRI1 ▶

Michael Hothorn, Youssef Belkhadir, Marlene Dreux, Tsegaye Dabi, Joseph. P. Noel et al.

Polyhydroxylated steroids are regulators of body shape and size in higher organi...

Structural insight into brassinosteroid perception by BRI1 ▶

Ji She, Zhifu Han, Tae-Wuk Kim, Jinjing Wang, Wei Cheng et al.

Brassinosteroids are essential phytohormones that have crucial roles in plant gr...

Articles and Letters

A conditional knockout resource for the genome-wide study of mouse gene function ▶

William C. Skarnes, Barry Rosen, Anthony P. West, Manousos Koutsourakis, Wendy Bushell et al.

Gene targeting in embryonic stem cells has become the principal technology for m...

Latent TGF-β structure and activation ▶

Minlong Shi, Jianghai Zhu, Rui Wang, Xing Chen, Lizhi Mi et al.

Transforming growth factor (TGF)-β is stored in the extracellular matrix a...

X-ray structure of a bacterial oligosaccharyltransferase ▶

Christian Lizak, Sabina Gerber, Shin Numao, Markus Aebi & Kaspar P. Locher

Asparagine-linked glycosylation is a post-translational modification of proteins...

Control of visual cortical signals by prefrontal dopamine ▶

Behrad Noudoost & Tirin Moore

The prefrontal cortex is thought to modulate sensory signals in posterior cortic...

Forces between clustered stereocilia minimize friction in the ear on a subnanometre scale ▶

Andrei S. Kozlov, Johannes Baumgart, Thomas Risler, Corstiaen P. C. Versteegh & A. J. Hudspeth

The detection of sound begins when energy derived from an acoustic stimulus defl...

Transcriptomic analysis of autistic brain reveals convergent molecular pathology ▶

Irina Voineagu, Xinchen Wang, Patrick Johnston, Jennifer K. Lowe, Yuan Tian et al.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a common, highly heritable neurodevelopmental ...

Detection of prokaryotic mRNA signifies microbial viability and promotes immunity ▶

Leif E. Sander, Michael J. Davis, Mark V. Boekschoten, Derk Amsen, Christopher C. Dascher et al.

Live vaccines have long been known to trigger far more vigorous immune responses...

Reprogramming transcription by distinct classes of enhancers functionally defined by eRNA ▶

Dong Wang, Ivan Garcia-Bassets, Chris Benner, Wenbo Li, Xue Su et al.

Mammalian genomes are populated with thousands of transcriptional enhancers that...

Converting nonsense codons into sense codons by targeted pseudouridylation ▶

John Karijolich & Yi-Tao Yu

All three translation termination codons, or nonsense codons, contain a uridine ...

Telomere shortening and loss of self-renewal in dyskeratosis congenita induced pluripotent stem cells ▶

Luis F. Z. Batista, Matthew F. Pech, Franklin L. Zhong, Ha Nam Nguyen, Kathleen T. Xie et al.

The differentiation of patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to...

COP1 is a tumour suppressor that causes degradation of ETS transcription factors ▶

Alberto C. Vitari, Kevin G. Leong, Kim Newton, Cindy Yee, Karen O’Rourke et al.

The proto-oncogenes ETV1, ETV4 and ETV5 encode transcription factors in the E26 ...

News & Views

Animal behaviour: Born leaders ▶

Franz J. Weissing

Protein synthesis: Stop the nonsense ▶

Adrian R. Ferré-D'Amaré

Structural biology: Porthole to catalysis ▶

Reid Gilmore

Gene expression: The autism disconnect ▶

Željka Korade & Károly Mirnics

Research Highlights

Animal behaviour: Fitter fish lead the pack | Cancer therapeutics: Targeted drug fights melanoma | Neurogenetics: Extended hunt for autism genes | Neuroscience: How nicotine curbs weight gain | Biophysics: Fluorescent cells turned into lasers | Metagenomics: Movies of the body's bacteria

NEWS & COMMENT

Contaminated food for thought | Great ape debate | Democratizing clinical research | Virology: Potent tiny packages | Books in brief | Q&A: The adaptive lyricist | Extinctions: conserve not collate Megan Evans, Hugh Possingham & Kerrie Wilson | Extinctions: consider all species T. M. Brooks | Making society more resilient Akira S. Mori | Population decline is a long way off Robert Wyman | Brazilian soya: the argument for Rachael Garrett | Brazilian soya: the argument against Brenda Baletti | Worm scientist's identity revealed Mark J. F. Brown

More Biological Sciences ▶

RESEARCH

Latest Online

Structure-based design of non-natural amino-acid inhibitors of amyloid fibril formation ▶

Stuart A. Sievers, John Karanicolas, Howard W. Chang, Anni Zhao, Lin Jiang et al.

Many globular and natively disordered proteins can convert into amyloid fibrils....

Subunit arrangement and phenylethanolamine binding in GluN1/GluN2B NMDA receptors ▶

Erkan Karakas, Noriko Simorowski & Hiro Furukawa

Since it was discovered that the anti-hypertensive agent ifenprodil has neuropro...

Articles and Letters

X-ray structure of a bacterial oligosaccharyltransferase ▶

Christian Lizak, Sabina Gerber, Shin Numao, Markus Aebi & Kaspar P. Locher

Asparagine-linked glycosylation is a post-translational modification of proteins...

Modular and predictable assembly of porous organic molecular crystals ▶

James T. A. Jones, Tom Hasell, Xiaofeng Wu, John Bacsa, Kim E. Jelfs et al.

Nanoporous molecular frameworks are important in applications such as separation...

Reprogramming transcription by distinct classes of enhancers functionally defined by eRNA ▶

Dong Wang, Ivan Garcia-Bassets, Chris Benner, Wenbo Li, Xue Su et al.

Mammalian genomes are populated with thousands of transcriptional enhancers that...

Converting nonsense codons into sense codons by targeted pseudouridylation ▶

John Karijolich & Yi-Tao Yu

All three translation termination codons, or nonsense codons, contain a uridine ...

COP1 is a tumour suppressor that causes degradation of ETS transcription factors ▶

Alberto C. Vitari, Kevin G. Leong, Kim Newton, Cindy Yee, Karen O’Rourke et al.

The proto-oncogenes ETV1, ETV4 and ETV5 encode transcription factors in the E26 ...

News & Views

Protein synthesis: Stop the nonsense ▶

Adrian R. Ferré-D'Amaré

Structural biology: Porthole to catalysis ▶

Reid Gilmore

Research Highlights

Chemistry: Recipe for a good catalyst

More Chemical Sciences ▶

RESEARCH

Articles and Letters

Black hole growth in the early Universe is self-regulated and largely hidden from view ▶

Ezequiel Treister, Kevin Schawinski, Marta Volonteri, Priyamvada Natarajan & Eric Gawiser

The formation of the first massive objects in the infant Universe remains imposs...

Zero outward flow velocity for plasma in a heliosheath transition layer ▶

Stamatios M. Krimigis, Edmond C. Roelof, Robert B. Decker & Matthew E. Hill

Voyager 1 has been in the reservoir of energetic ions and electrons that constit...

Emerging local Kondo screening and spatial coherence in the heavy-fermion metal YbRh₂Si₂ ▶

S. Ernst, S. Kirchner, C. Krellner, C. Geibel, G. Zwicknagl et al.

The entanglement of quantum states is both a central concept in fundamental phys...

Forces between clustered stereocilia minimize friction in the ear on a subnanometre scale ▶

Andrei S. Kozlov, Johannes Baumgart, Thomas Risler, Corstiaen P. C. Versteegh & A. J. Hudspeth

The detection of sound begins when energy derived from an acoustic stimulus defl...

News & Views

Condensed-matter physics: Microscopy of the macroscopic ▶

Piers Coleman

Astrophysics: Early black holes uncovered ▶

Alexey Vikhlinin

Research Highlights

Photonics: Rainbow from a single LED

NEWS & COMMENT

Books in brief

More Physical Sciences ▶

RESEARCH

Latest Online

Earthquakes: The lessons of Tohoku-Oki ▶

Jean-Philippe Avouac

Coseismic and postseismic slip of the 2011 magnitude-9 Tohoku-Oki earthquake ▶

Shinzaburo Ozawa, Takuya Nishimura, Hisashi Suito, Tomokazu Kobayashi, Mikio Tobita et al.

Most large earthquakes occur along an oceanic trench, where an oceanic plate sub...

Research Highlights

Geochemistry: Mercury on the decline

NEWS & COMMENT

Full transparency | Books in brief

CAREERS

Fieldwork: Close quarters

More Earth & Environmental Sciences ▶

Fieldwork: Close quarters ▶

Cramped living conditions, unruly colleagues or crowded schedules can be challenging for the most intrepid scientist.

Postdocs with promise ▶

UK university offers fellowships leading to academic posts.

Research centres open ▶

Early-career scientists sought to join collaborative institutions in Germany.

Women feel isolated ▶

Isolation and lack of confidence hold back careers of female postdocs, says US association.

Careers related news & comment

Democratizing clinical research | Making society more resilient Akira S. Mori | Population decline is a long way off Robert Wyman | Brazilian soya: the argument for Rachael Garrett | Brazilian soya: the argument against Brenda Baletti | Peer reviews: some are already public Bernd Pulverer | Change Chinese returnee rules Jun Li

Postdoctoral Research Trainee - Center for Cancer Research

University of Tennessee Health Science Center Memphis, TN

Atlas of MS Update Coordinator

Multiple Sclerosis International Federation London, United Kingdom

Bioinformatics Analysts

Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom

Lyophilization Technology – Practical Application of the Scientific Principles

13.-15.06.11 CA, US