A survey of Nature readers revealed a high level of concern about the problem of irreproducible results. Researchers, funders and journals need to work together to make research more reliable.
doi: 10.1038/533437a
Geneticists and historians need to work together on using DNA to explore the past.
doi: 10.1038/533437b
Overtime pay for postdoctoral scientists is welcome — but could mean fewer positions.
doi: 10.1038/533438a
Technique to stop children inheriting mitochondrial diseases has potential to backfire.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2016.19948
Space agencies envisage system of probes to track whether countries are achieving emissions goals.
doi: 10.1038/533446a
Two blueprints emerge from centre tasked with creating a practical quantum device.
doi: 10.1038/533448a
Complaint to US government alleges that diagnostics company violated individuals' right to access health information.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2016.19953
Labour law will change how many postdocs — long a troubled segment of the US research hierarchy — are paid.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2016.19949
Biotech firm seeks government approval to market mosquitoes as a pesticide to prevent spread of Zika and dengue viruses.
doi: 10.1038/533450a
科学者が「再現性」についてどのように考えているのかが、Natureのアンケート調査から浮かび上がった。
doi: 10.1038/533452a
トイレや下水の遺物から、ローマ時代をはじめ、古代の生活実態の手掛かりが見つかってきている。
doi: 10.1038/533456a
細胞のエネルギー産生装置の組み立てには、ミトコンドリアと呼ばれる細胞小器官にある遺伝子と核内遺伝子の両方が関与している。この2つの系をうまく協調させるRNA翻訳プログラムが今回明らかにされた。
doi: 10.1038/nature18436
超大質量ブラックホールは、銀河内のガスを噴出させたり、かき混ぜたりすることによって星形成を制御していると考えられている。ある年老いた銀河の観測から、このような過程が起こる仕組みと思われるものが明らかになった。
doi: 10.1038/533473a
酵素であるカスパーゼは細胞死を促進するが、ショウジョウバエでは精子の発生にも関わっている。精子ではカスパーゼの活性化がミトコンドリアと呼ばれる細胞小器官の表面部分に限って起こることが明らかになり、その異例の役割を解明する手掛かりが得られた。
doi: 10.1038/nature18439
性選択の理論では、雄の繁殖成功における重要な決定因子は精子の数だと考えられている。しかし、ショウジョウバエの一部では非常に長い精子が少数形成される。今回行われた解析によって、このパラドックスがある程度説明された。
doi: 10.1038/533476a
ケタミンがその抗うつ作用を及ぼす仕組みは複雑で解明は難問とされてきた。だが今回、抗うつ作用にはケタミンの代謝産物が関わっていて、ケタミンとは異なる標的に作用することを示す証拠が得られた。これは作用機作解明の鍵となるだろう。
doi: 10.1038/nature17897
清浄な空気中での大気エアロゾル粒子の形成と初期成長に一連の有機化合物が影響を与えていることが、3つの研究によって明らかにされた。これはエアロゾルの気候への影響に関する我々の知識にも関わりがある。
doi: 10.1038/533478a
The metabolism of ketamine to (2S,6S;2R,6R)-hydroxynorketamine (HNK) is essential for its antidepressant effects, and the (2R,6R)-HNK enantiomer lacks ketamine-related side effects but exerts rapid and sustained antidepressant actions in mice; these antidepressant effects are independent of NMDAR inhibition but require AMPAR activity.
doi: 10.1038/nature17998
Successful identification of mouse embryonic pre-haematopoietic stem cells at single-cell resolution.
doi: 10.1038/nature17997
A heterotypic cell interaction between astrocytes and tumour cells colonizing the brain is discovered; by establishing gap junctions, tumour cells trigger the activation of innate immune response signalling in astrocytes, which results in the secretion of factors that support growth and chemoresistance in brain metastatic cells.
doi: 10.1038/nature18268
The genes encoding the subunits of oxidative phosphorylation complexes are split between the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes, but their translation is synchronized by signalling from the cytosol to the mitochondria.
doi: 10.1038/nature18015
In order for quiescent galaxies to maintain their low-to-non-existent star formation, there must be a mechanism to remove or heat gas that would otherwise cool to form stars; now supermassive black hole winds that are sufficient to suppress star formation in such galaxies are reported.
doi: 10.1038/nature18006
Transit timing variations of the four-planet system Kepler-223 are used to compute the long-term stability of the system, which has a chain of resonances; the results suggest that inward planetary migration, rather than in situ assembly, is responsible for the formation of some close-in sub-Neptune systems.
doi: 10.1038/nature17445
Coupling a ferromagnetic insulator to a topological insulator induces a robust magnetic state at the interface, resulting from the large spin-orbit interaction and the spin-momentum locking property of Dirac fermions, and leads to an extraordinary enhancement of the magnetic ordering (Curie) temperature.
doi: 10.1038/nature17635
Combining cavity-enhanced direct frequency comb spectroscopy with buffer gas cooling enables rapid collection of well-resolved infrared spectra for molecules such as nitromethane, naphthalene and adamantane, confirming the value of the combined approach for studying much larger and more complex molecules than have been probed so far.
doi: 10.1038/nature17440
Aerosol particles can form in the atmosphere by nucleation of highly oxidized biogenic vapours in the absence of sulfuric acid, with ions from Galactic cosmic rays increasing the nucleation rate by one to two orders of magnitude compared with neutral nucleation.
doi: 10.1038/nature17953
The growth of nucleated organic particles has been investigated in controlled laboratory experiments under atmospheric conditions; initial growth is driven by organic vapours of extremely low volatility, and accelerated by more abundant vapours of slightly higher volatility, leading to markedly different modelled concentrations of atmospheric cloud condensation nuclei when this growth mechanism is taken into account.
doi: 10.1038/nature18271
In wild Kalahari meerkats (Suricata suricatta), subordinates of both sexes respond to experimentally induced increases in the growth of same-sex rivals by raising their own growth rate and food intake.
doi: 10.1038/nature17986
The ‘big-sperm paradox’, the observed production of few, gigantic sperm by some fruit flies (seemingly at odds with fundamental theory addressing how sexual selection works) is shown to be a result of co-evolution driven by genetic and functional relationships between sperm length, design of the female reproductive tract and features of the mating system.
doi: 10.1038/nature18005
A genome-wide association study in 293,723 individuals identifies 74 genetic variants associated with educational attainment, which, although only explaining a small proportion of the variation in educational attainment, highlights candidate genes and pathways for further study.
doi: 10.1038/nature17671
A novel approach is used to cultivate a substantial proportion of the human gut microbiota, representing an important step forward in characterizing the role of these bacteria in health and disease.
doi: 10.1038/nature17645
The prostate cancer drug abiraterone can be metabolized into several substances with different effects, and optimization of this process could be helpful for fine-tuning the treatment of prostate cancer.
doi: 10.1038/nature17954
Interferon-γ-secreting CD4+ helper T cells are required for antibody access to neuronal tissues in response to neurotropic virus infections.
doi: 10.1038/nature17979
The crystal structure of the MraY enzyme from Aquifex aeolicus in complex with the naturally occurring nucleoside inhibitor muraymycin D2 (MD2) reveals that MraY undergoes a large conformational rearrangement near the active site after the binding of MD2, leading to the generation of a nucleoside-binding pocket and a peptide-binding site.
doi: 10.1038/nature17636
The X-ray structure of human ABCG5/ABCG8 heterodimer in a nucleotide-free state, being the first atomic model of an ABC sterol transporter.
doi: 10.1038/nature17666
