イタリア議会の幹細胞治療の規制緩和の動きは、誤った誘導による危険なものであり、まず専門家の意見を求めるべきだ。
Smoke and mirrors p.269
Italy’s parliament must listen to expert advice before deregulating stem-cell therapies.
doi: 10.1038/496269b
Italy’s parliament must listen to expert advice before deregulating stem-cell therapies.
doi: 10.1038/496269b
Government decisions about where to spend and where to cut should be based on evidence, not ideology.
doi: 10.1038/496269a
Nature’s podcast charts 12 landmark discoveries in the history of science.
doi: 10.1038/496270a
Translational research wins in Obama’s budget, but its economic value remains uncertain.
doi: 10.1038/496277a
But worries persist about unintended consequences of tinkering with nature.
doi: 10.1038/496281a
Contextuality theorem could improve secure communication.
doi: 10.1038/496282a
The genes of an ancient fish, the coelacanth, have much to reveal about our distant past.
doi: 10.1038/496283a
Simulations identify past megadroughts, but at wrong times.
doi: 10.1038/496284a
ブラジルの熱帯雨林を分割して調査研究するThomas Lovejoyの方法論が、世界各地に引き継がれている。
doi: 10.1038/496286a
ナイジェリアの遊牧民の居場所を探してワクチン接種を実施できれば、ポリオの根絶につながる可能性がある。
doi: 10.1038/496290a
日本の縄文時代の遺跡から見つかった土器の断片に脂質が付着していたことがわかった。これは土器を調理に使用したことを示す最古の例であり、このことはまた、ヒトの技術革新についての見方の一部について再考を促すものでもある。
doi: 10.1038/nature12093
初期宇宙での最も激しいスターバースト銀河の1つが見つかり、その特徴が調べられた。この銀河は、宇宙の年齢が現在のたった6％という若さだった頃に起こった大質量銀河の急速な形成を示している。
doi: 10.1038/496303a
動物の血縁関係はその行動に影響を与えるが、動物は親戚であることをどうやって感知するのだろうか。鼻腔にある感覚ニューロンが、遺伝的な変動を反映している尿ペプチドの微小な構造的差異を識別しているようだ。
doi: 10.1038/496304a
レーザーパルスを使えば、ある種の結晶を絶縁相から高伝導相へと切り替えることができる。この転移を駆動する超高速の分子運動が、電子回折法を使って直接観察された。
doi: 10.1038/496306a
農業用肥料の使用などの人間活動は、大気から森林中への窒素の蓄積量を増やしている。こうした蓄積に対する常緑針葉樹林での光合成応答が全球レベルで定量された。
doi: 10.1038/496307a
複雑系の動態がどの時点で急激な変化を起こすかを予測することは難しい。新たに行われた実験で、そのような転換点が近づく時点を、生物の空間的分布が示す場合があることが明らかになった。
doi: 10.1038/nature12092
Genome sequencing and phylogenomic analysis show that the lungfish, not the coelacanth, is the closest living relative of tetrapods, that coelacanth protein-coding genes are more slowly evolving than those of tetrapods and lungfish, and that the genes and regulatory elements that underwent changes during the vertebrate transition to land reflect adaptation to a new environment.
doi: 10.1038/nature12027
Here it is shown that ion flux through the TrkH–TrkA complex is upregulated by ATP and downregulated by ADP; solving the X-ray crystal structures of the tetrameric TrkA ring in the absence and presence of TrkH suggests a mechanism by which ATP-induced conformational changes in TrkA augment the activity of TrkH.
doi: 10.1038/nature12056
This study reports the X-ray crystal structure of a Ktr K+ transporter; the structure of this KtrAB complex reveals how the dimeric membrane protein KtrB interacts with the cytosolic octameric KtrA regulatory protein.
doi: 10.1038/nature12055
A massive starburst galaxy with 100 billion solar masses of gas is identified at a redshift of 6.34; a ‘maximum starburst’ converts the gas into stars at a rate more than 2,000 times that of the Milky Way.
doi: 10.1038/nature12050
Electrical detection and coherent manipulation of a single 31P nuclear spin qubit is reported; the high fidelities are promising for fault-tolerant nuclear-spin-based quantum computing using silicon.
doi: 10.1038/nature12011
Quantum mechanical calculations reveal a surprising strain-stiffening phenomenon in two crystalline solids, one of which is cementite, a precipitate found in carbon steels.
doi: 10.1038/nature12008
An ultrabright femtosecond electron source is used to monitor the molecular motions in the organic salt (EDO-TTF)2PF6 as it undergoes its photo-induced insulator-to-metal phase transition.
doi: 10.1038/nature12044
An analysis of the relative effects of transpiration and evaporation, which can be distinguished by how they affect isotope ratios in water, shows that transpiration is by far the largest water flux from Earth’s continents, representing 80 to 90 per cent of terrestrial evapotranspiration and using half of all solar energy absorbed by land surfaces.
doi: 10.1038/nature11983
Chemical analysis of food residues associated with Japanese Jōmon pottery, which dates from the Late Pleistocene epoch and is the oldest pottery so far investigated, shows that most deposits were derived from high-trophic-level aquatic food.
doi: 10.1038/nature12109
Early warning signals of systems collapse include increased recovery time after perturbations, and here spatially extended, connected yeast populations are used to identify a new warning indicator: recovery length after spatial disturbances.
doi: 10.1038/nature12071
A study of compulsive drug-seeking behaviour in rats reveals that prolonged cocaine self-administration decreases prelimbic cortex activity resulting in increased compulsive drug-seeking actions; conversely, increasing activity in the prelimbic cortex decreases drug-seeking behaviour, a finding relevant to addiction treatment.
doi: 10.1038/nature12024
Genetically encoded probes for the non-peptidic morphogen retinoic acid allow the quantitative measurement of physiological RA concentration in vivo; the results support the source–sink diffusion model of morphogen dynamics proposed by Francis Crick in 1970.
doi: 10.1038/nature12037
Hepatitis A virus particles released from cells can hijack and become wrapped in host-derived membranes by using proteins that facilitate the budding of many enveloped viruses, calling into question the traditional distinction between enveloped and non-enveloped viruses.
doi: 10.1038/nature12029
PARKIN, a protein involved in mitochondria clearance by autophagy, is often mutated in early-onset familial Parkinson’s disease; here the cellular repertoire of PARKIN targets is identified by quantitative proteomics.
doi: 10.1038/nature12043
The Schizosaccharomyces pombe HP1 protein, Swi6, is shown to exist in an auto-inhibited state when unbound to chromatin, switching to a spreading-competent state upon binding to the HK9 methyl mark; disrupting this switch affects heterochromatin assembly and gene silencing.
doi: 10.1038/nature12032
Inhibition of kynurenine 3-monooxygenase (KMO) leads to amelioration of Huntington’s-disease-relevant phenotypes in yeast, fruitfly and mouse models; here the crystal structures of free and inhibitor-bound yeast KMO are presented, which could aid the development of targeted therapies for human neurodegenerative diseases.
doi: 10.1038/nature12039
