遺伝子編集などの次世代植物育種技術の規制をめぐり、EUは大きな課題に直面している。
Seeds of change p.131
The European Union faces a fresh battle over next-generation plant-breeding techniques.
doi: 10.1038/520131b
The European Union faces a fresh battle over next-generation plant-breeding techniques.
doi: 10.1038/520131b
A review of the United Kingdom’s progress towards ‘gold’ open-access research is instructive — for funders, publishers and scientists both at home and abroad.
doi: 10.1038/520131a
A study in Nature adds a dramatic twist to the backstory of a neighbour we thought we knew.
doi: 10.1038/520132a
Killer disease that is scourge of world’s poorest ruminant farmers is ripe for elimination.
doi: 10.1038/520139a
Climate scientists highlight cloud mysteries in a bid to compete with astronomy and cosmology.
doi: 10.1038/520140a
Common language and methods are needed to fulfil biofactory dream.
doi: 10.1038/520141a
Fledgling alliance will manage international grants and develop science strategy.
doi: 10.1038/520142a
ポスドク研究者が増え続け、飽和状態に近づきつつあるが、学界には今後どのような変化が考えられるだろうか。
doi: 10.1038/520144a
高機能の分子ふるいや触媒として期待されてきた金属有機構造体と呼ばれる多孔質材料が、いよいよ実用化されようとしている。
doi: 10.1038/520148a
高齢の母親から生まれた仔では先天性心臓疾患のリスクが増大しているが、これは卵の老化によるものではなく、母親の齢が原因であり、母親の運動によってリスクを減らせることが、マウスを使った移植実験によって明らかになった。
doi: 10.1038/nature14379
若い星の周辺の物質中にニトリルと呼ばれる有機化合物が検出された。この知見は、こうした周辺物質中には大量の氷や揮発性物質が貯蔵されていて、それらが岩石からなる若い星や衛星の表面にばらまかれる可能性があることを示唆している。
doi: 10.1038/520161a
分裂酵母のPaf1タンパク質複合体は、新生転写産物のDNAからの解離を促進することで、RNAが仲介する転写サイレンシングによる阻害からタンパク質コード遺伝子を守ることが明らかになった。
doi: 10.1038/nature14376
微小粒子の被覆に自然に生じるランダムなしわに、指紋に似た使い道があることが分かった。こうしたしわの持つ、波のような形の独自のパターンは、偽造防止目的のコピー不可能なタグとして使用できる。
doi: 10.1038/nature14380
血管形成に関わっている内皮細胞についての研究から、この種の細胞の増殖がDNA合成を助けるための脂肪酸酸化に依存しているという予想外の事実が明らかになった。
doi: 10.1038/nature14375
ローレンシウムは重い元素でごく少量しか得られない。そのため、この原子の特性の1つの測定は非常に困難な実験となっていた。しかし、この測定は重元素の理論モデルの正しさを立証するのに不可欠である。
doi: 10.1038/520166a
2種類のストレス関連神経ペプチドホルモン間の相互作用がマウスでは暴飲を調節していることが分かり、暴飲の繰り返しの基盤となる生物学的機序についての手掛かりが得られた。
doi: 10.1038/520168a
地球と月は化学的に似た性質を多数共有しているが、その理由は謎である。新たに行われた解析によって、地球に衝突した最後の惑星サイズの天体の組成が地球とよく似ていて、そのために月が地球に似たものとなったことが明らかになった。
doi: 10.1038/520169a
A large amount of organic carbon stored in frozen Arctic soils (permafrost) could be released as carbon dioxide and methane in a warming climate, which would accelerate the pace of climate change; this review suggests that release of greenhouse gas emissions will be gradual but prolonged.
doi: 10.1038/nature14338
Ca2+ spikes are generated on different dendritic branches in the primary motor cortex of mice performing different motor learning tasks, causing long-lasting potentiation of postsynaptic dendritic spines; inactivation of a population of interneurons disrupts the spatial separation of Ca2+ spikes and persistent dendritic spine potentiation, suggesting that the generation of Ca2+ spikes on different dendritic branches is crucial for storing information in individual neurons.
doi: 10.1038/nature14251
The physical size of the commonly used Cas9 from Streptococcus pyogenes poses challenges for CRISPR-Cas genome editing systems that use the adeno-associated virus as a delivery vehicle; here, smaller Cas9 orthologues are characterized, and Cas9 from Staphylococcus aureus allowed targeting of the cholesterol regulatory gene Pcsk9 in the mouse liver.
doi: 10.1038/nature14299
This study identifies a crucial role for fatty acid oxidation (FAO) in endothelial cells during angiogenesis, and reveals that fatty-acid-derived carbons are used for the de novo synthesis of nucleotides, and hence FAO stimulates vessel sprouting by increasing endothelial cell proliferation.
doi: 10.1038/nature14362
The detection of complex cyanides in the protoplanetary disk around the young star MWC 480, and the similarity of their abundance ratios to those found in comets, implies that the rich organic chemistry of our solar nebula was not unique.
doi: 10.1038/nature14276
Saturn’s rotation period is difficult to determine directly; here an optimization approach using its gravitational field yields a value of 10 h 32 min 45 s ± 46 s.
doi: 10.1038/nature14278
Four-wave mixing processes are achieved at suboptical wavelengths by using a free-electron laser as a source to generate extreme ultraviolet pulses that produce transient gratings.
doi: 10.1038/nature14341
Lawrencium, with atomic number 103, has an isotope with a half-life of 27 seconds; even so, its first ionization potential has now been measured on an atom-at-a-time scale and agrees well with state-of-the-art theoretical calculations that include relativistic effects.
doi: 10.1038/nature14342
The Moon is thought to have formed mainly from a giant impactor striking the Earth but it has seemed odd that the Earth and its impactor (and hence the Moon) had such similar compositions; here simulations of planetary accretion show that although the different planets have distinct compositions, the composition of each giant impactor is indeed often very similar to that of the planet it strikes.
doi: 10.1038/nature14333
A partial skull from northern Israel dated to be from around 55,000 years ago sheds light on a crucial but little-known period of prehistory: the spread of anatomically modern humans from Africa.
doi: 10.1038/nature14134
A method to measure the precise relationship between neuronal firing rates and the representation of accumulated evidence is described; results in the parietal and prefrontal cortex of rats, together with transient optogenetic inactivation of the prefrontal cortex, challenge the prevailing view that the prefrontal cortex is part of the neural circuit for accumulating evidence, and suggest that neurons in parietal and prefrontal areas have distinct relationships to evidence accumulation in decision-making.
doi: 10.1038/nature14066
Genome-wide association studies are used to identify common genetic variants that affect the structure of selected subcortical regions of the human brain; their identification provides insight into the causes of variability in brain development and may help to determine mechanisms of neuropsychiatric dysfunction.
doi: 10.1038/nature14101
Increased maternal age is known to increase the risk of congenital heart disease in offspring; here, this link is investigated by transplanting ovaries between young and old mice, revealing that the maternal-age-associated risk is independent of the age of the ovaries but depends on the age of the mother, and that this risk can be mitigated by maternal genetic background or exercise.
doi: 10.1038/nature14361
Repeated contacts between the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and a subset of endosomes called late endosomes (LEs) is shown to promote microtubule-dependent translocation of LEs to the cell periphery and their subsequent fusion with the plasma membrane to induce outgrowth of neuronal protrusions.
doi: 10.1038/nature14359
A subset of lung cancer cells with EGFR or BRG1 mutations shows selective sensitivity to a combination of EZH2 inhibitors with topoisomerase II inhibitors such as the commonly used chemotherapeutic drug etoposide.
doi: 10.1038/nature14122
Genome-wide localization and activity analysis of the de novo DNA methyltransferases DNMT3A and DNMT3B in mouse embryonic stem cells identifies overlapping and individual targeting preferences to the genome, including a role for DNMT3B in gene body methylation.
doi: 10.1038/nature14176
The fission yeast is shown to have a mechanism to prevent small RNAs from inducing heterochromatin and epigenetic gene silencing; this protective model involves the highly conserved Paf1 complex, which is known to promote transcription and processing of pre-mRNA, and protects protein-coding genes from unwanted silencing by spurious transcripts.
doi: 10.1038/nature14337
