Japan’s major science-funding agency has a clean record when it comes to research fraud. Now is the time for it to step up and resolve a long-running case of alleged scientific misconduct.
doi: 10.1038/496005a
Behaviours proposed for black holes conflict with the laws of physics.
doi: 10.1038/496005b
Pending auction raises eyebrows but few objections.
doi: 10.1038/496013a
Rise of immunotherapies spurs search for markers of response.
doi: 10.1038/496014a
Geoneutrinos paint picture of deep-mantle processes.
doi: 10.1038/496017a
Excessive catches by Chinese vessels threaten livelihoods and ecosystems in West Africa.
doi: 10.1038/496018a
ブラックホールに落ちた宇宙飛行士は、ぺしゃんこに潰れるのか、真っ黒焦げになるのか、どちらだろう。
doi: 10.1038/496020a
抗生物質のホスホマイシンの生合成は「エポキシド」環構造が形成されると完了する。このエポキシド環は、遊離基ではなく、陽イオンを持つ中間体から形成されると考えられている。
doi: 10.1038/496034a
北米西部のテクトニクスに関する歴史は、多数のピースがつぶれたり、欠けたりしているジグソーパズルのようなものである。地球深部の地震波画像から、我々が再構築してきたこのパズルを空間的・時間的に変えてしまうような特徴が明らかになった。
doi: 10.1038/496035a
既存の技術をうまく組み合わせることで、個々の白金ナノ粒子の原子レベルでの三次元画像が得られ、その中の結晶欠陥の原子構造が明らかになった。
doi: 10.1038/nature12089
イソクエン酸脱水素酵素に生じた変異は代謝産物の蓄積につながり、これが細胞のエピジェネティックな状態に影響を及ぼして発がんを促進するらしい。だが、この影響は可逆的であり、そこから治療標的候補が考えられる。
doi: 10.1038/496038a
生物にヒントを得て作られた人工材料は、模倣の域を越えて、自然界にあるものよりもデザインはシンプルだが機能的にはより強力なものにすることが可能だ。今回、熱帯産の果実の種子をお手本として、新しいフォトニック素子が作られた。
doi: 10.1038/496040a
酵素であるサーチュインSIRT6は、タンパク質を修飾しているアセチル基よりも長鎖脂肪酸アシル基のほうを選んで除去することがわかった。この活性は炎症関連タンパク質のTNF-αの分泌を調節している。
doi: 10.1038/496041a
A synthesis of geochemical proxy records of sea surface temperature shows that the early Pliocene climate was little different from today in terms of maximum ocean temperatures but had substantially lower meridional and zonal temperature gradients.
doi: 10.1038/nature12003
A new explanation for the origin of the accreted terranes that form the mountainous Cordillera of western North America is proposed and tested: stationary, intra-oceanic subduction deposited massive slab walls in the mantle and grew volcanic archipelagos at the surface, which were overridden by and accreted to North America during Cretaceous times.
doi: 10.1038/nature12019
Genome sequences of human-infective tapeworm species reveal extreme losses of genes and pathways that are ubiquitous in other animals, species-specific expansions of non-canonical heat shock proteins and families of known antigens, specialized detoxification pathways, and metabolism that relies on host nutrients; this information is used to identify new potential drug targets.
doi: 10.1038/nature12031
Crystal structures of mammalian CRY2, one of the cryptochrome flavoproteins that have light-independent functions at the core of the circadian clock, show that it binds FAD dynamically and that the F-box protein FBXL3 captures CRY2 by occupying its FAD-binding pocket and burying its PER-binding interface.
doi: 10.1038/nature11964
Magnetic order in a manganite can be switched during femtosecond photo-excitation via coherent superpositions of quantum states; this is analogous to processes in femtosecond chemistry where photoproducts of chemical and biochemical reactions can be influenced by creating suitable superpositions of molecular states.
doi: 10.1038/nature11934
A new combination of established techniques is used to produce three-dimensional (3D) images and a video of almost all the atoms in a platinum nanoparticle, revealing the 3D core structure of edge and screw dislocations and 3D twin boundaries in the nanoparticle at atomic resolution.
doi: 10.1038/nature12009
Aluminium catalyst is trapped during growth of a silicon nanowire from vapour phase at concentrations vastly beyond equilibrium solid solubility, but is homogeneously distributed as atoms and not found as clusters or precipitates; this is a potential route to tailoring the composition and properties of nanowires.
doi: 10.1038/nature11999
In July 2012, a heat wave swept across Greenland, resulting in extensive melting of surface ice and flooding; this is shown to have been enhanced by liquid clouds forming in such a way that sufficient incoming shortwave radiation could penetrate to the surface while downwelling longwave radiation increased.
doi: 10.1038/nature12002
The genome sequence and its analysis of the diploid wild wheat Triticum urartu (progenitor of the wheat A genome) represent a tool for studying the complex, polyploid wheat genomes and should be a valuable resource for the genetic improvement of wheat.
doi: 10.1038/nature11997
Sequencing and analysing the diploid genome and transcriptome of Aegilops tauschii provide new insights into the role of this genome in enabling the adaptation of bread wheat and are a step towards understanding the very large and complicated hexaploid genomes of wheat species.
doi: 10.1038/nature12028
A study of mouse visual cortex relating patterns of excitatory synaptic connectivity to visual response properties of neighbouring neurons shows that, after eye opening, local connectivity reorganizes extensively: more connections form selectively between neurons with similar visual responses and connections are eliminated between visually unresponsive neurons, but the overall connectivity rate does not change.
doi: 10.1038/nature12015
Pancreatic cancers use a novel glutamine metabolism pathway, regulated by oncogenic KRAS, to maintain redox balance; these findings add to the understanding of the mechanisms by which oncogenic alterations reprogram cellular metabolism to promote tumour growth.
doi: 10.1038/nature12040
An irreversible mechanism of protein demyristoylation catalysed by invasion plasmid antigen J (IpaJ), a Shigella flexneri type III effector protein with cysteine protease activity, is described.
doi: 10.1038/nature12004
The sirtuin family of enzymes are known as NAD-dependent deacetylases, although some of them have very weak deacetylase activity; here human SIRT6, an enzyme important for DNA repair and transcription, is shown to remove long-chain fatty acyl groups from protein lysine residues, and to have a function in promoting tumour necrosis factor alpha secretion.
doi: 10.1038/nature12038
The non-haem-iron-dependent enzyme HppE catalyses the final step in the biosynthesis of fosfomycin, a broad-spectrum, clinically useful antibiotic; here it is shown that HppE can also catalyse a 1,2-phosphono-migration reaction, previously undocumented for any enzyme.
doi: 10.1038/nature11998
During chromosome replication, coupled polymerases introduce topological changes that cause lower processivity and transient lagging-strand polymerase dissociation from DNA.
doi: 10.1038/nature11988
Structures of a newly characterized three-domain haem-c-Cu nitrite reductase are reported at 1.01 Å resolution, indicating how electron transfer may occur in protein–protein complexes.
doi: 10.1038/nature11996
