米国スクリプス研究所は、資金難を合併で乗り越えようとする風潮に抵抗し、独自性を貫こうとしている。
Struggle for independence p.263
The faculty of the Scripps Research Institute is bucking a national trend with its refusal to merge with the University of Southern California.
doi: 10.1038/511263a
The faculty of the Scripps Research Institute is bucking a national trend with its refusal to merge with the University of Southern California.
doi: 10.1038/511263a
A redoubling of efforts should swiftly eradicate polio from its last strongholds.
doi: 10.1038/511263b
Researchers investigating different farming practices should not have to pick sides.
doi: 10.1038/511264a
UK government considers eight proposals for up to six research centres.
doi: 10.1038/511271a
Forum on deadly natural phenomena discusses use of simulation and hazard-mapping technologies.
doi: 10.1038/511272a
Other independent biomedical research institutions have turned to private benefactors.
doi: 10.1038/511274a
Particle-physics lab sets up fund for ‘extras’ as other big institutes mull similar move.
doi: 10.1038/511276a
20年の歳月と巨額な費用をかけた世界最大の重力波観測所LIGOが、重力波の検出にいよいよ成功しそうだ。
doi: 10.1038/511278a
胃バイパス手術では、肥満が軽減するだけでなく糖尿病など多くの問題が改善するが、その仕組みを明らかにしようと研究が進んでいる。
doi: 10.1038/511282a
映画『スター・トレック イントゥ・ダークネス』で宇宙船エンタープライズ号のワープコアの代役を務めた、世界最強のレーザーを搭載した装置は、ダイヤモンドを鉛の密度にまで圧縮する。
doi: 10.1038/511294a
鳥類の個体数の減少は、ネオニコチノイド系殺虫剤による汚染が最も甚だしい地域で最も急速に進行しており、この種の殺虫剤がもたらす環境被害は従来考えられていたよりもずっと広範囲に及んでいる可能性が出てきた。
doi: 10.1038/nature13642
宇宙に存在する塵のほとんどは超新星が作り出しているという考えの正否については、意見が分かれている。遠方の超新星の観測で、新たに形成された塵が示す特徴が見つかったが、この塵の性質は意外なものだった。
doi: 10.1038/nature13640
タンパク質のNpas4は、興奮性ニューロンに抑制性シグナルを伝達することで、活性化した興奮性脳回路を抑制する。このタンパク質が一部の抑制性ニューロンでは逆の働きをしてその活動を促進することが分かった。
doi: 10.1038/nature13641
細胞膜は糖鎖を結合したタンパク質で覆われている。がん細胞では、この被覆の物理的性質がずっと強化されていて、腫瘍が広がる際の細胞の生存を調節している可能性があることが、新たな知見によって示された。
doi: 10.1038/nature13506
超弾性とは、相転移が関わる弾性を指しているが、この性質が純有機結晶で初めて観察された。この材料はマイクロフルイディクスへの応用が期待される。
doi: 10.1038/511300a
再プログラム化した成体細胞からの造血幹細胞の産生は難しいことがよく知られている。造血幹細胞を効率よく生成させるには、産生を支える微小環境が重要である可能性が出てきた。
doi: 10.1038/nature13516
Data on Vesta’s surface material provided by the Dawn probe and impacts modelling reveals that Vesta’s crust–mantle boundary must be deeper than 80 kilometres below the surface.
doi: 10.1038/nature13499
Traits responsible for recent niche divergence between sympatric threespine stickleback species are subjected to forward genetic analysis; additive variation at several loci across the genome accounts for most of the genetic basis of ecological divergence, with a further role for epistatic interactions that disadvantage hybrids.
doi: 10.1038/nature13301
This study describes the conversion of human fetal and adult vascular endothelial cells into engraftable haematopoietic progenitors by transduction with some transcription factors and then culture on a vascular niche feeder layer; the haematopoietic progenitors may be useful for the generation of engraftable healthy and long-lasting haematopoietic cells for treatment of inherited and acquired blood disorders.
doi: 10.1038/nature13547
Metastatic cancer cells are shown to have a tendency towards forming a bulky glycocalyx owing to the production of large glycoproteins, and this cancer-associated glycocalyx has a mechanical effect on the spatial organization of integrins — by funnelling integrins into adhesions, integrin clustering and signalling is promoted, which leads to enhanced cell survival and proliferation.
doi: 10.1038/nature13535
The formation of dust in the dense circumstellar medium of the bright supernova 2010jl is at first rapid and produces very large grains, which resist destruction, whereas later the dust production rate increases, meaning its source is ejecta; this links early and late dust mass evolution in supernovae with dense circumstellar media.
doi: 10.1038/nature13558
New laboratory techniques for applying enormous pressures allow diamond to be compressed to 50 million atmospheres, providing insight into the interiors of planets and theoretical implications.
doi: 10.1038/nature13526
MgCl2 is shown to be a cheap and non-toxic replacement for the costly and environmentally unfriendly salt CdCl2 that has long been used as the ‘activation’ step in the production of cadmium telluride solar cells.
doi: 10.1038/nature13435
Magnetotelluric data from the state of Washington, USA, are used to image the fluid–melt phase of volcanic subduction in Mt Rainier, revealing fluid release at or near the top of the slab, and its migration into the overlying mantle.
doi: 10.1038/nature13493
The water concentrations of imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid pesticide, correlate with declines in farmland bird populations in the Netherlands.
doi: 10.1038/nature13531
Whole-genome sequencing is used to identify genetic alterations in patients with severe intellectual disability for whom all other tests, including array and exome sequencing, returned negative results; de novo single-nucleotide and copy number variations affecting the coding region seem to be a major cause of this disorder.
doi: 10.1038/nature13394
A rodent study using optogenetics to induce long-term potentiation and long-term depression provides a causal link between synaptic plasticity and memory.
doi: 10.1038/nature13294
The loss of limbal stem cells (LSCs) due to injury or disease is one of the leading causes of blindness; here, the ABCB5 protein is identified as a marker of LSCs in mouse and human eye, and shown to be functionally required for LSC maintenance, corneal development and repair.
doi: 10.1038/nature13426
p63 and PAX6 act to specify limbal stem or progenitor cells (LSCs), and WNT7A controls corneal epithelium differentiation through PAX6; loss of WNT7A or PAX6 induces LSCs into epithelium, and transduction of PAX6 in skin epithelial stem cells converts them to LSC-like cells and transplantation in a rabbit corneal injury model can replenish corneal epithelial cells and repair damaged corneal surface.
doi: 10.1038/nature13465
BRCA2, the breast cancer susceptibility gene factor, interacts with TREX-2, a protein complex involved in the biogenesis and export of messenger ribonucleoprotein, to process DNA–RNA hybrid structures called R-loops that can trigger genome instability; these may be a central cause of the stress occurring in early cancer cells that drives oncogenesis.
doi: 10.1038/nature13374
RNA molecules can perform multiple functions, which can be driven by different conformational states; here, the crystal structure of the transfer-RNA-like structure of the turnip yellow mosaic virus is solved, providing insight into the structural basis of RNA multifunctionality.
doi: 10.1038/nature13378
