nature

THIS WEEK

Editorials

Bolstering the link ▶

Two papers in Nature this week highlight the extent to which human activity is influencing global climate, and underline the need for continued scrutiny of the problem.

Creative tensions ▶

Scientists must find ways to improve academic efficiency if they are to keep their independence.

Into the depths ▶

Celebrity missions to the deep ocean won't make up for cuts to marine science.

World View

The inconvenient truth of carbon offsets ▶

Kevin Anderson explains why he refused to purchase a carbon offset, and why you should steer clear of them too.

Seven Days

Seven days: 30 March–5 April 2012 ▶

The week in science: Errors — and resignations — announced in 'faster-than-light' neutrino experiment; new rules for US biosecurity research; and cuts to science in Spanish and Canadian budgets.

NEWS IN FOCUS

Physicists hunt for dark forces ▶

Cheap colliders probe debris for hint of 'heavy' photon.

Cyprus Institute loses money and support ▶

Budget withheld as audit raises concerns.

US integrity effort hits troubled water ▶

Allegations by integrity officer who lost his job are a setback for plan to quash political inference in science.

A data-driven war on crime ▶

Scientific tools inform a unique combination of military tactics and police work.

Glaciologists to target third pole ▶

High-tech stations on track to monitor third-largest ice store.

PhDs leave the ivory tower ▶

UK doctoral training centres prepare students to run a lab — or work outside academia.

Features

Infectious disease: Blowing in the wind  ▶

The mysterious Kawasaki disease might cross the Pacific on air currents high in the atmosphere.

Brain imaging: fMRI 2.0 ▶

Functional magnetic resonance imaging is growing from showy adolescence into a workhorse of brain imaging.

COMMENT

Research efficiency: Clean up the waste ▶

Fixing inefficiencies at academic institutions will strengthen — not jeopardize — teaching and research, says Thomas Marty.

Research efficiency: Perverse incentives ▶

Counterproductive financial incentives divert time and resources from the scientific enterprise. We should spend the money more wisely, says Paula Stephan.

Research efficiency: Turn the scientific method on ourselves ▶

How can we know whether funding models for research work? By relentlessly testing them using randomized controlled trials, says Pierre Azoulay.

Books and Arts

Archaeology: From ploughs to pyramids ▶

Andrew Robinson discovers gems in a grand overview of ancient Egypt and the life of a pioneer in Egyptology.

Film: A radical in the lab ▶

Alison Abbott enjoys the story of a cell biologist whose incendiary life was shaped by revolution.

Books in brief ▶

Museums: A natural evolution ▶

Henry Nicholls reflects on how the 'phenotypes' of natural history museums are adapting to change.

Correspondence

Artificial microbes: Balanced regulation of synthetic biology Joyce Tait & David Castle | Media centre: Vital to US science Julia A. Moore | Media centre: More than public relations Fiona Fox | Publishing: Journals' role in ethical research Holger Baumgartner

Obituary

David Sayre (1924–2012) ▶

Crystallographer who pioneered methods of X-ray imaging and modern computing.

Corrections

Correction ▶

Correction ▶

RESEARCH

Latest Online

The clonal and mutational evolution spectrum of primary triple-negative breast cancers ▶

Sohrab P. Shah, Andrew Roth, Rodrigo Goya, Arusha Oloumi, Gavin Ha et al.

Primary triple-negative breast cancers are shown to vary widely and continuously in the degree of clonal evolution and mutational content at the time of diagnosis, with implications for future studies of the disease.

An RNA interference screen uncovers a new molecule in stem cell self-renewal and long-term regeneration ▶

Ting Chen, Evan Heller, Slobodan Beronja, Naoki Oshimori, Nicole Stokes et al.

The transcription factor TBX1 has a role in stem cell activation and self-renewal during long-term tissue regeneration.

De novo mutations revealed by whole-exome sequencing are strongly associated with autism ▶

Stephan J. Sanders, Michael T. Murtha, Abha R. Gupta, John D. Murdoch, Melanie J. Raubeson et al.

Rare de novo single nucleotide variants in brain-expressed genes are found to be associated with autism spectrum disorders and to carry large effects.

Hsp72 preserves muscle function and slows progression of severe muscular dystrophy ▶

Stefan M. Gehrig, Chris van der Poel, Timothy A. Sayer, Jonathan D. Schertzer, Darren C. Henstridge et al.

Increasing the expression of intramuscular heat shock protein 72 preserves muscle strength and ameliorates the dystrophic pathology in two mouse models of muscular dystrophy, suggesting a promising way forward for the treatment of muscular dystrophy.

Sporadic autism exomes reveal a highly interconnected protein network of de novo mutations ▶

Brian J. O’Roak, Laura Vives, Santhosh Girirajan, Emre Karakoc, Niklas Krumm et al.

Exome sequencing on a large cohort of parent–child trios with sporadic autism spectrum disorders shows that de novo point mutations are mainly paternal in origin and positively correlate with paternal age, and identifies a highly interconnected network formed from the products of the most severe mutations.

Unexpected features of Drosophila circadian behavioural rhythms under natural conditions ▶

Stefano Vanin, Supriya Bhutani, Stefano Montelli, Pamela Menegazzi, Edward W. Green et al.

Behavioural, neurogenetic and molecular studies of circadian 24-hour rhythms in fruitflies kept in semi-confinement outdoors challenge our established laboratory-based views of the relative importance of sources of rhythmic entrainment, including temperature, photoperiod and moonlight, as well as the role of some of the underlying clock genes in regulating circadian behaviour in the wild.

Patterns and rates of exonic de novo mutations in autism spectrum disorders ▶

Benjamin M. Neale, Yan Kou, Li Liu, Avi Ma’ayan, Kaitlin E. Samocha et al.

Exome sequencing of 175 autism spectrum disorder parent–child trios reveals that few de novo point mutations have a role in autism spectrum disorder and those that do are distributed across many genes and are incompletely penetrant, further supporting extreme genetic heterogeneity of this spectrum disorder.

A novel ChREBP isoform in adipose tissue regulates systemic glucose metabolism ▶

Mark A. Herman, Odile D. Peroni, Jorge Villoria, Michael R. Schön, Nada A. Abumrad et al.

Downregulation of the glucose transporter GLUT4 in adipose tissue occurs early in the development of type 2 diabetes; here GLUT4-mediated glucose uptake is shown to induce a novel form of the transcription factor ChREBP, which regulates de novo lipogenesis and systemic glucose metabolism.

Pathogen-induced human T_H17 cells produce IFN-γ or IL-10 and are regulated by IL-1β ▶

Christina E. Zielinski, Federico Mele, Dominik Aschenbrenner, David Jarrossay, Francesca Ronchi et al.

Infection with Candida albicans and Staphylococcus aureus gives rise to T_H17 cells with different properties; microbe-induced T-cell differentiation is shown here to depend on the balance between polarizing cytokines rather than absolute amounts.

Sexual selection enables long-term coexistence despite ecological equivalence ▶

Leithen K. M’Gonigle, Rupert Mazzucco, Sarah P. Otto & Ulf Dieckmann

A theoretical model shows how sexual selection, on its own, can maintain biodiversity, provided that two realistic assumptions are met: that carrying capacity varies spatially, and that females searching for mates incur costs in doing so.

Regulation of circadian behaviour and metabolism by synthetic REV-ERB agonists ▶

Laura A. Solt, Yongjun Wang, Subhashis Banerjee, Travis Hughes, Douglas J. Kojetin et al.

Synthetic REV-ERB agonists can alter the circadian expression of core clock genes in the hypothalami of mice, which changes the expression of metabolic genes in liver, skeletal muscle and adipose tissue, and results in increased energy expenditure.

Regulation of circadian behaviour and metabolism by REV-ERB-α and REV-ERB-β ▶

Han Cho, Xuan Zhao, Megumi Hatori, Ruth T. Yu, Grant D. Barish et al.

The nuclear receptors REV-ERB-α and REV-ERB-β are indispensible for the coordination of circadian rhythm and metabolism; mice without these nuclear receptors show disrupted circadian expression of core circadian clock and lipid homeostatic gene networks.

Articles and Letters

The genomic basis of adaptive evolution in threespine sticklebacks ▶

Felicity C. Jones, Manfred G. Grabherr, Yingguang Frank Chan, Pamela Russell, Evan Mauceli et al.

A reference genome sequence for threespine sticklebacks, and re-sequencing of 20 additional world-wide populations, reveals loci used repeatedly during vertebrate evolution; multiple chromosome inversions contribute to marine-freshwater divergence, and regulatory variants predominate over coding variants in this classic example of adaptive evolution in natural environments.

Choice-specific sequences in parietal cortex during a virtual-navigation decision task ▶

Christopher D. Harvey, Philip Coen & David W. Tank

The neural circuit dynamics in the mouse posterior parietal cortex are found to involve sequences of neural activation rather than longer-lived sustained neural activity states.

DNA damage defines sites of recurrent chromosomal translocations in B lymphocytes ▶

Ofir Hakim, Wolfgang Resch, Arito Yamane, Isaac Klein, Kyong-Rim Kieffer-Kwon et al.

A genome-wide analysis determines the contribution of DNA breaks and nuclear interactions to the formation of random versus recurrent translocations; whereas random translocations follow nuclear interaction profiles, the frequency of recurrent translocations is directly proportional to the amount of DNA damage at translocation partners.

A gigantic feathered dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of China ▶

Xing Xu, Kebai Wang, Ke Zhang, Qingyu Ma, Lida Xing et al.

The discovery of a new species of Tyrannosaurus relative from the Early Cretaceous of China, some 125 million years old—the largest feathered creature known, living or extinct—has implications for early feather evolution.

A universal model for mobility and migration patterns ▶

Filippo Simini, Marta C. González, Amos Maritan & Albert-László Barabási

A parameter-free model predicts patterns of commuting, phone calls and trade using only population density at all intermediate points.

Endospore abundance, microbial growth and necromass turnover in deep sub-seafloor sediment ▶

Bente Aa. Lomstein, Alice T. Langerhuus, Steven D’Hondt, Bo B. Jørgensen & Arthur J. Spivack

A new approach, the d:l-amino-acid model, is used to quantify the distributions and turnover times of living microbial biomass, endospores and microbial necromass, and to determine their role in the sub-seafloor carbon budget.

Wild-type microglia arrest pathology in a mouse model of Rett syndrome ▶

Noël C. Derecki, James C. Cronk, Zhenjie Lu, Eric Xu, Stephen B. G. Abbott et al.

Transplanting bone marrow from wild-type mice into MECP2-lacking mice results in wild-type microglial engraftment, extends lifespan and reduces symptoms of disease such as breathing and locomotor abnormalities, implicating microglia in the pathophysiology of Rett syndrome.

Notch-dependent VEGFR3 upregulation allows angiogenesis without VEGF–VEGFR2 signalling ▶

Rui Benedito, Susana F. Rocha, Marina Woeste, Martin Zamykal, Freddy Radtke et al.

DLL4–Notch signalling suppresses endothelial sprouting and angiogenic growth through crosstalk with the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) pathway; VEGF receptor 2 has been thought to have a crucial role in this crosstalk, but now VEGF receptor 3 is shown to be the more important modulator.

The BAH domain of ORC1 links H4K20me2 to DNA replication licensing and Meier–Gorlin syndrome ▶

Alex J. Kuo, Jikui Song, Peggie Cheung, Satoko Ishibe-Murakami, Sayumi Yamazoe et al.

The ORC1 BAH domain is shown to be a module that recognizes a histone modification associated with replication origins, providing insight into the aetiology of Meier–Gorlin syndrome.

MAP and kinesin-dependent nuclear positioning is required for skeletal muscle function ▶

Thomas Metzger, Vincent Gache, Mu Xu, Bruno Cadot, Eric S. Folker et al.

Skeletal muscle cells are multinucleate, and improper positioning of the nuclei contributes to muscle dysfunction.

Small-molecule inhibitors of the AAA+ ATPase motor cytoplasmic dynein ▶

Ari J. Firestone, Joshua S. Weinger, Maria Maldonado, Kari Barlan, Lance D. Langston et al.

A family of small molecules called ‘ciliobrevins’ are described that can rapidly and reversibly modulate the AAA+ ATPase motor dynein, which transports cargo molecules along microtubule tracks.

News & Views

Neuroscience: The symphony of choice ▶

Eduardo Dias-Fereira & Rui M. Costa

Cancer: Limitations of therapies exposed ▶

Oriol Casanovas

Genomics: Stickleback is the catch of the day ▶

Hopi E. Hoekstra

Corrigenda

Corrigendum: Driver mutations in histone H3.3 and chromatin remodelling genes in paediatric glioblastoma ▶

Jeremy Schwartzentruber, Andrey Korshunov, Xiao-Yang Liu, David T. W. Jones, Elke Pfaff et al.

Corrigendum: Exome sequencing identifies frequent mutation of the SWI/SNF complex gene PBRM1 in renal carcinoma ▶

Ignacio Varela, Patrick Tarpey, Keiran Raine, Dachuan Huang, Choon Kiat Ong et al.

Research Highlights

Neuroscience: High-serotonin mice mimic autism | Neuroimaging: MRI lights up the whole brain | Cardiovascular Biology: Cell clean-up for artery health | Cancer: Tumours yield to pressure relief | Ecology: Noise nixes seed spread | Neuroscience: Chilli compound triggers neurons | Biochemistry: Proteins' ticket into the cell

NEWS & COMMENT

Blowing in the wind | Brain imaging: fMRI 2.0 | Archaeology: From ploughs to pyramids | Film: A radical in the lab | Books in brief | Museums: A natural evolution | Artificial microbes: Balanced regulation of synthetic biology Joyce Tait & David Castle | Publishing: Journals' role in ethical research Holger Baumgartner | David Sayre (1924–2012)

CAREERS

Turning point: Jessica Ware

More Biological Sciences ▶

RESEARCH

Latest Online

Regulation of circadian behaviour and metabolism by synthetic REV-ERB agonists ▶

Laura A. Solt, Yongjun Wang, Subhashis Banerjee, Travis Hughes, Douglas J. Kojetin et al.

Synthetic REV-ERB agonists can alter the circadian expression of core clock genes in the hypothalami of mice, which changes the expression of metabolic genes in liver, skeletal muscle and adipose tissue, and results in increased energy expenditure.

Articles and Letters

The BAH domain of ORC1 links H4K20me2 to DNA replication licensing and Meier–Gorlin syndrome ▶

Alex J. Kuo, Jikui Song, Peggie Cheung, Satoko Ishibe-Murakami, Sayumi Yamazoe et al.

The ORC1 BAH domain is shown to be a module that recognizes a histone modification associated with replication origins, providing insight into the aetiology of Meier–Gorlin syndrome.

Small-molecule inhibitors of the AAA+ ATPase motor cytoplasmic dynein ▶

Ari J. Firestone, Joshua S. Weinger, Maria Maldonado, Kari Barlan, Lance D. Langston et al.

A family of small molecules called ‘ciliobrevins’ are described that can rapidly and reversibly modulate the AAA+ ATPase motor dynein, which transports cargo molecules along microtubule tracks.

Research Highlights

Biochemistry: Proteins' ticket into the cell

More Chemical Sciences ▶

RESEARCH

Latest Online

Climate science: Aerosols and Atlantic aberrations ▶

Amato Evan

Aerosols implicated as a prime driver of twentieth-century North Atlantic climate variability ▶

Ben B. B. Booth, Nick J. Dunstone, Paul R. Halloran, Timothy Andrews & Nicolas Bellouin

A state-of-the-art climate model shows that radiative forcing due to anthropogenic and volcanic aerosols explains the variability in sea surface temperature of the North Atlantic between 1950 and 2005.

Articles and Letters

Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation ▶

Jeremy D. Shakun, Peter U. Clark, Feng He, Shaun A. Marcott, Alan C. Mix et al.

A reconstruction of global surface temperature is used to show that deglacial temperature is correlated with and generally lags carbon dioxide concentration, a result that contributes to the explanation of the temperature change that occurred at the end of the most recent ice age.

RR-Lyrae-type pulsations from a 0.26-solar-mass star in a binary system ▶

G. Pietrzyński, I. B. Thompson, W. Gieren, D. Graczyk, K. Stępień et al.

The pulsating star OGLE-BLG-RRLYR-02792 is known to be a member of an eclipsing binary system, and its mass is now determined to be only 0.26 times that of the Sun, meaning that it cannot be a classical RR Lyrae pulsator.

A steady-state superradiant laser with less than one intracavity photon ▶

Justin G. Bohnet, Zilong Chen, Joshua M. Weiner, Dominic Meiser, Murray J. Holland et al.

A superradiant laser with less than one intracavity photon is shown to synchronize its lasing medium spontaneously and simultaneously isolate it from the environment, producing emitted light with a linewidth ten thousand times smaller than the quantum limit for non-superradiant optical lasers.

Decoherence-protected quantum gates for a hybrid solid-state spin register ▶

T. van der Sar, Z. H. Wang, M. S. Blok, H. Bernien, T. H. Taminiau et al.

Seamless integration of decoherence protection into quantum logic gates has enabled high-fidelity execution of a quantum algorithm with individual spins in a hybrid quantum system.

Past extreme warming events linked to massive carbon release from thawing permafrost ▶

Robert M. DeConto, Simone Galeotti, Mark Pagani, David Tracy, Kevin Schaefer et al.

Orbitally triggered decomposition of soil organic carbon in terrestrial permafrost is suggested as an explanation for a series of sudden and extreme global warming events that occurred about 55 million years ago.

A universal model for mobility and migration patterns ▶

Filippo Simini, Marta C. González, Amos Maritan & Albert-László Barabási

A parameter-free model predicts patterns of commuting, phone calls and trade using only population density at all intermediate points.

News & Views

Complex systems: Spotlight on mobility ▶

Dirk Brockmann

Climate change: A tale of two hemispheres ▶

Eric W. Wolff

Atomic physics: An almost lightless laser ▶

Vladan Vuletic

Quantum optics: An entangled walk of photons ▶

Jonathan C. F. Matthews & Mark G. Thompson

Climate science: Aerosols and Atlantic aberrations ▶

Amato Evan

Research Highlights

Climate science: Heads up on a heat wave | Materials: Solvent-free 'ink' glows white

NEWS & COMMENT

Bolstering the link | The inconvenient truth of carbon offsets | Physicists hunt for dark forces | A data-driven war on crime | Glaciologists to target third pole | Blowing in the wind | Books in brief | Museums: A natural evolution | David Sayre (1924–2012)

More Physical Sciences ▶

RESEARCH

Latest Online

Climate science: Aerosols and Atlantic aberrations ▶

Amato Evan

Aerosols implicated as a prime driver of twentieth-century North Atlantic climate variability ▶

Ben B. B. Booth, Nick J. Dunstone, Paul R. Halloran, Timothy Andrews & Nicolas Bellouin

A state-of-the-art climate model shows that radiative forcing due to anthropogenic and volcanic aerosols explains the variability in sea surface temperature of the North Atlantic between 1950 and 2005.

Articles and Letters

Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation ▶

Jeremy D. Shakun, Peter U. Clark, Feng He, Shaun A. Marcott, Alan C. Mix et al.

A reconstruction of global surface temperature is used to show that deglacial temperature is correlated with and generally lags carbon dioxide concentration, a result that contributes to the explanation of the temperature change that occurred at the end of the most recent ice age.

Past extreme warming events linked to massive carbon release from thawing permafrost ▶

Robert M. DeConto, Simone Galeotti, Mark Pagani, David Tracy, Kevin Schaefer et al.

Orbitally triggered decomposition of soil organic carbon in terrestrial permafrost is suggested as an explanation for a series of sudden and extreme global warming events that occurred about 55 million years ago.

A gigantic feathered dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of China ▶

Xing Xu, Kebai Wang, Ke Zhang, Qingyu Ma, Lida Xing et al.

The discovery of a new species of Tyrannosaurus relative from the Early Cretaceous of China, some 125 million years old—the largest feathered creature known, living or extinct—has implications for early feather evolution.

Endospore abundance, microbial growth and necromass turnover in deep sub-seafloor sediment ▶

Bente Aa. Lomstein, Alice T. Langerhuus, Steven D’Hondt, Bo B. Jørgensen & Arthur J. Spivack

A new approach, the d:l-amino-acid model, is used to quantify the distributions and turnover times of living microbial biomass, endospores and microbial necromass, and to determine their role in the sub-seafloor carbon budget.

News & Views

Climate change: A tale of two hemispheres ▶

Eric W. Wolff

Climate science: Aerosols and Atlantic aberrations ▶

Amato Evan

Research Highlights

Climate science: Heads up on a heat wave

NEWS & COMMENT

Bolstering the link | Into the depths | The inconvenient truth of carbon offsets | Glaciologists to target third pole | Blowing in the wind | Books in brief | Museums: A natural evolution

More Earth & Environmental Sciences ▶

The power of transparency ▶

Public and private institutions have added new rules to ensure transparency and reveal conflicts of interest. For many, following the rules has become harder.

Turning point: Jessica Ware ▶

Taxonomist's love of insects leads her to genomics research.

Careers related news & comment

Creative tensions | Cyprus Institute loses money and support | US integrity effort hits troubled water | PhDs leave the ivory tower | Research efficiency: Clean up the waste | Research efficiency: Perverse incentives | Research efficiency: Turn the scientific method on ourselves

Postdoctoral Fellow in Organic Synthesis and Molecular Imaging

Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) 

Head of Proteomics

Medical Research Council 

PhD positions in Population Genetics

Vienna Graduate School of Population Genetics 

Post-Doctoral Research Fellow

UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX 

8th Alexander von Humboldt International Conference on Natural Disasters, Global Change, and the Preservation of World Heritage Sites

12.-16.11.12 Peru