nature

THIS WEEK

Editorials

Universities challenged ▶

The accelerating pace of change in today’s world means that universities must modify how they fulfil their function of seeking and sharing knowledge.

Dust to dust ▶

What lessons can be learned from the presentation of the gravitational-waves story?

Review rewards ▶

Welcome efforts are being made to recognize academics who give up their time to peer review.

World View

How terror-proof is your economy? ▶

Scientists can help to develop a financial safety net by providing transparent market data and loss-impact analysis, says Erwann Michel-Kerjan.

Seven Days

Seven days: 10–16 October 2014 ▶

The week in science: Disaster strikes Taiwanese research vessel, UK launches its first space-weather forecasting centre, and ancient Greek shipwreck yields more treasures.

NEWS IN FOCUS

Stem-cell success poses immunity challenge for diabetes ▶

Researchers must now work out how to protect cell transplants from the immune systems of people with type 1 diabetes.

Giant gene banks take on disease ▶

Researchers bring together troves of DNA sequences in the hope of teasing out links between traits and genetic variants.

African penguins put researchers in a flap ▶

Controlled fishing experiment raises controversy over cause of birds’ decline on Robben Island.

Ebola by the numbers: The size, spread and cost of an outbreak ▶

As the virus continues to rampage in West Africa, Nature’s graphic offers a guide to the figures that matter.

Nobel for microscopy that reveals inner world of cells ▶

Three scientists used fluorescent molecules to defy the limits of conventional optical microscopes.

Features

Higher education: The university experiment ▶

Universities must evolve if they are to survive. A special issue of Nature examines the many ways to build a modern campus.

The university experiment: Campus as laboratory ▶

Innovative ways of teaching, learning and doing research are helping universities around the globe to adapt to the modern world.

Arizona's big bet: The research rethink ▶

Arizona State University is trying to reinvent academia by tearing down walls between disciplines.

COMMENT

Developing excellence: Chinese university reform in three steps ▶

High-quality faculty, valued and rewarded, is the key to building a world-class research institution, says Jie Zhang.

Academia and industry: Companies on campus ▶

Housing industry labs in academic settings benefits all parties, say Jana J. Watson-Capps and Thomas R. Cech.

Ebola: learn from the past ▶

Drawing on his experiences in previous outbreaks, David L. Heymann calls for rapid diagnosis, patient isolation, community engagement and clinical trials.

Books and Arts

Origin of life: The first spark ▶

David Deamer welcomes a synthesis of what we know about the origins of life, as told by a master in the field.

Books in brief ▶

Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week's best science picks.

Politics: When Hodgkin met Thatcher ▶

Jessa Gamble on a radio play about the Nobel laureate and the UK Prime Minister.

Correspondence

Climate change: Pakistan must invest in adaptation Abdur Rehman Cheema | Computing: Keep files small to curb energy use David Gurwitz | Whale watching: Tourism is least of cetaceans' problems Dale Frink | Conservation: Sanctions derail wildlife protection Nigel Hussey | History: Great crested grebe usurps badger Roger C. Prince

Correction

Correction and clarification ▶

RESEARCH

Latest Online

Cardiac biology: Cell plasticity helps hearts to repair ▶

Toru Miyake, Raghu Kalluri

Ecology: Diversity breeds complementarity ▶

David Tilman, Emilie C. Snell-Rood

Mesenchymal–endothelial transition contributes to cardiac neovascularization ▶

Eric Ubil, Jinzhu Duan, Indulekha C. L. Pillai et al.

This study shows that cardiac injury induces cardiac fibroblasts to undergo mesenchymal–endothelial transition and acquire an endothelial-cell like fate, a process mediated, in part, by a p53-dependent mechanism — use of a small molecule activator of p53 increases mesenchymal–endothelial transition, leading to reduced scarring and better preservation of heart function.

Centriole amplification by mother and daughter centrioles differs in multiciliated cells ▶

Adel Al Jord, Anne-Iris Lemaître, Nathalie Delgehyr et al.

Using advanced microscopy techniques, the process of centriole amplification in multiciliated cells is explored, and the daughter centriole identified as the primary nucleation site of more than 90% of the new centrioles, contesting existing de novo theories of centriolar amplification and highlighting a new centrosome asymmetry.

Structure of an integral membrane sterol reductase from Methylomicrobium alcaliphilum  ▶

Xiaochun Li, Rita Roberti, Günter Blobel

Solving the X-ray crystal structure of a Δ14-sterol reductase and homologue of human C14SR and DHCR7, two enzymes that reduce specific carbon–carbon double bonds in the cholesterol biosynthetic pathway, may provide insight into how specific mutations in DHCR7 and lamin B receptor lead to human diseases.

A three-dimensional human neural cell culture model of Alzheimer’s disease ▶

Se Hoon Choi, Young Hye Kim, Matthias Hebisch 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.

Human intracellular ISG15 prevents interferon-α/β over-amplification and auto-inflammation ▶

Xianqin Zhang, Dusan Bogunovic, Béatrice Payelle-Brogard et al.

ISG15 deficiency in humans leads to a failure to maintain adequate levels of USP18, triggering an increase in type I interferon production and signalling, and promoting auto-inflammatory disease.

T–B-cell entanglement and ICOSL-driven feed-forward regulation of germinal centre reaction ▶

Dan Liu, Heping Xu, Changming Shih et al.

Interactions between T and B cells in the germinal centre are brief but involve extensive cell-surface contact in an entangled mode; ICOSL promotes T–B entanglement and B-cell acquisition of CD40L, which drives B cells to upregulate ICOSL, thus forming an intercellular feed-forward loop that is required for efficient positive selection and development of the bone marrow plasma cell compartment.

Primate-specific endogenous retrovirus-driven transcription defines naive-like stem cells ▶

Jichang Wang, Gangcai Xie, Manvendra Singh et al.

An extensive analysis of HERVH (a primate-specific endogenous retrovirus) expression in human pluripotent stem cells is presented, identifying a sub-population of cells within cultured human embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells that has characteristics of naive-state cells — the study provides evidence for a new primate-specific transcriptional circuitry regulating pluripotency.

Origins of major archaeal clades correspond to gene acquisitions from bacteria ▶

Shijulal Nelson-Sathi, Filipa L. Sousa, Mayo Roettger et al.

A comparison of protein-coding genes from 134 archaeal genomes with their homologues in 1,847 bacterial genomes reveals that, during evolution, genes are transferred more often from bacteria to archaea than vice versa, and that gene influxes from bacteria can bring about the origin of major archaeal groups.

Adenosine activates brown adipose tissue and recruits beige adipocytes via A_2A receptors ▶

Thorsten Gnad, Saskia Scheibler, Ivar von Kügelgen et al.

Cold exposure activates brown adipose tissue (BAT) through the sympathetic nervous system, and previous studies have reported inhibitory effects of the purinergic transmitter adenosine in BAT from hamster or rat; here adenosine/A_2A signalling is shown to be involved in sympathetic activation of human and murine brown adipocytes to allow protection of mice from diet-induced obesity.

Cohesin-dependent globules and heterochromatin shape 3D genome architecture in S. pombe ▶

Takeshi Mizuguchi, Geoffrey Fudenberg, Sameet Mehta et al.

Genome-wide chromatin conformation capture (Hi-C) is used to investigate three-dimensional genome organization in Schizosaccharomyces pombe; small domains of chromatin interact locally on chromosome arms to form globules, which depend on cohesin but not heterochromatin for formation, and heterochromatin at centromeres and telomeres provides crucial structural constraints to shape genome architecture.

Selection for niche differentiation in plant communities increases biodiversity effects ▶

Debra Zuppinger-Dingley, Bernhard Schmid, Jana S. Petermann et al.

Here, new ecological communities are established using plants from mixed-species communities or monocultures; ecosystem functioning and morphological trait diversity are shown to be greater in plants from mixed-species communities, suggesting that biodiversity effects in natural communities strengthen over time.

Articles and Letters

The genetics of monarch butterfly migration and warning colouration ▶

Shuai Zhan, Wei Zhang, Kristjan Niitepõld et al.

The monarch butterfly, well known for its spectacular annual migration across North America, is shown by genome sequencing of monarchs from around the world to have been ancestrally migratory and to have dispersed out of North America to occupy its current broad distribution; the authors also discovered signatures of selection associated with migration within loci implicated in flight muscle function, leading to greater flight efficiency.

Clonal dynamics of native haematopoiesis ▶

Jianlong Sun, Azucena Ramos, Brad Chapman et al.

On the basis of transplantation experiments it is generally believed that a very small number of haematopoietic stem cells maintain multi-lineage haematopoiesis by stably producing a hierarchy of short-lived progenitor cells; here a new transposon-based labelling technique shows that this might not be the case during non-transplant haematopoiesis, but rather that a large number of long-lived progenitors are the main drivers of steady-state haematopoiesis during most of adulthood.

Structural mechanism of glutamate receptor activation and desensitization ▶

Joel R. Meyerson, Janesh Kumar, Sagar Chittori et al.

Cryo-electron microscopy is used to visualize the AMPA receptor GluA2 and the kainate receptor GluK2 in several functional states — having access to so many different structural states has enabled the authors to propose a molecular model for the gating cycle of glutamate receptors.

Site-specific group selection drives locally adapted group compositions ▶

Jonathan N. Pruitt, Charles J. Goodnight

Here, colonies of social spiders are used to investigate the evolution of a group-level trait, the ratio of individuals with the ‘docile’ versus ‘aggressive’ phenotype in a colony; experimental colonies were generated with varying ratios and established in the wild, revealing group-level selection.

Hallucigenia’s onychophoran-like claws and the case for Tactopoda ▶

Martin R. Smith, Javier Ortega-Hernández

The claws of the Cambrian lobopodian Hallucigenia resemble the claws and jaws of extant onychophorans, establishing a close relationship between hallucigeniid lobopodians and onychophorans, resolving tardigrades as the closest extant relatives of true arthropods, and showing that the earliest ancestor of the arthropods and their kin would have looked like a lobopodian.

OSCA1 mediates osmotic-stress-evoked Ca²⁺ increases vital for osmosensing in Arabidopsis ▶

Fang Yuan, Huimin Yang, Yan Xue et al.

Osmotic stress is known to induce a transient increase in cytoplasmic Ca2+ concentration [Ca2+]_i in plants, and now OSCA1 is identified as a long-sought Ca2+ channel that mediates [Ca2+]_i increases—mutants lacking OSCA1 function have impaired osmotic Ca2+ signalling in guard cells and root cells, and reduced transpiration regulation and root growth under osmotic stress.

Antiviral immunity via RIG-I-mediated recognition of RNA bearing 5′-diphosphates ▶

Delphine Goubau, Martin Schlee, Safia Deddouche et al.

The innate immune receptor RIG-I is shown to sense 5′-diphosphate RNAs as found in some viral genomes in addition to its well characterized activation by RNAs bearing 5′-triphosphate moieties.

Stochasticity of metabolism and growth at the single-cell level ▶

Daniel J. Kiviet, Philippe Nghe, Noreen Walker et al.

The inherent stochasticity in metabolic reactions is a potent source of phenotypic heterogeneity in cell populations, with potentially fundamental implications for cancer research.

CRISPR-mediated direct mutation of cancer genes in the mouse liver ▶

Wen Xue, Sidi Chen, Hao Yin et al.

CRISPR plasmids targeting Pten and p53, alone and in combination, are delivered by hydrodynamic injection to the liver; the CRISPR-mediated mutations phenocopy the effects of deletions using Cre–LoxP technology, allowing the direct mutation of tumour suppressor genes and oncogenes in the liver using the CRISPR/Cas system, which presents a new approach for rapid development of liver cancer models and functional genomics.

Rb suppresses human cone-precursor-derived retinoblastoma tumours ▶

Xiaoliang L. Xu, Hardeep P. Singh, Lu Wang et al.

The nature of the retinal cell-type-specific circuitry that predisposes to retinoblastoma is demonstrated, in which a program that is unique to post-mitotic human cone precursors sensitizes to the oncogenic effects of retinoblastoma (Rb) protein depletion; hence, the loss of Rb collaborates with the molecular framework of cone precursors to initiate tumorigenesis.

Noncoding RNA transcription targets AID to divergently transcribed loci in B cells ▶

Evangelos Pefanis, Jiguang Wang, Gerson Rothschild et al.

The 11-subunit RNA exosome is thought to regulate the mammalian noncoding transcriptome; here, a mouse model is generated in which the essential Exosc3 subunit of the RNA exosome in B cells is conditionally deleted, revealing a link between sites of genomic RNA exosome function and AID-mediated chromosomal translocations.

News & Views

Evolutionary biology: Survival of the fittest group ▶

Timothy Linksvayer

Cancer: Staying together on the road to metastasis ▶

Alessia Bottos, Nancy E. Hynes

Cancer: The origin of human retinoblastoma ▶

Rod Bremner, Julien Sage

Genomics: Of monarchs and migration ▶

Richard H. Ffrench-Constant

Cardiac biology: Cell plasticity helps hearts to repair ▶

Toru Miyake, Raghu Kalluri

Ecology: Diversity breeds complementarity ▶

David Tilman, Emilie C. Snell-Rood

Corrigenda

Corrigendum: A microbial ecosystem beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet ▶

Brent C. Christner, John C. Priscu, Amanda M. Achberger et al.

Corrigendum: Three keys to the radiation of angiosperms into freezing environments ▶

Amy E. Zanne, David C. Tank, William K. Cornwell et al.

Corrigendum: Connectomic reconstruction of the inner plexiform layer in the mouse retina. ▶

Moritz Helmstaedter, Kevin L. Briggman, Srinivas C. Turaga et al.

Research Highlights

Online fun with Nobel forecasts | Zoology: Birds colour-match their nests | Materials: Plants inspire medical coating | Neurodegeneration: A monkey model of Alzheimer's | Biotechnology: Another try at gene therapy for SCID | Marine ecology: Marine slime ferries parasite | Neurotechnology: Better control over bionics

NEWS & COMMENT

African penguins put researchers in a flap | Ebola by the numbers: The size, spread and cost of an outbreak | Origin of life: The first spark | Whale watching: Tourism is least of cetaceans' problems | Conservation: Sanctions derail wildlife protection | Stem-cell success poses immunity challenge for diabetes | Giant gene banks take on disease | Ebola: learn from the past | Nobel for microscopy that reveals inner world of cells

More Biological Sciences ▶

RESEARCH

Latest Online

Mesenchymal–endothelial transition contributes to cardiac neovascularization ▶

Eric Ubil, Jinzhu Duan, Indulekha C. L. Pillai et al.

This study shows that cardiac injury induces cardiac fibroblasts to undergo mesenchymal–endothelial transition and acquire an endothelial-cell like fate, a process mediated, in part, by a p53-dependent mechanism — use of a small molecule activator of p53 increases mesenchymal–endothelial transition, leading to reduced scarring and better preservation of heart function.

A three-dimensional human neural cell culture model of Alzheimer’s disease ▶

Se Hoon Choi, Young Hye Kim, Matthias Hebisch 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.

Human intracellular ISG15 prevents interferon-α/β over-amplification and auto-inflammation ▶

Xianqin Zhang, Dusan Bogunovic, Béatrice Payelle-Brogard et al.

ISG15 deficiency in humans leads to a failure to maintain adequate levels of USP18, triggering an increase in type I interferon production and signalling, and promoting auto-inflammatory disease.

Articles and Letters

CRISPR-mediated direct mutation of cancer genes in the mouse liver ▶

Wen Xue, Sidi Chen, Hao Yin et al.

CRISPR plasmids targeting Pten and p53, alone and in combination, are delivered by hydrodynamic injection to the liver; the CRISPR-mediated mutations phenocopy the effects of deletions using Cre–LoxP technology, allowing the direct mutation of tumour suppressor genes and oncogenes in the liver using the CRISPR/Cas system, which presents a new approach for rapid development of liver cancer models and functional genomics.

Rb suppresses human cone-precursor-derived retinoblastoma tumours ▶

Xiaoliang L. Xu, Hardeep P. Singh, Lu Wang et al.

The nature of the retinal cell-type-specific circuitry that predisposes to retinoblastoma is demonstrated, in which a program that is unique to post-mitotic human cone precursors sensitizes to the oncogenic effects of retinoblastoma (Rb) protein depletion; hence, the loss of Rb collaborates with the molecular framework of cone precursors to initiate tumorigenesis.

News & Views

Cancer: Staying together on the road to metastasis ▶

Alessia Bottos, Nancy E. Hynes

Cancer: The origin of human retinoblastoma ▶

Rod Bremner, Julien Sage

Research Highlights

Materials: Plants inspire medical coating | Biotechnology: Another try at gene therapy for SCID

NEWS & COMMENT

Ebola by the numbers: The size, spread and cost of an outbreak | Stem-cell success poses immunity challenge for diabetes | Ebola: learn from the past

More Health Sciences ▶

RESEARCH

Latest Online

Piezoelectricity of single-atomic-layer MoS₂ for energy conversion and piezotronics ▶

Wenzhuo Wu, Lei Wang, Yilei Li et al.

The two-dimensional semiconducting material molybdenum disulphide shows strong piezoelectricity in its single-layered form, suggesting possible applications in nanoscale electromechanical devices for sensing and energy harvesting.

Articles and Letters

Inefficient star formation in extremely metal poor galaxies ▶

Yong Shi, Lee Armus, George Helou et al.

Spatially resolved infrared observations of two galaxies with oxygen abundances below 10 per cent of the solar value show that stars formed very inefficiently in seven star-forming clumps, suggesting that star formation may have been very inefficient in the early Universe.

Binary orbits as the driver of γ-ray emission and mass ejection in classical novae ▶

Laura Chomiuk, Justin D. Linford, Jun Yang et al.

High-resolution radio imaging of the γ-ray-emitting nova V959 Mon, hosted by a white dwarf and its binary companion, shows that gaseous ejecta are expelled along the poles as a wind from the white dwarf, that denser material drifts out along the equatorial plane, propelled by orbital motion, and that γ-ray production occurs at the interface between these polar and equatorial regions.

Giant Rydberg excitons in the copper oxide Cu₂O ▶

T. Kazimierczuk, D. Fröhlich, S. Scheel et al.

Rydberg excitons (condensed-matter analogues of hydrogen atoms) are shown to exist in single-crystal copper oxide with principal quantum numbers as large as n=25 and giant wavefunctions with extensions of around two micrometres; this has implications for research in condensed-matter optics.

Lithium–antimony–lead liquid metal battery for grid-level energy storage ▶

Kangli Wang, Kai Jiang, Brice Chung et al.

All-liquid batteries comprising a lithium negative electrode and an antimony–lead positive electrode have a higher current density and a longer cycle life than conventional batteries, can be more easily used to make large-scale storage systems, and so potentially present a low-cost means of grid-level energy storage.

News & Views

Astrophysics: How tiny galaxies form stars ▶

Bruce Elmegreen

Solid-state physics: A historic experiment redesigned ▶

Sven Höfling, Alexey Kavokin

50 & 100 Years Ago ▶

Research Highlights

Online fun with Nobel forecasts | Energy: Benefits outweigh clean-energy costs | Materials: Plants inspire medical coating | Neurotechnology: Better control over bionics

NEWS & COMMENT

Books in brief | Politics: When Hodgkin met Thatcher | Computing: Keep files small to curb energy use | Dust to dust | Nobel for microscopy that reveals inner world of cells

More Physical Sciences ▶

RESEARCH

Latest Online

Climate change: A crack in the natural-gas bridge ▶

Steven J. Davis, Christine Shearer

Limited impact on decadal-scale climate change from increased use of natural gas ▶

Haewon McJeon, Jae Edmonds, Nico Bauer et al.

It has been hoped that making abundant natural gas available by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) would reduce greenhouse gas emissions but now modelling shows that increased consumption will have limited effect on climate change.

Articles and Letters

High winter ozone pollution from carbonyl photolysis in an oil and gas basin ▶

Peter M. Edwards, Steven S. Brown, James M. Roberts et al.

Data from the oil- and gas-producing basin of northeastern Utah and a box model are used to assess the photochemical reactions of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds that lead to excessive atmospheric ozone pollution in winter.

Helium and lead isotopes reveal the geochemical geometry of the Samoan plume ▶

M. G. Jackson, S. R. Hart, J. G. Konter et al.

Analysis of the lead and helium isotopes in Samoan hotspot lavas reveals four low-3He/4He types of lava that do not mix much with each other but do mix with a high-3He/4He component.

News & Views

Climate change: A crack in the natural-gas bridge ▶

Steven J. Davis, Christine Shearer

Research Highlights

Meteorology: Weather explains Asian glacier survival | Energy: Benefits outweigh clean-energy costs | Water resources: Cities will grow thirsty

NEWS & COMMENT

African penguins put researchers in a flap | Climate change: Pakistan must invest in adaptation

More Earth & Environmental Sciences ▶

Medical research masterclass ▶

Matthew Chalmers

Molecular biology: Remove, reuse, recycle ▶

Waste removal is not usually described as sexy, but the once-neglected field of autophagy — which plays a part in cancer and other diseases — is a hot topic in biomedical research.

Q&A: Jules Hoffmann ▶

Jules Hoffmann shared the 2011 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries in the activation of innate immunity against bacteria and fungi in fruit flies. Now based at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Strasbourg University in France, Hoffmann talks to ádám and Dávid Tárnoki about how to use the immune system to kill cancer cells.

Q&A: Barry Marshall ▶

Laureate Barry Marshall, professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Western Australia in Perth, tells Meghan Azad why he risked his health to prove his theory about the link between stomach ulcers and bacteria. He shared the 2005 Nobel prize with Robin Warren for discovering the stomach-dwelling bacterium Helicobacter pylori and for proving that it is this microorganism, not stress, that causes most peptic ulcers.

Q&A: Françoise Barré-Sinoussi ▶

Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier were jointly awarded the 2008 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of HIV in 1983. Three decades on, Barré-Sinoussi is director of the Retroviral Infections unit at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Here, she tells Iria Gomez-Touriño about the latest strategies to combat the virus.

Q&A: Michael Bishop ▶

Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus proved that genetic changes could drive the formation of tumours. They were awarded the 1989 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the origin of retroviral oncogenes. Bishop — now director of the GW Hooper Foundation at the University of California, San Francisco — tells Kipp Weiskopf about 40 years in cancer research.

Q&A: Torsten Wiesel ▶

Torsten Wiesel is president emeritus of Rockefeller University in New York City. He shared half of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with David Hubel for their discoveries concerning information processing in the visual system. He tells Stefano Sandrone about his greatest scientific achievement and his vision of the future.

Q&A: Brian Kobilka ▶

Brian Kobilka shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Robert Lefkowitz for their studies of G protein-coupled receptors. He is professor of molecular and cellular physiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California. Haya Jamal Azouz asks Kobilka what it takes to spend 30 years answering a single research question.

Gerontology: Will you still need me, will you still feed me? ▶

As the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings turn 64, laureates and young researchers discuss growing old — and whether exercise and stress reduction can slow the ageing process.

Sponsor

Molecular biology: Genetic touch-ups ▶

Simplified techniques have made the field of gene editing much more accessible to non-specialists.

Careers related news & comment

Universities challenged | Review rewards | Seven days: 10–16 October 2014 | Higher education: The university experiment | The university experiment: Campus as laboratory | Arizona's big bet: The research rethink Josh Fischman | Academia and industry: Companies on campus Jana J. Watson-Capps, Thomas R. Cech | Climate change: Pakistan must invest in adaptation Abdur Rehman Cheema

postdoctoral fellow

McGill University 

Doctoral student

University of Jyvaskyla, Finland 

Postdoctoral Researcher

John Innes Centre (JIC) 

PhD Scholarships 2015 – NEW AND REDEVELOPED

Arthritis Research UK 

International Symposium Bone Regeneration

11.06.15 Berlin, Germany