BICEP2による重力波の発見をめぐる騒動によって数多く教訓が残され、とりわけ明確になったのは、大部分の科学研究が常に発展途上にあるということだ。
Dust to dust p.273
What lessons can be learned from the presentation of the gravitational-waves story?
doi: 10.1038/514273b
What lessons can be learned from the presentation of the gravitational-waves story?
doi: 10.1038/514273b
The face of higher education is changing at a rapid rate.
doi: 10.1038/514273a
Welcome efforts are being made to recognize academics who give up their time to peer review.
doi: 10.1038/514274a
Researchers must now work out how to protect cell transplants from the immune systems of people with type 1 diabetes.
doi: 10.1038/514281a
Researchers bring together troves of DNA sequences in the hope of teasing out links between traits and genetic variants.
doi: 10.1038/514282a
Controlled fishing experiment raises controversy over cause of birds’ decline on Robben Island.
doi: 10.1038/514283a
As the virus continues to rampage in West Africa, Nature’s graphic offers a guide to the figures that matter.
doi: 10.1038/514284a
Three scientists used fluorescent molecules to defy the limits of conventional optical microscopes.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2014.16097
この特集では、大学の生き残りに必要な「進化」を達成するために各大学で行われている方法の模索と実践に焦点を当てる。
doi: 10.1038/514287a
世界中の大学が現代社会へと適応するために進められている革新的な教授法、学習法や研究について、さまざまな国での事例を紹介する。
doi: 10.1038/514288a
米国のアリゾナ州立大学は、学部・学科の垣根を壊して、研究と教育の変革を試みているが、その一方で、大学の基本的特徴を変えることの難しさを示す問題点も浮上している。
doi: 10.1038/514292a
社会性のあるクモを使った実験で、コロニーのサイズと構成が、そのコロニーの生存に立地特異的な様式で影響することが明らかになり、群れレベルの形質に対する自然選択が局所的適応に関わっていることが示された。
doi: 10.1038/nature13755
乳がんが原因の死亡のほとんどは、原発腫瘍が二次部位に広がった際に起こっている。血流中に入った腫瘍細胞の塊は、循環中の単一の腫瘍細胞よりも転移を起こす頻度がずっと高いことが明らかになってきた。
doi: 10.1038/514309a
ヘリウムより重い元素の存在量が少ない2つの暗い銀河の観測で、これらの銀河の星形成効率は、天の川銀河や、天の川銀河に似た銀河の10分の1以下であることが示された。
doi: 10.1038/514310a
ヒトのがんの多くは、その起源となる細胞が明らかにされていないが、胚性網膜細胞の解析で、小児がんである網膜芽細胞腫の起源となる細胞が分化中の錐体細胞であることが突き止められた。
doi: 10.1038/nature13748
リュードベリ励起子と呼ばれる大きな準粒子が、酸化銅の天然結晶中で観測された。この結果は、単一光子ロジックデバイスのような応用に使えるかもしれない。
doi: 10.1038/514313a
オオカバマダラ属の蝶の移動性および定住性の個体群に由来する101個体のゲノムの塩基配列が解読され、昆虫の移動と体色の基盤となっている遺伝子と分子経路が明らかになった。
doi: 10.1038/nature13757
The monarch butterfly, well known for its spectacular annual migration across North America, is shown by genome sequencing of monarchs from around the world to have been ancestrally migratory and to have dispersed out of North America to occupy its current broad distribution; the authors also discovered signatures of selection associated with migration within loci implicated in flight muscle function, leading to greater flight efficiency.
doi: 10.1038/nature13812
On the basis of transplantation experiments it is generally believed that a very small number of haematopoietic stem cells maintain multi-lineage haematopoiesis by stably producing a hierarchy of short-lived progenitor cells; here a new transposon-based labelling technique shows that this might not be the case during non-transplant haematopoiesis, but rather that a large number of long-lived progenitors are the main drivers of steady-state haematopoiesis during most of adulthood.
doi: 10.1038/nature13824
Cryo-electron microscopy is used to visualize the AMPA receptor GluA2 and the kainate receptor GluK2 in several functional states — having access to so many different structural states has enabled the authors to propose a molecular model for the gating cycle of glutamate receptors.
doi: 10.1038/nature13603
Spatially resolved infrared observations of two galaxies with oxygen abundances below 10 per cent of the solar value show that stars formed very inefficiently in seven star-forming clumps, suggesting that star formation may have been very inefficient in the early Universe.
doi: 10.1038/nature13820
High-resolution radio imaging of the γ-ray-emitting nova V959 Mon, hosted by a white dwarf and its binary companion, shows that gaseous ejecta are expelled along the poles as a wind from the white dwarf, that denser material drifts out along the equatorial plane, propelled by orbital motion, and that γ-ray production occurs at the interface between these polar and equatorial regions.
doi: 10.1038/nature13773
Rydberg excitons (condensed-matter analogues of hydrogen atoms) are shown to exist in single-crystal copper oxide with principal quantum numbers as large as n = 25 and giant wavefunctions with extensions of around two micrometres; this has implications for research in condensed-matter optics.
doi: 10.1038/nature13832
All-liquid batteries comprising a lithium negative electrode and an antimony–lead positive electrode have a higher current density and a longer cycle life than conventional batteries, can be more easily used to make large-scale storage systems, and so potentially present a low-cost means of grid-level energy storage.
doi: 10.1038/nature13700
Data from the oil- and gas-producing basin of northeastern Utah and a box model are used to assess the photochemical reactions of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds that lead to excessive atmospheric ozone pollution in winter.
doi: 10.1038/nature13767
Analysis of the lead and helium isotopes in Samoan hotspot lavas reveals four low-3He/4He types of lava that do not mix much with each other but do mix with a high-3He/4He component.
doi: 10.1038/nature13794
Here, colonies of social spiders are used to investigate the evolution of a group-level trait, the ratio of individuals with the ‘docile’ versus ‘aggressive’ phenotype in a colony; experimental colonies were generated with varying ratios and established in the wild, revealing group-level selection.
doi: 10.1038/nature13811
The claws of the Cambrian lobopodian Hallucigenia resemble the claws and jaws of extant onychophorans, establishing a close relationship between hallucigeniid lobopodians and onychophorans, resolving tardigrades as the closest extant relatives of true arthropods, and showing that the earliest ancestor of the arthropods and their kin would have looked like a lobopodian.
doi: 10.1038/nature13576
Osmotic stress is known to induce a transient increase in cytoplasmic Ca2+ concentration [Ca2+]i in plants, and now OSCA1 is identified as a long-sought Ca2+ channel that mediates [Ca2+]i increases—mutants lacking OSCA1 function have impaired osmotic Ca2+ signalling in guard cells and root cells, and reduced transpiration regulation and root growth under osmotic stress.
doi: 10.1038/nature13593
The innate immune receptor RIG-I is shown to sense 5′-diphosphate RNAs as found in some viral genomes in addition to its well characterized activation by RNAs bearing 5′-triphosphate moieties.
doi: 10.1038/nature13590
The inherent stochasticity in metabolic reactions is a potent source of phenotypic heterogeneity in cell populations, with potentially fundamental implications for cancer research.
doi: 10.1038/nature13582
CRISPR plasmids targeting Pten and p53, alone and in combination, are delivered by hydrodynamic injection to the liver; the CRISPR-mediated mutations phenocopy the effects of deletions using Cre–LoxP technology, allowing the direct mutation of tumour suppressor genes and oncogenes in the liver using the CRISPR/Cas system, which presents a new approach for rapid development of liver cancer models and functional genomics.
doi: 10.1038/nature13589
The nature of the retinal cell-type-specific circuitry that predisposes to retinoblastoma is demonstrated, in which a program that is unique to post-mitotic human cone precursors sensitizes to the oncogenic effects of retinoblastoma (Rb) protein depletion; hence, the loss of Rb collaborates with the molecular framework of cone precursors to initiate tumorigenesis.
doi: 10.1038/nature13813
The 11-subunit RNA exosome is thought to regulate the mammalian noncoding transcriptome; here, a mouse model is generated in which the essential Exosc3 subunit of the RNA exosome in B cells is conditionally deleted, revealing a link between sites of genomic RNA exosome function and AID-mediated chromosomal translocations.
doi: 10.1038/nature13580
