Illegal dumping of toxic waste in the Italian Campania has been blamed for high rates of ill health in the region. The suspected link needs to be investigated using the most modern methods.
doi: 10.1038/508431a
The United States must tread carefully when building a health-data system.
doi: 10.1038/508432b
NASA’s decision to renege on SOFIA project casts doubts over its reliability as a partner.
doi: 10.1038/508432a
Conclusions on stockpiling of antiviral drugs challenged.
doi: 10.1038/508439a
Smaller-than-expected tremor has scientists scrambling to redefine rules for areas of extreme seismic stress.
doi: 10.1038/508440a
China begins work on super-secure network as ‘real-world’ trial successfully sends quantum keys and data.
doi: 10.1038/508441a
Gene-silencing technique yields promising treatments for liver-linked disorders.
doi: 10.1038/508443a
生物学者たちが、気候変動に対処できるよう、サンゴの進化の手助けを試みている。
doi: 10.1038/508444a
英国で建設中の新世代のバイオ燃料工場では、トウモロコシの茎から都会のゴミまで、ほぼあらゆる有機廃棄物から液体燃料の生産が可能になる。
doi: 10.1038/508448a
銅を用いている材料は、電気を使って一酸化炭素と水をエタノールに変換する効率が高いことが明らかになった。この発見は液体燃料の形での再生可能エネルギーの貯蔵に向かう大きな進歩といえる。
doi: 10.1038/nature13226
視覚障害者の脳での聴覚あるいは触覚情報の表現は、晴眼者での視覚情報の表現法とよく似ていることを示す証拠が見つかった。
doi: 10.1038/508461a
1つの細胞が別の細胞を食いちぎる過程であるトロゴサイトーシスは、これまで免疫系の細胞でのみ観察されてきた。だが今回、この現象が赤痢アメーバで見つかり、この寄生性病原体が宿主細胞を殺す方法の1つとなっていることが分かった。
doi: 10.1038/nature13223
多様な哺乳類に由来するY染色体塩基配列の比較から、この染色体の進化の初期には大量の遺伝子が失われたが、現存種のY染色体では、全体に遺伝子の安定性が非常に高いことが明らかになった。
doi: 10.1038/508463a
海水中の酸素同位体組成は、全球平均海水準の変動と相関している。酸素同位体シグナルが観察される微化石を使って、海水準記録が500万年前にまでさかのぼって推定された。
doi: 10.1038/nature13328
哺乳類での受精の際に精子が卵に付着するのに必要とされる精子特異的タンパク質はすでに知られており、これが卵の細胞膜にあるこのタンパク質の受容体の発見につながった。
doi: 10.1038/nature13227
Acceleration in discovery of rare genetic variants possibly linked with disease may mean an increased risk of false-positive reports of causality; this Perspective proposes guidelines to distinguish disease-causing sequence variants from the many potentially functional variants in a human genome, and to assess confidence in their pathogenicity, and highlights priority areas for development.
doi: 10.1038/nature13127
A novel approach to the estimation of sea level and deep-sea temperature has been used to determine these quantities over the past 5.3 million years; this approach, based on oxygen isotope records from the eastern Mediterranean, shows that temperature and sea-level histories are broadly correlated but also show intriguing temporal offsets.
doi: 10.1038/nature13230
The egg receptor for Izumo, a sperm cell-surface protein required for male fertility, is identified here and renamed Juno; these findings show that the Izumo–Juno interaction is conserved within mammals, and open new opportunities for the development of fertility treatments and contraceptives.
doi: 10.1038/nature13203
Using high-throughput genome and transcriptome sequencing, Y chromosome evolution across 15 representative mammals is explored, with results providing evidence for three independent sex chromosome originations in mammals and birds.
doi: 10.1038/nature13151
A study comparing the Y chromosome across mammalian species reveals that selection to maintain the ancestral dosage of homologous X–Y gene pairs preserved a handful of genes on the Y chromosome while the rest were lost; the survival of broadly expressed dosage-sensitive regulators of gene expression suggest that the human Y chromosome is essential for male viability.
doi: 10.1038/nature13206
A universal set of logic gates in a superconducting quantum circuit is shown to have gate fidelities at the threshold for fault-tolerant quantum computing by the surface code approach, in which the quantum bits are distributed in an array of planar topology and have only nearest-neighbour couplings.
doi: 10.1038/nature13171
The electrochemical conversion of CO and H2O into liquid fuel is made feasible at modest potentials with the use of oxide-derived nanocystalline Cu as the catalyst.
doi: 10.1038/nature13249
High-resolution three-dimensional simulations of hydrothermal flow beneath fast-spreading ridges predict two interacting flow components — shallow on-axis flow and deeper off-axis flow — that merge to feed axial vent sites, reconciling previously incompatible models favouring only one flow component.
doi: 10.1038/nature13174
Lithospheric damage, combined with transient mantle flow and migrating proto-subduction, is proposed to explain the apparent emergence of plate tectonics three billion years ago; modelling confirms that tectonic plate boundaries and fully formed tectonic plates can arise under conditions characteristic of Earth but not of Venus.
doi: 10.1038/nature13072
Experimental data collected from 40 grasslands on 6 continents show that nutrients and herbivores can serve as counteracting forces to control local plant diversity; nutrient addition reduces local diversity through light limitation, and herbivory rescues diversity at sites where it alleviates light limitation.
doi: 10.1038/nature13144
Experimental eutrophication weakens the stabilizing effects of plant diversity on the productivity of natural grasslands.
doi: 10.1038/nature13014
Entamoeba histolytic, the causative agent of fatal diarrhoeal disease in children in the developing world, is shown here to kill human cells by biting off and ingesting pieces of cells, in a process reminiscent of the trogocytosis seen between immune cells; ingestion of bites is required for killing and this mechanism is used both in tissue culture and during invasion of intestinal explants.
doi: 10.1038/nature13242
Reduced activity of the calcium-transporting ATPase SERCA2a is a hallmark of heart failure; here, microRNAs that downregulate SERCA2a function are identified, and antagonism of one, miR-25, is shown to halt heart failure in mice.
doi: 10.1038/nature13073
Transcription factor Foxc1 is a key regulator of haematopoietic stem/progenitor cell niche formation.
doi: 10.1038/nature13071
Phosphorylation of Akt at its carboxy-terminal tail is an essential layer of Akt activation to regulate its physiological functions.
doi: 10.1038/nature13079
Although nectar is known to be important, for example in plant–insect interactions, little has been known about the mechanism of its secretion; sucrose phosphate synthases are now reported to be essential for the synthesis of the sucrose component of nectar and the transporter protein SWEET9 is shown to mediate sucrose export into the extracellular space of the nectary.
doi: 10.1038/nature13082
The three-dimensional structure of the type IV secretion system encoded by the Escherichia coli R388 conjugative plasmid.
doi: 10.1038/nature13081
