Volume 493 Number 7433

Editorials

危険な病原体の危険度をさらに高めるおそれのある研究には、厳重な規制、監視が必要だ。

Vigilance needed p.451

Experiments that make deadly pathogens more dangerous demand the utmost scrutiny.

doi: 10.1038/493451b

巧みな手法を使えば、公開されているデータとゲノム配列から個人の特定が可能であり、被験者を守るための迅速な対応が科学界に求められている。

Genetic privacy p.451

The ability to identify an individual from their anonymous genome sequence, using a clever algorithm and data from public databases, threatens the principle of subject confidentiality.

doi: 10.1038/493451a

英王立研究所が苦境に陥っているが、これからの科学のアウトリーチはどうあるべきか、考える必要がある。

Science stakes p.452

With the Royal Institution in trouble, Britain’s crowded public-science scene must evolve.

doi: 10.1038/493452a

News

グリーンランドの氷は古代の温暖化にも耐えたことが明らかに。

Greenland defied ancient warming p.459

But Antarctic glaciers may be more vulnerable than thought.

doi: 10.1038/493459a

強毒性のH5N1型インフルエンザウイルスの研究が再開へ。

Work resumes on lethal flu strains p.460

Study of lab-made viruses a ‘public-health responsibility’.

doi: 10.1038/493460a

メキシコ湾原油流出事故で処理に使われた分散剤の効果や安全性をめぐり、研究者の間でさまざまな意見が。

Researchers debate oil-spill remedy p.461

Oil industry maintains that dispersants should be part of routine response to deep-water blowouts.

doi: 10.1038/493461a

国際援助プロジェクトの有効性を、臨床試験の手法を応用して評価する試みが。

International aid projects come under the microscope p.462

Clinical-research techniques deployed to assess effectiveness of aid initiatives.

doi: 10.1038/493462a

装置や技術の進歩が、太陽系外生命体の探査の助けに。

Fresh bid to see exo-Earths p.464

Improved instruments and a telescope windfall could aid the search for extrasolar life.

doi: 10.1038/493464a

安倍政権が、景気刺激策で科学予算の大盤振る舞いを。

Japan’s stimulus package showers science with cash p.465

But new leadership’s largesse brings expectations of fast commercial pay-offs.

doi: 10.1038/493465a

News Features

発生:金魚鉢の神経科学

Mapping brain networks: Fish-bowl neuroscience p.466

仮想世界にとらえられたゼブラフィッシュが、脳の複雑な接続の解明に役立ちそうだ。

doi: 10.1038/493466a

社会の進化:儀礼的な動物

Social evolution: The ritual animal p.470

祈り、闘い、踊り、詠唱など、ヒトの行う儀式が、社会の成長や文明の発生を理解する手がかりになりそうだ。

doi: 10.1038/493470a

News & Views

フォーラム:神経科学:多数の強み

Neuroscience: Strength in numbers p.482

記憶の長期増強と呼ばれる過程は、学習や記憶などのニューロンレベルでの情報貯蔵にかかわっている。in vitro研究の1つから、この過程についての分子レベルでの考え方を覆す結果が出たが、このデータから推論されることについて、研究者たちの見解はまちまちである。

doi: 10.1038/493482a

バイオエネルギー:耕作限界地でのバイオ燃料生産

Bioenergy: Biofuel production on the margins p.483

現在農耕に適していない土地に生えている野草から燃料を作れば、米国のバイオ燃料生産目標のかなりの部分に貢献できる可能性が、分析で明らかになった。

doi: 10.1038/nature11853

太陽物理学:これまでにない小さな長さスケールへ

Solar physics: Towards ever smaller length scales p.485

太陽コロナの中にある構造の実際のスケールを決定するのは、空間分解能が制限されるために困難であるとわかっている。今回、高分解能での画像化が成功したことで、150 kmのスケールでの動的構造が観測された。

doi: 10.1038/493485a

古生物学:歯をギシギシいわせる

Palaeontology: Gritting their teeth p.486

植物由来のシリカと砂漠の砂のそれぞれが歯のエナメル質に及ぼす摩耗作用が比較され、歯を非常に摩耗させるのは食べ物ではない可能性が示唆された。この知見は、ヒトの祖先の食生活に関する考え方をいくらか変えることになるかもしれない。

doi: 10.1038/493486a

がん:腫瘍転移の際の細胞の行ったり来たり

Cancer: The to and fro of tumour spread p.487

がん転移の際に、上皮間葉転換、つまり上皮性細胞が間葉系細胞の表現型を獲得する現象がどんな役割を果たすのかが、2つの研究により明らかにされた。これは、がんの治療でどの細胞過程を標的とすべきかを考慮する際の参考となる。

doi: 10.1038/493487a

Articles

気候:グリーンランドの褶曲層の氷床コアから復元されたエーミアン間氷期

Eemian interglacial reconstructed from a Greenland folded ice core p.489

Reconstruction of the Eemian interglacial from the new NEEM ice core shows that in spite of a climate warmer by eight degrees Celsius in Northern Greenland than that of the past millennium, the ice here was only a few hundred metres lower than its present level.

doi: 10.1038/nature11789

神経:LTPに必要なのはグルタミン酸受容体の貯蔵プールであって、サブユニットの種類は関係ない

LTP requires a reserve pool of glutamate receptors independent of subunit type p.495

The minimal possible requirement for AMPA receptor trafficking during long-term potentiation is explored, revealing that no region of the receptor subunit is necessary, in contrast with previous work; the only requirement for LTP seems to be a large reserve of glutamate receptors.

doi: 10.1038/nature11775

Letters

宇宙:空間的に解像された磁気ブレードからの太陽コロナにおけるエネルギー解放

Energy release in the solar corona from spatially resolved magnetic braids p.501

Solar observations at a resolution of 0.2 arc seconds show the reconnection and relaxation of magnetic braids in a coronal active region, leading to the dissipation of sufficient energy to heat the structures to about 4,000,000 K.

doi: 10.1038/nature11772

物性:半導体の40 Kのレーザー冷却

Laser cooling of a semiconductor by 40 kelvin p.504

Net laser cooling from 290 kelvin to about 250 kelvin is achieved in semiconductor cadmium sulphide ‘nanobelts’ and attributed to strong coupling between excitons and longitudinal optical phonons.

doi: 10.1038/nature11721

工学:分子スピンメモリデバイス用に界面操作されたテンプレート

Interface-engineered templates for molecular spin memory devices p.509

When molecules of a phenalenyl derivative, which has no net spin, are deposited on a ferromagnet, they develop into a magnetic supramolecular layer with spin-filtering properties; this could be the basis for a new approach to building molecular magnetic devices.

doi: 10.1038/nature11719

環境:米国中西部の耕作限界地からの持続可能なバイオエネルギー生産

Sustainable bioenergy production from marginal lands in the US Midwest p.514

A comparative assessment of six alternative cropping systems over 20 years shows that, once well established, successional herbaceous vegetation grown on marginal lands has a direct greenhouse gas emissions mitigation capacity that rivals that of purpose-grown crops.

doi: 10.1038/nature11811

地球:動的弱化の結果として破壊的となりうる安定クリープすべりをする地震断層

Stable creeping fault segments can become destructive as a result of dynamic weakening p.518

An earthquake source model in which stable, rate-strengthening behaviour at low slip rates is combined with coseismic weakening due to rapid shear heating of pore fluids, allowing unstable slip to occur in segments that can creep between events, explains a number of both long-term and coseismic observations of faults that hosted the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake and the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake.

doi: 10.1038/nature11703

考古:紀元前6千年紀の北ヨーロッパでチーズが製造されたことを示す最古の証拠

Earliest evidence for cheese making in the sixth millennium bc in northern Europe p.522

Biomarker and stable isotopic analysis of lipid residues from perforated pottery vessels from sixth millennium bc Europe are consistent with these vessels having been used for making cheese, a low-lactose dairy product with digestion and storage advantages for the prehistoric lactose-intolerant farming communities.

doi: 10.1038/nature11698

進化:3つのらせん卵割動物ゲノムから得た、左右相称動物の進化についての考察

Insights into bilaterian evolution from three spiralian genomes OPEN p.526

Comparative analysis of the genomes of one mollusc (Lottia gigantea) and two annelids (Capitella teleta and Helobdella robusta) enable a more complete reconstruction of genomic features of the last common ancestors of protostomes, bilaterians and metazoans; against this conserved background they provide the first glimpse into lineage-specific evolution and diversity of the lophotrochozoans.

doi: 10.1038/nature11696

神経科学:中脳ドーパミンニューロンの制御によるうつ関連行動の迅速な調節

Rapid regulation of depression-related behaviours by control of midbrain dopamine neurons p.532

Optogenetic induction of phasic, but not tonic, firing in VTA dopamine neurons induces susceptibility to stress in mice undergoing a subthreshold social-defeat paradigm and in previously resilient mice that have been subjected to repeated social-defeat stress, and this effect is projection-pathway specific.

doi: 10.1038/nature11713

神経科学:ドーパミンニューロンは神経による符号化およびうつ関連行動の発現を調節する

Dopamine neurons modulate neural encoding and expression of depression-related behaviour p.537

Specific manipulation of midbrain dopamine neurons in freely moving rodents shows that their inhibition or excitation immediately modulates depression-like phenotypes that are induced by chronic mild stress, and that their activation alters the neural encoding of depression-related behaviours in the nucleus accumbens.

doi: 10.1038/nature11740

細胞:セリン欠乏はがん細胞においてストレスとp53依存的な代謝の再編成を誘導する

Serine starvation induces stress and p53-dependent metabolic remodelling in cancer cells p.542

The authors show that p53 helps cancer cells survive serine depletion by coordinating metabolic remodelling; a diet lacking serine slowed tumour growth in mice, with p53-null tumours showing greatest sensitivity to serine starvation.

doi: 10.1038/nature11743

免疫:気管支上皮細胞によるアポトーシス細胞の除去は気道炎症に重大な影響を及ぼす

Apoptotic cell clearance by bronchial epithelial cells critically influences airway inflammation p.547

Airway epithelial cells are important in immune homeostasis in that they dampen immune activation by clearing dying cells and producing anti-inflammatory cytokines.

doi: 10.1038/nature11714

構造生物学:風疹ウイルスタンパク質E1の結晶構造から得られる、その機能と進化に関する考察

Functional and evolutionary insight from the crystal structure of rubella virus protein E1 p.552

The crystal structure of rubella virus E1 glycoprotein in its post-fusion form reveals a class II fusion protein with distinct features so far unseen in any other crystallized fusion protein; the location of an antibody-neutralization epitope also suggests that rubella-specific antibodies may function through prevention of E1 glycoprotein trimer formation during cell entry.

doi: 10.1038/nature11741

遺伝:特殊化した機構によるRNAiの誘導が発生にかかわる遺伝子とレトロトランスポゾンをサイレンシングする

RNAi triggered by specialized machinery silences developmental genes and retrotransposons p.557

In the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe RNA interference (RNAi) machinery promotes heterochromatin assembly and silencing of centromeric repeats; here it is shown that RNAi participates in silencing other genomic regions, such as sexual differentiation genes and retrotransposons, and this process is regulated by developmental and environmental signals.

doi: 10.1038/nature11716

生化学:TET2は、遺伝子の転写の際にヒストンのO-GlcNAc化を促進する

TET2 promotes histone O-GlcNAcylation during gene transcription p.561

TET2 is shown to associate with OGT, which catalyses O-GlcNAcylation, and the two enzymes are found together at transcription start sites; TET2 facilitates the activity of OGT in O-GlcNAcylation of histone 2B, and epigenetic modifications to both DNA and histones by TET2 and OGT may be important in gene transcription regulation.

doi: 10.1038/nature11742

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