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Volume 502 Number 7473 |
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nature |
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The science that matters. Every week. | |
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Visit us at Neuroscience ,booth #1813, see MERLIN Compact at work and learn about 3D imaging of your brain samples using ZEISS scanning electron microscopes. Download your free White Paper on Large Volume Imaging of Eye Muscle with SIGMA VP 3View and watch our latest webinar about SBF-SEM - Serial Block Face 3D imaging in the FE-SEM with 3View technology by Gatan and ZEISS. |
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Jump to the content that matters to you |
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Specials - Outlook: Medical Imaging | |
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Since the first X-rays were taken more than a century ago, the ability to see inside the body has been central to the advance of medicine. Progress in precision medical imaging is gathering pace, leading to new insights in biology, with the potential for more accurate diagnoses and improved treatments.
▼ more |
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Coupling a single electron to a Bose-Einstein condensate
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Coupling of electrons to matter is central to material properties such as electrical conductivity and superconductivity. Jonathan Balewski and colleagues have created a novel system - a single localized electron interacting with an ultracold quantum gas - that allows this coupling to be studied in a pure form. An electron from a rubidium atom in the condensate is excited to a very high energy level; it then spans eight micrometres and can interact with many thousands of atoms. The result of this interaction is visible as an oscillating deformation of the entire condensate, which should allow a range of applications in quantum optics and perhaps the imaging of single electron orbitals. |
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Decoupling of soil nutrient cycles as a function of aridity in global drylands
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In future we may need to rely increasingly on marginal lands for agricultural production. This study highlights the fragility of nutrient cycles in such ecosystems in response to climate change. Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo and colleagues analyse soil from 224 dryland ecosystems and find that as aridity increases, carbon and nitrogen concentrations decrease and phosphorus concentrations increase. This suggests a decoupling of nutrient cycles that could have a negative impact on biogeochemical reactions that control key ecosystem functions such as primary productivity. |
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Climate changes in Brazil through 2100 More heat, less rain in the country's north and northeast and more rain in the south and southeast are some of the projections of the Brazilian Panel on Climate Change.
Sign up for FAPESP's free weekly newsletter with the latest developments of Brazilian science |
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DMSP biosynthesis by an animal and its role in coral thermal stress response
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The common metabolite dimethylsulphoniopropionate (DMSP) is converted by marine bacteria to DMS gas, which contributes to cloud formation and hence influences climate. This study reports DMSP formation by two common reef-building coral species. This comes as a surprise - previously it was thought that DMSP was produced solely by algae and a few plants. DMSP biosynthesis may help the coral animals to survive conditions of thermal stress. |
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In this week's podcast: treating chronic HIV, time travel in fiction and doing physics under the Nazis. |
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All together now ▶ |
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Proposals to bring hydrofluorocarbons under the auspices of the Montreal Protocol provide a simple test of the international community’s commitment to tackling climate change. |
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Time to talk ▶ |
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Online discussion is an essential aspect of the post-publication review of findings. |
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Playful paradoxes ▶ |
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A half-century of Doctor Who has shown the dramatic possibilities of science in the arts. |
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Seven days: 25–31 October 2013 ▶ |
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The week in science: PubMed pilots online commenting, NASA laser communications set speed record, and Greenland lifts ban on uranium mining. |
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Ecology: Lady of the lakes ▶ |
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Diane Orihel set her PhD aside to lead a massive protest when Canada tried to shut down its unique Experimental Lakes Area. |
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Eppendorf - System solutions for your workflows Did you know that Eppendorf offers products to prepare your samples with reproducible conditions? You can also find a lot of products around your PCR workflow and various new possibilities will show up using our brand new 5 mL system |
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A small-molecule AdipoR agonist for type 2 diabetes and short life in obesity ▶ |
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Miki Okada-Iwabu, Toshimasa Yamauchi, Masato Iwabu et al. |
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An orally active small molecule, AdipRon, that binds to and activates both adiponectin receptors (AdipoR1 and AdipoR2) is identified; it ameliorates diabetes in mice on a high-fat diet and in genetically obese db/db mice, and if this can be extrapolated to humans, orally active agonists such as AdipoRon are a promising new approach to treat obesity-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes. |
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Therapeutic efficacy of potent neutralizing HIV-1-specific monoclonal antibodies in SHIV-infected rhesus monkeys ▶ |
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Dan H. Barouch, James B. Whitney, Brian Moldt et al. |
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Treatment of SHIV-infected monkeys with potent broadly neutralizing anti-HIV-1 monoclonal antibodies resulted in rapid control of viral replication in both peripheral blood and tissues; viral rebound was linked to decreasing antibody concentrations and not the generation of escape mutations, and setpoint viral load following viral rebound remained lower than the initial baseline viral load. |
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Dendritic spikes enhance stimulus selectivity in cortical neurons in vivo ▶ |
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Spencer L. Smith, Ikuko T. Smith, Tiago Branco et al. |
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Neuronal dendrites are not passive cables, but whether their excitability contributes to computation at the cell’s soma has been uncertain; by observing and interfering with dendritic ‘spikes’ during sensory stimulation, it is now shown that active dendritic processing enhances somatic orientation selectivity, a fundamental brain computation. |
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A directional switch of integrin signalling and a new anti-thrombotic strategy ▶ |
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Bo Shen, Xiaojuan Zhao, Kelly A. O’Brien et al. |
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The direction of integrin signalling is found to be determined by the coordinated and opposing binding waves of talin and Gα13 to the same region of the integrin β3 cytoplasmic domain at mutually exclusive but distinct sites, and a potent new anti-thrombotic drug that does not cause bleeding is designed on the basis of these findings. |
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Flavin-mediated dual oxidation controls an enzymatic Favorskii-type rearrangement ▶ |
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Robin Teufel, Akimasa Miyanaga, Quentin Michaudel et al. |
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Structural and functional studies reveal how the bacterial flavoenzyme EncM catalyses the oxygenation–dehydrogenation dual oxidation of a highly reactive substrate, and show that EncM maintains a stable flavin oxygenating species that promotes substrate oxidation and triggers a rarely seen Favorskii-type rearrangement. |
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Structural basis for the modular recognition of single-stranded RNA by PPR proteins ▶ |
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Ping Yin, Quanxiu Li, Chuangye Yan et al. |
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Although the roles of pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) proteins in RNA metabolism are well characterised, the mechanism by which they recognise specific single-stranded (ss)RNAs remains ill-understood; here X-ray crystal structures of maize PPR10 in the presence and absence of ssRNA provide details of the PPR10–ssRNA interaction. |
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Mating advantage for rare males in wild guppy populations ▶ |
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Kimberly A. Hughes, Anne E. Houde, Anna C. Price et al. |
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Manipulation of the frequency of naturally occurring colour patterns within replicate pools of fish at three sites shows that males with rare colour patterns have higher reproductive fitness, demonstrating negative frequency-dependent selection mediated by sexual selection. |
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High-resolution Xist binding maps reveal two-step spreading during X-chromosome inactivation ▶ |
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Matthew D. Simon, Stefan F. Pinter, Rui Fang et al. |
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During mammalian X-chromosome inactivation, the Xist long noncoding RNA coats the future inactive X chromosome and recruits polycomb repressive complex 2 to a nucleation site, but how Xist spreads silencing across the entire X chromosome is unclear; here high-resolution maps of Xist binding sites across the X chromosome are generated and show that Xist does not spread across the inactive X chromosome uniformly but in two steps, initially targeting gene-rich islands before later spreading to intervening gene-poor domains. |
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Derivation of novel human ground state naive pluripotent stem cells ▶ |
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Ohad Gafni, Leehee Weinberger, Abed AlFatah Mansour et al. |
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It is known that human embryonic stem (ES) cells are more similar to mouse primed epiblast stem cells than to naive mouse ES cells; here culture conditions are determined that allow human ES and induced pluripotent stem cells to acquire a pluripotent state that retains growth characteristics highly similar to mouse naive ES cells, and competence in generating cross-species human-mouse embryonic chimaerism. |
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Arteriolar niches maintain haematopoietic stem cell quiescence ▶ |
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Yuya Kunisaki, Ingmar Bruns, Christoph Scheiermann et al. |
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Immunofluorescence imaging and computational modelling are used to study the spatial distribution of different cell types within the haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) niche; findings show that quiescent HSCs associate specifically with small arterioles that are preferentially found in the endosteal bone marrow and are essential in maintaining this quiescence. |
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Crystal structure of the 14-subunit RNA polymerase I ▶ |
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Carlos Fernández-Tornero, María Moreno-Morcillo, Umar J. Rashid et al. |
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RNA polymerase (Pol) I transcribes ribosomal RNA that is critically required for ribosome assembly, and the enzyme is a major determinant of protein biosynthesis and cell growth; here the crystal structure of the complete 14-subunit Pol I from yeast is determined, providing insights into its unique architecture and the possible functional roles of its components. |
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RNA polymerase I structure and transcription regulation ▶ |
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Christoph Engel, Sarah Sainsbury, Alan C. Cheung et al. |
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The crystal structure of the complete 14-subunit RNA polymerase (Pol) I from yeast is determined, providing insights into its unique architecture and the possible functional roles of its components. |
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Decoupling of soil nutrient cycles as a function of aridity in global drylands ▶ |
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Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo, Fernando T. Maestre, Antonio Gallardo et al. |
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Soil samples collected from 224 dryland sites around the world show that aridity affects the concentration of organic carbon and total nitrogen differently from the concentration of inorganic phosphorus, suggesting that any predicted increase in aridity with climate change could uncouple the carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles in drylands and negatively affect the services provided by these ecosystems. |
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DMSP biosynthesis by an animal and its role in coral thermal stress response ▶ |
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Jean-Baptiste Raina, Dianne M. Tapiolas, Sylvain Forêt et al. |
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Until now, dimethylsulphoniopropionate (DMSP), an important component in the sulphur cycle, has been thought to be produced solely by algae and some plants; however, this study shows that the coral animal also produces DMSP, in addition to that produced by the coral’s algal symbiont, with potential implications for the sulphur cycle and its climatic consequences as corals and their symbionts are affected by global change. |
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Structural insight into magnetochrome-mediated magnetite biomineralization ▶ |
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Marina I. Siponen, Pierre Legrand, Marc Widdrat et al. |
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The magnetosome-associated protein mamP is an iron oxidase that reveals a unique arrangement of a self-plugged PDZ domain fused to two magnetochrome domains, defining a new class of c-type cytochrome exclusively found in magnetotactic bacteria. |
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Single-molecule fluorescence probes dynamics of barrier crossing ▶ |
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Hoi Sung Chung, William A. Eaton |
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Here the Kramers diffusion coefficient and free-energy barrier are characterized for the first time through single-molecule fluorescence measurements of the temperature- and viscosity-dependence of the transition path time for protein folding. |
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Synthetic non-oxidative glycolysis enables complete carbon conservation ▶ |
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Igor W. Bogorad, Tzu-Shyang Lin, James C. Liao |
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A non-oxidative, cyclic pathway—termed non-oxidative glycolysis—is designed and constructed that enables complete carbon conservation in sugar catabolism to acetyl-coenzyme A, and can be used to achieve a 100% carbon yield to fuels and chemicals. |
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Visualizing virus assembly intermediates inside marine cyanobacteria ▶ |
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Wei Dai, Caroline Fu, Desislava Raytcheva et al. |
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This study reports the first application of Zernike phase contrast (ZPC) electron cryo-tomography to examine cellular processes without the need for labelling or sectioning; the technique is used to visualize the maturation of the cyanophage Syn5 inside its host cell, identifying subcellular compartments and five distinct Syn5 assembly intermediates. |
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A*STAR Research - Highlighting the best of research at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore's premier research organization
Recent Highlights
Photonics: Progress with the switch to faster computers | Reproduction: Mutant flies give mixed-up mating messages
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Structural basis for the modular recognition of single-stranded RNA by PPR proteins ▶ |
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Ping Yin, Quanxiu Li, Chuangye Yan et al. |
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Although the roles of pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) proteins in RNA metabolism are well characterised, the mechanism by which they recognise specific single-stranded (ss)RNAs remains ill-understood; here X-ray crystal structures of maize PPR10 in the presence and absence of ssRNA provide details of the PPR10–ssRNA interaction. |
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Structural insight into magnetochrome-mediated magnetite biomineralization ▶ |
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Marina I. Siponen, Pierre Legrand, Marc Widdrat et al. |
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The magnetosome-associated protein mamP is an iron oxidase that reveals a unique arrangement of a self-plugged PDZ domain fused to two magnetochrome domains, defining a new class of c-type cytochrome exclusively found in magnetotactic bacteria. |
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Single-molecule fluorescence probes dynamics of barrier crossing ▶ |
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Hoi Sung Chung, William A. Eaton |
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Here the Kramers diffusion coefficient and free-energy barrier are characterized for the first time through single-molecule fluorescence measurements of the temperature- and viscosity-dependence of the transition path time for protein folding. |
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Structural basis for the modular recognition of single-stranded RNA by PPR proteins ▶ |
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Ping Yin, Quanxiu Li, Chuangye Yan et al. |
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Although the roles of pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) proteins in RNA metabolism are well characterised, the mechanism by which they recognise specific single-stranded (ss)RNAs remains ill-understood; here X-ray crystal structures of maize PPR10 in the presence and absence of ssRNA provide details of the PPR10–ssRNA interaction. |
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A rocky composition for an Earth-sized exoplanet ▶ |
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Andrew W. Howard, Roberto Sanchis-Ojeda, Geoffrey W. Marcy et al. |
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Doppler spectroscopic measurements of the mass of the Earth-sized planet Kepler-78b reveal that its mean density is similar to Earth’s, suggesting a composition of rock and iron. |
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An Earth-sized planet with an Earth-like density ▶ |
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Francesco Pepe, Andrew Collier Cameron, David W. Latham et al. |
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Data from the Kepler spacecraft and the HARPS-N ground-based spectrograph indicate that the extrasolar planet Kepler-78b has a mean density similar to that of Earth and imply that it is composed of rock and iron. |
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Structural insight into magnetochrome-mediated magnetite biomineralization ▶ |
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Marina I. Siponen, Pierre Legrand, Marc Widdrat et al. |
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The magnetosome-associated protein mamP is an iron oxidase that reveals a unique arrangement of a self-plugged PDZ domain fused to two magnetochrome domains, defining a new class of c-type cytochrome exclusively found in magnetotactic bacteria. |
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Single-molecule fluorescence probes dynamics of barrier crossing ▶ |
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Hoi Sung Chung, William A. Eaton |
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Here the Kramers diffusion coefficient and free-energy barrier are characterized for the first time through single-molecule fluorescence measurements of the temperature- and viscosity-dependence of the transition path time for protein folding. |
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Gradual demise of a thin southern Laurentide ice sheet recorded by Mississippi drainage ▶ |
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Andrew D. Wickert, Jerry X. Mitrovica, Carlie Williams et al. |
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Four reconstructions of North American ice-sheet history are tested using oxygen isotope records from the Gulf of Mexico in a water-mixing model; the one based on ice physics is the best match to the isotopic data and to the observed Last Glacial Maximum fall in sea level due to melting of the Laurentide ice sheet. |
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Decoupling of soil nutrient cycles as a function of aridity in global drylands ▶ |
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Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo, Fernando T. Maestre, Antonio Gallardo et al. |
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Soil samples collected from 224 dryland sites around the world show that aridity affects the concentration of organic carbon and total nitrogen differently from the concentration of inorganic phosphorus, suggesting that any predicted increase in aridity with climate change could uncouple the carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles in drylands and negatively affect the services provided by these ecosystems. |
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DMSP biosynthesis by an animal and its role in coral thermal stress response ▶ |
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Jean-Baptiste Raina, Dianne M. Tapiolas, Sylvain Forêt et al. |
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Until now, dimethylsulphoniopropionate (DMSP), an important component in the sulphur cycle, has been thought to be produced solely by algae and some plants; however, this study shows that the coral animal also produces DMSP, in addition to that produced by the coral’s algal symbiont, with potential implications for the sulphur cycle and its climatic consequences as corals and their symbionts are affected by global change. |
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Scans: Enhanced medical vision ▶ |
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The ability to look inside the human body without using a scalpel has revolutionized how we diagnose and treat illness and injury. By Brian Owens. |
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Inflammation: A complex problem ▶ |
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Multi-protein inflammasomes are being implicated in a surprising number of diseases, and researchers are keen to find out why. |
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Software: The computer will see you now ▶ |
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From image-analysis software to lens-free microscopes that fit on a mobile phone, new tools are providing pathologists with clearer and more informative images. |
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Perspective: The big picture ▶ |
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Many medical images are used once then filed away. This trove of clinical data should be made available to biomedical researchers, says Alan Moody. |
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Nature Medicine and Eli Lilly and Company present: Shifting Paradigms on Alzheimer's Disease
December 3, 2013
Lilly Corporate Center, Indianapolis, IN, USA
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Careers related news & comment |
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naturejobs.com Science jobs of the week |
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No matter what your career stage, student, postdoc or senior scientist, you will find articles on naturejobs.com to help guide you in your science career. Keep up-to-date with the latest sector trends, vote in our reader poll and sign-up to receive the monthly Naturejobs newsletter. |
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• Natureevents Directory featured events |
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natureevents directory featured events |
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Natureevents Directory is the premier resource for scientists looking for the latest scientific conferences, courses, meetings and symposia. Featured across Nature Publishing Group journals and centrally at natureevents.com it is an essential reference guide to scientific events worldwide. |
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Nature Publishing Group | 75 Varick Street, 9th floor | New York | NY 10013-1917 | USA
Nature Publishing Group's offices: Principal offices: London - New York - Tokyo Worldwide offices: Basingstoke - Boston - Buenos Aires - Delhi - Hong Kong - Madrid - Melbourne - Munich - Paris - San Francisco - Seoul - Washington DC
Macmillan Publishers Limited is a company incorporated in England and Wales under company number 785998 and whose registered office is located at Brunel Road, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
© 2013 Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved. | |
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