米オバマ大統領は、地球温暖化問題についての立派な発言を実行に移し、石炭発電や燃料効率の規制に乗り出すべきだ。
More than hot air p.5
US President Barack Obama gave a fine speech on global warming, but now he must deliver on regulations for coal power and greater fuel economy.
doi: 10.1038/499005a
US President Barack Obama gave a fine speech on global warming, but now he must deliver on regulations for coal power and greater fuel economy.
doi: 10.1038/499005a
Reforms without consultation will destroy the Russian Academy of Sciences.
doi: 10.1038/499005b
More must be done to boost tissue donation for transplantation and research.
doi: 10.1038/499006a
Key vote could signal withdrawal of support from biodiesel.
doi: 10.1038/499013a
Government is set to spend 500 million renminbi to clean up groundwater polluted by industry and agriculture.
doi: 10.1038/499015a
Kansas, Kentucky and other states will also teach climate-change science.
doi: 10.1038/499014a
Synthetic-biology company pushes open-source models.
doi: 10.1038/499016a
Proposal would lift visa caps for US-trained scientists and engineers.
doi: 10.1038/499017a
Horizon 2020 research programme streamlines project reimbursements.
doi: 10.1038/499018a
心臓移植を必要とする何万人もの患者の願いに応えようと、移植用心臓の作製の研究が盛んに行われている。
doi: 10.1038/499020a
生まれる子供の数が減少していることの原因について調査が行われ、経済的な動機は、子供の死亡率あるいは社会的学習よりも影響力が大きいだけでなく、これらの要因間の関係を増強していることがわかった。
doi: 10.1038/nature12257
散開星団中にある2つの惑星の観測から、惑星系は散開星団の形成直後のまだ密度が高い時期には、超新星爆発などの破壊的な事象を超えて生き延びられることがわかった。
doi: 10.1038/nature12405
ほぼ70万年前という年代の骨から得られた完全なウマゲノムの塩基配列が解読された。これによって、ウマ属の進化について手がかりが得られただけでなく、DNAの保存期間の限界も大幅に延長されることになった。
doi: 10.1038/nature12263
急性骨髄性白血病患者に由来する200個のサンプルで、DNAとRNAの塩基配列、遺伝子発現とDNA修飾について全ゲノム解析が行われ、データ統合と検証の準備が整った。これは、このがんの包括的解明を進めることになりそうだ。
doi: 10.1038/499035a
エチオピアのアファール三角地帯は、その下にある構造プレートが離れるように引っ張られているため、注目に値する。モデルによってこの地溝形成に関連した融解過程の原因と深さが明らかになった。
doi: 10.1038/499037a
肥満だといろいろな種類のがんの発症リスクが高くなるが、その理由は不明である。説明となりそうなのは、腸内微生物が作り出す、炎症誘発性と発がん性を併せ持つ胆汁酸の量が、肥満によって増えるという考えである。
doi: 10.1038/nature12404
マラリア原虫は発生段階を切り替えることで伝播を促進する。この切り替えは、膜に結合した小胞を介して行われる原虫間での情報交換によって開始されるらしい。
doi: 10.1038/499038a
水素を発生させる酵素であるHydA1の触媒補助部位の合成類似体は、これまで活性が見られるものがなかった。こうした類似体を酵素の活性部位に組み込むことで、活性に何が必要なのかが明らかにされた。
doi: 10.1038/nature12260
The Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network reports an integrative analysis of more than 400 samples of clear cell renal cell carcinoma based on genomic, DNA methylation, RNA and proteomic characterisation; frequent mutations were identified in the PI(3)K/AKT pathway, suggesting this pathway might be a potential therapeutic target, among the findings is also a demonstration of metabolic remodelling which correlates with tumour stage and severity.
doi: 10.1038/nature12222
This study shows that 53BP1 recruitment to sites of DNA damage involves dual recognition of H4K20me2 and H2AK15 histone ubiquitination; the ubiquitin mark and the surrounding epitope on H2A are read by a region of 53BP1 designated the ubiquitination-dependent recruitment motif.
doi: 10.1038/nature12318
The transits of two Sun-like stars by small planets in an open star cluster are reported; such a stellar environment is unlike that of most planet-hosting field stars, and suggests that the occurrence of planets is unaffected by the stellar environment in open clusters.
doi: 10.1038/nature12279
Analysis of craters on Mercury’s oldest, most heavily cratered terrains shows that they were formed 4.0–4.1 billion years ago, and that the planet’s previous geological history was erased, most probably by voluminous volcanism, which may have been triggered by heavy asteroidal bombardment at that time.
doi: 10.1038/nature12280
The quantum light–matter interaction between a superconducting artificial atom and squeezed vacuum reduces the transverse radiative decay rate of the atom by a factor of two, allowing the corresponding coherence time, T2, to exceed the ordinary vacuum decay limit, 2T1.
doi: 10.1038/nature12264
Three synthetic mimics of the di-iron centre in [FeFe]-hydrogenases are loaded onto the HydF protein and then transferred to apo-HydA1; full activation of HydA1 was achieved only with the HydF hybrid protein that contained the mimic with an azadithiolate bridge, confirming the presence of this ligand in the active site of native [FeFe]-hydrogenases.
doi: 10.1038/nature12239
Large volumes of molten rock break through the Earth’s crust during continental breakup, and here it is shown that the cause is primarily very high mantle temperatures (under a thick plate), rather than plate thinning.
doi: 10.1038/nature12292
A low-coverage draft genome sequence from a horse bone recovered from permafrost dated to approximately 560–780 thousand years ago is presented; this represents the oldest full genome sequence to date by almost an order of magnitude.
doi: 10.1038/nature12323
A large-scale analysis of variation in human protein levels between individuals is performed using mass-spectrometry-based proteomic technology, and a number of protein quantitative trait loci are identified; over 5% of proteins vary by more than 1.5-fold in their expression levels between individuals, and this variation is not always linked to RNA level.
doi: 10.1038/nature12223
A pair of Drosophila brain cells is identified and its activation alone is found to induce the fly’s complete feeding motor routine when artificially induced; suppressing or ablating these two neurons eliminates the sugar-induced feeding behaviour, but ablation of just one neuron results in asymmetric movements.
doi: 10.1038/nature12208
Cellular reprogramming is shown to occur in an ordered, stepwise manner, marked by changes in the cell-surface markers CD44, ICAM1 and Nanog–eGFP; molecular characterization of discrete subpopulations of partially reprogrammed cells shows that reprogramming is not simply the reversal of the normal development process.
doi: 10.1038/nature12243
Under stress conditions such as acute blood loss or chronic anaemia, glucocorticoids trigger self-renewal of early burst-forming unit–erythroid (BFU–E) progenitors in the spleen, however, the mechanism of glucocorticoid action is not well understood; here the RNA binding protein ZFP36L2 is identified as a transcriptional target of the glucocorticoid receptor in BFU-Es and is shown to be involved in the process of erythroid cell expansion following exposure to glucocorticoids.
doi: 10.1038/nature12215
Obesity is shown in a mouse model of liver cancer to strongly enhance tumorigenesis; a high fat diet alters the composition of intestinal bacteria, leading to more production of the metabolite DCA which, probably together with other factors, induces senescence and the secretion of various senescence-associated cytokines in hepatic stellate cells, thus promoting cancer.
doi: 10.1038/nature12347
A novel platform for vaccines has been developed using self-assembling ferritin-based nanoparticles displaying influenza virus haemagglutinin; the haemagglutinin–nanoparticle vaccine induces more broad and potent neutralizing antibodies against diverse virus strains than a licensed influenza vaccine in mice and ferrets.
doi: 10.1038/nature12202
The X-ray crystal structure of a member of the Ca2+/H+ (CAX) antiporter family from Saccharomyces cerevisiae in a cytosol-facing, substrate-bound conformation is solved; using the structure, a mechanism by which members of the Ca2+:cation (CaCA) superfamily facilitate Ca2+ transport across cellular membranes is proposed.
doi: 10.1038/nature12233
The crystal structure of the FACT histone chaperone domain Spt16M in complex with the H2A–H2B heterodimer is solved; Spt16M makes several interactions with histones and seems to block the interaction of H2B with DNA, which could explain how FACT destabilizes nucleosomes to promote transcription.
doi: 10.1038/nature12242
