作物への遺伝子編集技術をどのように扱い、規制すべきかの議論に、科学者も積極的に関わり、情報提供する必要がある。
Breeding controls p.147
Scientists must help to inform regulators wrestling with how to handle the next generation of genetically engineered crops.
doi: 10.1038/532147a
Scientists must help to inform regulators wrestling with how to handle the next generation of genetically engineered crops.
doi: 10.1038/532147a
Don’t get too excited about that successful appeal against a grant rejection.
doi: 10.1038/532147b
Findings from the Akatsuki mission should rekindle interest in Earth’s closest neighbour.
doi: 10.1038/532148a
Scientists warn vaccine stocks would be overwhelmed in the event of large urban outbreaks.
doi: 10.1038/532155a
Streaked acidic clouds and a bow shape in the atmosphere are among Akatsuki’s findings.
doi: 10.1038/532157a
Committee begins study to guide oversight of modified organisms.
doi: 10.1038/532158a
A British scientist successfully appealed against an unfavourable grant review — but the road to victory can be paved with challenges.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2016.19714
Revelation could have implications for how scientists approach quantum physics.
doi: 10.1038/532160a
がん免疫療法をさらに発展させようと、他の治療法との最適な組み合わせの研究が行われている。
doi: 10.1038/532162a
腫瘍は生物と同じように自然選択を受けて進化するものであり、この知識を臨床に生かそうという試みが始まっている。
doi: 10.1038/532166a
143種の鳥類についてのメタ解析から、ヒナの餌乞いシグナルに対する親鳥の応答には大きなばらつきが見られ、親鳥がどういう戦略を採るかは、長期的な餌の見通しや、その時点での餌の状況といった環境因子に依存して変わることが分かった。
doi: 10.1038/nature17317
遺伝子の転写を開始する分子装置が、修復に関わるタンパク質がDNAに近づく邪魔となっていることが、2つの研究によって示された。その結果、転写因子が結合する部位では変異発生率が上昇するのである。
doi: 10.1038/532181a
脊髄損傷の後、アストロサイトと呼ばれる細胞は瘢痕を形成し、これは神経の再生を停止させると考えられてきた。だが、このような瘢痕が、軸索と呼ばれる長い神経突起の再成長を促進することが見いだされ、このずっと以前からの定説に疑問が投げ掛けられている。
doi: 10.1038/nature17318
人間は、その直感力と優れた視覚処理によって、ある種のタスクについてはコンピューターより優れている。今回、こうした能力が生きるビデオゲームを使って量子物理学の問題が解かれた。
doi: 10.1038/532184a
哺乳類では、死んだ脳細胞を正常時に除去するのは、中枢神経系のミクログリア細胞の役目である。この機能にTAM受容体タンパク質が関わっていることが今回明らかにされた。
doi: 10.1038/nature17881
局地的な降雨については河川流量への影響が重要視されることが多いが、ハワイ島の河道の進化についての解析から、岩盤強度への影響の方が重要な要因であることが明らかになった。
doi: 10.1038/532186a
The energy–momentum relationship of certain fermions resembles an hourglass, which is movable but unremovable; this robust property follows from the intertwining of spatial symmetries with the band theory of crystals, revised with mathematical connections to topology and cohomology.
doi: 10.1038/nature17410
Sustained delivery of axon-specific growth factors not typically present in spinal cord lesions allows for robust axonal regrowth only if the astrocytic scar is present—a result that questions the prevailing dogma and suggests that astrocytic scarring aids rather than prevents central nervous system axon regeneration post injury.
doi: 10.1038/nature17623
An injury-dependent enhancer element is identified that activates gene expression in regenerating zebrafish tissues and can be engineered into DNA constructs that increase tissue regenerative capacity; the element is also active in injured mouse tissue.
doi: 10.1038/nature17644
A longitudinal thermal brightness map of the super-Earth exoplanet 55 Cancri e reveals strong day–night temperature contrast, indicating inefficient heat redistribution consistent with 55 Cancri e either being devoid of atmosphere or having an optically thick atmosphere with heat recirculation confined to the planetary dayside.
doi: 10.1038/nature17169
The crowd sourcing and gamification of a problem in quantum computing are described; human players succeed in solving the problem where purely numerical optimization fails, providing insight into, and a starting point for, strategies for optimization.
doi: 10.1038/nature17620
Dense suspensions of hard granular particles can transform from liquid-like to solid-like when perturbed; a state diagram is mapped out that reveals how this transformation can occur via dynamic jamming at sufficiently large shear stress while leaving the particle density unchanged.
doi: 10.1038/nature17167
A combination of photoredox and asymmetric organic catalysis enables enantioselective radical conjugate additions to β,β-disubstituted cyclic enones to construct quaternary carbon stereocentres with high fidelity.
doi: 10.1038/nature17438
Climate-dependent chemical weathering is found to control the erodibility of bedrock-floored rivers across a rainfall gradient on the Kohala Peninsula, Hawai‘i; river erosion models that incorporate this process could improve the assessment of climatic controls from topographic data and the understanding of climatic feedbacks in landscape evolution models.
doi: 10.1038/nature17449
Phylogenetic methods were applied to a cross-cultural database of traditional Austronesian societies to test the link between ritual human sacrifice and the origins of social hierarchy—the presence of sacrifice in a society stabilized social stratification and promoted inherited class systems.
doi: 10.1038/nature17159
South America was the last habitable continent to be colonized by humans; using a database of 1,147 archaeological sites and 5,464 radiocarbon dates spanning 14,000 to 2,000 years ago reveals two phases of the population history of the continent—a rapid expansion through the continent at low population sizes for over 8,000 years and then a second phase of sedentary lifestyle and exponential population growth starting around 5,000 years ago.
doi: 10.1038/nature17176
Colour vision is thought to rely on the comparison of signals from cone cells in the retina, this paper identifies a class of mouse retinal ganglion cells (J-RGC) that integrates an OFF signal from ultraviolet-sensitive cones with an ON signal from green-sensitive rods, producing a colour-opponent channel that may enable animals to detect urine territory marks; the underlying circuit may also explain why humans experience a blue shift in night-time vision.
doi: 10.1038/nature17158
Microglial phagocytosis is required for neurogenic niche maintenance and response to injury; the TAM kinases Mer and Axl are expressed by microglia in the adult CNS, and mediate the clearance of apoptotic cells from the niche.
doi: 10.1038/nature17630
A study of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma shows that cancer cell proliferation is associated with increased expression of proteins that control programmed necrotic cell death and suppress the adaptive immune system.
doi: 10.1038/nature17403
Aged fibroblasts release a Wnt antagonist, sFRP2, which drives a signalling cascade in melanoma cells, leading to increased metastasis and reduced effectiveness of targeted therapy.
doi: 10.1038/nature17392
Malignant cells are able to survive and grow in detached conditions, despite the associated increase in reactive oxygen species; here a novel metabolic pathway used by cancer cells as they adapt to anchorage-independent growth is described.
doi: 10.1038/nature17393
Analysis of 1,161 cancer genomes across 14 cancer types shows that increased mutation density at gene promoters can be linked to transcription initiation activity and impairment of nucleotide excision repair.
doi: 10.1038/nature17437
An analysis of cancer genomic data reveals an increased rate of somatic mutations at active transcription factor binding sites located both within promoter regions and distal from genes; the increased mutation rate at these genomic regions can be explained by reduced accessibility of the protein-bound DNA to nucleotide excision repair machinery.
doi: 10.1038/nature17661