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Editorials

Growing pains p435

The fledgling European Research Council is struggling against the constraints imposed by the European Commission. It needs to be completely independent.

doi:10.1038/460435a


Beyond the pristine p435

Earth's disturbed ecosystems have much more to offer than many would give them credit for.

doi:10.1038/460435b


The carbon count p436

Scientists need better Earth-monitoring tools to see whether climate policies are working.

doi:10.1038/460436a


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Research Highlights

Biophysics: Skink or swim? p438

doi:10.1038/460438a


Astronomy: Reionizers spotted p438

doi:10.1038/460438b


Cell biology: Spindle sandwich p438

doi:10.1038/460438c


Physics: Scattered showers p438

doi:10.1038/460438d


Cancer biology: Doing more with less p438

doi:10.1038/460438e


Neuroscience: Knowledge rewards p438

doi:10.1038/460438f


Evolution: Safe sex for primroses p439

doi:10.1038/460439a


Bioenergetics: Winter wrecked p439

doi:10.1038/460439b


Physics: Jet stream p439

doi:10.1038/460439c


Palaeontological genetics: Untraceable Etruscans p439

doi:10.1038/460439d


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Journal Club

Journal club p439

Rex Cocroft

doi:10.1038/460439e


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News

Red tape strangles basic research grants p440

European Research Council finds itself mired in bureaucracy.

Natasha Gilbert

doi:10.1038/460440a


Cuts bite in California p441

University faces hard times as budget gets squeezed.

Erika Check Hayden & Rex Dalton

doi:10.1038/460441a


Insuring against climate p442

Negotiators push for policies to help weather natural disasters.

Jeff Tollefson

doi:10.1038/460442a


US Congress revives hydrogen vehicle research p442

House vote is set to put programme back on the road.

Jeff Tollefson

doi:10.1038/460442b


Psychiatry manual revisions spark row p445

US psychiatrists divided by claims of secrecy and scientific overreach.

Heidi Ledford

doi:10.1038/460445a


Regulators face tough flu-jab choices p446

Rich countries' pandemic strategies may cause vaccine shortages elsewhere.

Declan Butler

doi:10.1038/460446a


Scientists strive to boost US–Cuban collaboration p447

Breaking the barriers proves to be a slow process.

Rex Dalton

doi:10.1038/460447a


Cash boost for mapping the human brain p449

doi:10.1038/460449a


ExxonMobil invests in algae for biofuel p449

doi:10.1038/460449b


Italian court sidesteps stem-cell challenge p449

doi:10.1038/460449c


Copernicus honoured in periodic-table addition p449

doi:10.1038/460449d


Jupiter takes a hit p449

doi:10.1038/460449e


Nominate Japan's best mentors p449

doi:10.1038/460449f


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News Features

Ecology: Ragamuffin Earth p450

A small group of ecologists is looking beyond the pristine to study the scrubby, feral and untended. Emma Marris learns to appreciate 'novel ecosystems'.

doi:10.1038/460450a


Environment: The globe's green avenger p454

Maurice Strong has shaped how nations respond to planetary crises. Ehsan Masood meets the man whose successes — and failures — laid the groundwork for the current climate talks.

doi:10.1038/460454a


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Correspondence

Outrage at high price paid for a fossil p456

Elwyn L. Simons, Friderun Ankel-Simons, Prithijit S. Chatrath, Richard S. Kay, Blythe Williams, John G. Fleagle, Daniel L. Gebo, Christopher K. Beard, Mary Dawson, Ian Tattersall & Kenneth D. Rose

doi:10.1038/460456a


Peer review and impact statements vital to UK research p456

David Delpy

doi:10.1038/460456b


Time running out to deal with banks of greenhouse gases p457

Jeff Cohen

doi:10.1038/460457a


Petitioning for a revised statement on climate change p457

S. Fred Singer, Hal Lewis, Will Happer, Larry Gould, Roger Cohen & Robert H. Austin

doi:10.1038/460457b


Indigenous people defend rainforest as well as their rights p457

Glenn H. Shepard

doi:10.1038/460457c


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Essay

The incredible shrinking venture capital p459

Venture funding is declining quickly and is unlikely to bounce back. But less money means lower expectations — good news for smaller science start-ups, says John Browning.

John Browning

doi:10.1038/460459a


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Books and Arts

Great inventions of life p460

A book setting out the ten greatest transformations delivered by evolution contains surprises but neglects crucial innovations such as proteins and embryos, Lewis Wolpert finds.

Lewis Wolpert

doi:10.1038/460460a


Digesting evolution p461

Randolph M. Nesse reviews The Evolution of Obesity by Michael L. Power & Jay Schulkin

doi:10.1038/460461a


Mathematical memories p461

Jennifer Rohn reviews The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

doi:10.1038/460461b


Reflecting the impossible p462

Richard Taylor reviews Virtual Worlds: M. C. Escher and Paradox

doi:10.1038/460462a


Correction p462

doi:10.1038/460462b


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News and Views

Ecology: Production in pristine lakes p463

An investigation of lakes in Sweden has delivered results that run counter to the idea that primary production is generally limited by the availability of nutrients. There are lessons for limnologists in this.

Jonathan J. Cole

doi:10.1038/460463a

See also: Editor's summary


Quantum mechanics: Hidden context p464

The idea that physical phenomena might be described by a more down-to-earth theory than quantum physics has met with resistance from many physicists. Indeed, it seems that nature is not as simple as we would like.

Boris Blinov

doi:10.1038/460464a

See also: Editor's summary


Materials science: Soft particles feel the squeeze p465

It's hard to fit in when you're different — especially if you're a large particle trying to squeeze into an array of smaller ones. But some soft, polymeric particles simply shrink to fit the space available.

Daan Frenkel

doi:10.1038/460465a


Cancer: Three birds with one stone p466

The core domain of the p53 protein has been found to affect microRNA processing — its third known antitumour activity. Most cancerous p53 mutations affect this domain and may abolish all tumour-suppressor functions.

Franck Toledo & Boris Bardot

doi:10.1038/460466a

See also: Editor's summary


50 & 100 years ago p467

doi:10.1038/460467a


Geomorphology: Landscape texture set to scale p468

Why, in many landscapes, does ridge–valley spacing show such regularity? The combination of high-resolution data and an elegant model offers a solution to this long-standing puzzle, for some cases at least.

Kelin X. Whipple

doi:10.1038/460468a

See also: Editor's summary


Bioengineering: Cellular control in two clicks p469

If complex tissues are to be engineered, synthetic materials will be needed that provide cells with precisely located molecular cues. A method that attaches such cues to specific areas of a gel could be the answer.

Jason A. Burdick

doi:10.1038/460469a


Infectious diseases: An ill wind for wild chimps? p470

Simian immunodeficiency virus is associated with increased mortality in a subspecies of chimpanzee living under natural conditions in East Africa. This is worrying news for the chimpanzee populations involved.

Robin A. Weiss & Jonathan L. Heeney

doi:10.1038/460470a

See also: Editor's summary


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Articles

Distinctive chromatin in human sperm packages genes for embryo development p473

During spermiogenesis, canonical histones are largely exchanged for protamines, and whether the rarely retained nucleosomes have any function has been unclear. Here, high-resolution genomic approaches are used to localize the nucleosomes retained in mature human sperm; they are found to be significantly enriched at developmentally important genes and to have distinctive patterns of histone modifications.

Saher Sue Hammoud, David A. Nix, Haiying Zhang, Jahnvi Purwar, Douglas T. Carrell & Bradley R. Cairns

doi:10.1038/nature08162

See also: Editor's summary


Argonaute HITS-CLIP decodes microRNA–mRNA interaction maps p479

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short RNAs that are ubiquitous, potent regulators of gene expression; however, as miRNA activity requires base pairing with only 6–8 nucleotides of messenger RNA, predicting target mRNAs is a major challenge. By using a method known as HITS-CLIP, combined with bioinformatic analysis, it has now been possible to demonstrate how the in vivo interactions between miRNAs and the mRNA targets can be validated.

Sung Wook Chi, Julie B. Zang, Aldo Mele & Robert B. Darnell

doi:10.1038/nature08170

See also: Editor's summary


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Letters

Liquid water on Enceladus from observations of ammonia and 40Ar in the plume p487

Jets of water ice from surface fractures near the south pole of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus produce a plume of gas and particles. The source of the jets may be a liquid water region under the ice shell. Here, ammonia is reported to be present in the plume, providing strong evidence for the existence of at least some liquid water.

J. H. Waite Jr, W. S. Lewis, B. A. Magee, J. I. Lunine, W. B. McKinnon, C. R. Glein, O. Mousis, D. T. Young, T. Brockwell, J. Westlake, M.-J. Nguyen, B. D. Teolis, H. B. Niemann, R. L. McNutt Jr, M. Perry & W.-H. Ip

doi:10.1038/nature08153

See also: Editor's summary


Asymmetric auroral intensities in the Earth's Northern and Southern hemispheres p491

It is commonly assumed that the aurora borealis (Northern Hemisphere) and the aurora australis (Southern Hemisphere) are mirror images of each other. Here, observations are reported that clearly contradict this common assumption: intense spots are seen at dawn in the Northern summer Hemisphere, and at dusk in the Southern winter Hemisphere.

K. M. Laundal & N. Østgaard

doi:10.1038/nature08154

See also: Editor's summary


State-independent experimental test of quantum contextuality p494

The question of whether quantum phenomena can be explained by classical models with hidden variables is the subject of a long-lasting debate. One feature of classical models that is thought to be in conflict with quantum mechanics is non-contextuality, with experiments undertaken with photons and neutrons seeming to support this. However, these tests required the generation of special quantum states and left various loopholes open. Here an experiment is performed with trapped ions that overcomes these problems and cannot be explained in non-contextual terms.

G. Kirchmair, F. Zähringer, R. Gerritsma, M. Kleinmann, O. Gühne, A. Cabello, R. Blatt & C. F. Roos

doi:10.1038/nature08172

See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Blinov


Near-field focusing and magnification through self-assembled nanoscale spherical lenses p498

Cup-shaped molecules of calix[4]hydroquinone self-assemble on a surface into a lens shape; these lenses are shown to generate near-field magnification beyond the diffraction limit, enabling the resolution of features of the order of 200 nanometres. Such spherical nanolenses provide new pathways for lens-based near-field focusing and high-resolution optical imaging at very low intensities, which are useful for, among other things, bio-imaging and near-field lithography.

Ju Young Lee, Byung Hee Hong, Woo Youn Kim, Seung Kyu Min, Yukyung Kim, Mikhail V. Jouravlev, Ranojoy Bose, Keun Soo Kim, In-Chul Hwang, Laura J. Kaufman, Chee Wei Wong, Philip Kim & Kwang S. Kim

doi:10.1038/nature08173

See also: Editor's summary


Formation of evenly spaced ridges and valleys p502

Ridges and valleys in many landscapes are uniformly spaced, but no theory has predicted this fundamental topographic wavelength. A characteristic length scale is now derived from equations of mass conservation and sediment transport; it is found to be directly proportional to the valley spacing in models of landform evolution, and to the measured valley spacing at five study sites in the USA.

J. Taylor Perron, James W. Kirchner & William E. Dietrich

doi:10.1038/nature08174

See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Whipple


Light limitation of nutrient-poor lake ecosystems p506

Lake ecosystem productivity, defined by the rate of biomass synthesis, is believed to be limited by nutrient availability. However, the comparison of several small unproductive lakes along a water colour gradient now shows that coloured terrestrial organic matter controls the key process for new biomass synthesis through its effects on light attenuation, suggesting that light is the more important limiting factor.

Jan Karlsson, Pär Byström, Jenny Ask, Per Ask, Lennart Persson & Mats Jansson

doi:10.1038/nature08179

See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Cole


Partial penetrance facilitates developmental evolution in bacteria p510

Individuals with exactly the same genetic make-up can differ from one another in their development and resulting phenotype when the genome contains a mutation — a phenomenon called 'partial penetrance'. Exploration of the genetic and stochastic factors controlling the proportion of abnormal 'twin' spores in mutant populations of the bacterium Bacillus subtilus now reveals how mutations affecting DNA replication and cell division may act in synergy to significantly increase the penetrance of twin sporulation.

Avigdor Eldar, Vasant K. Chary, Panagiotis Xenopoulos, Michelle E. Fontes, Oliver C. Losón, Jonathan Dworkin, Patrick J. Piggot & Michael B. Elowitz

doi:10.1038/nature08150

See also: Editor's summary


Increased mortality and AIDS-like immunopathology in wild chimpanzees infected with SIVcpz p515

There are over 40 different simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) with which African primates are naturally infected; two of these have crossed the species barrier to generate human immunodeficiency virus types 1 and 2 (HIV-1 and HIV-2). Although SIVs do not generally cause AIDS in primates, AIDS-like disease is now shown to occur in chimpanzee populations in the wild who are naturally infected with SIVcpz, a close relative of HIV-1.

Brandon F. Keele, James Holland Jones, Karen A. Terio, Jacob D. Estes, Rebecca S. Rudicell, Michael L. Wilson, Yingying Li, Gerald H. Learn, T. Mark Beasley, Joann Schumacher-Stankey, Emily Wroblewski, Anna Mosser, Jane Raphael, Shadrack Kamenya, Elizabeth V. Lonsdorf, Dominic A. Travis, Titus Mlengeya, Michael J. Kinsel, James G. Else, Guido Silvestri, Jane Goodall, Paul M. Sharp, George M. Shaw, Anne E. Pusey & Beatrice H. Hahn

doi:10.1038/nature08200

See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Weiss & Heeney


Regulation of the innate immune response by threonine-phosphatase of Eyes absent p520

Innate immunity is stimulated by non-microbial danger signals, as well as by viral or bacterial components. The threonine-phosphatase activity of the protein Eyes absent 4 (EYA4), originally identified as a co-transcription factor, is now shown to stimulate the innate immune response to the undigested DNA from apoptotic cells.

Yasutaka Okabe, Teruyuki Sano & Shigekazu Nagata

doi:10.1038/nature08138

See also: Editor's summary


Helical extension of the neuronal SNARE complex into the membrane p525

In neurotransmission, synaptic vesicles fuse with the membrane of nerve cells to release neurotransmitter content into the synaptic cleft. This process requires the assembly of several members of the SNARE protein family. Here, the X-ray structure of a neuronal SNARE complex is solved, providing insight into how these proteins assemble.

Alexander Stein, Gert Weber, Markus C. Wahl & Reinhard Jahn

doi:10.1038/nature08156

See also: Editor's summary


Modulation of microRNA processing by p53 p529

Disruption of the tumour suppressor p53, a transcriptional activator with numerous growth-suppressive targets, is a fundamental event in the development of most cancers. Here, p53 is found to have another function, independent of its role in transcription, enhancing the earliest processing step of precursors for microRNAs that regulate genes affecting cell growth.

Hiroshi I. Suzuki, Kaoru Yamagata, Koichi Sugimoto, Takashi Iwamoto, Shigeaki Kato & Kohei Miyazono

doi:10.1038/nature08199

See also: Editor's summary | News and Views by Toledo & Bardot


The CREB coactivator CRTC2 links hepatic ER stress and fasting gluconeogenesis p534

In fasted mammals, circulating pancreatic glucagon stimulates gluconeogenesis in the liver in part through the CREB coactivator CRTC2. The production of glucose by the liver is increased in obesity, reflecting chronic increases in endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress that promote insulin resistance. Here, CRTC2 is shown to function as a dual sensor for fasting signals and ER stress, thereby contributing to glucose homeostasis.

Yiguo Wang, Liliana Vera, Wolfgang H. Fischer & Marc Montminy

doi:10.1038/nature08111

See also: Editor's summary


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Corrigendum

Life without a wall or division machine in Bacillus subtilis p538

M. Leaver, P. Domínguez-Cuevas, J. M. Coxhead, R. A. Daniel & J. Errington

doi:10.1038/nature08232


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Naturejobs

Careers and Recruitment

Big opportunities in a small world p540

Nanomedicine has started to gather momentum in recent years, and cutting-edge jobs abound for those with the right training. Virginia Gewin takes a closer look.

Virginia Gewin

doi:10.1038/nj7254-540a


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Futures

The problem of Junior p544

Parent trap.

Swapna Kishore

doi:10.1038/460544a


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