米国の科学分野の資金状況は悪化しており、科学予算の「横ばい」という虚構にだまされてはならない。
Don’t hide the decline p.139
US scientists should not be placated by the ‘flat budget’ myth. Funds are decreasing, and the situation will get worse.
doi: 10.1038/507139a
US scientists should not be placated by the ‘flat budget’ myth. Funds are decreasing, and the situation will get worse.
doi: 10.1038/507139a
Universal theories are few and far between in ecology, but that is what makes it fascinating.
doi: 10.1038/507139b
Research communities need to agree on standard etiquette for data-sharing.
doi: 10.1038/507140a
Hopes dim for a science-funding increase in 2015.
doi: 10.1038/507147a
Core science gets budget boost in a bid to change research culture and increase innovation.
doi: 10.1038/507148a
Industry backlash expected over suggested cut in intake.
doi: 10.1038/507150a
Two systems could plug the ocean-sized gap in earthquake detection.
doi: 10.1038/507151a
Pioneering biofuel producers hope that US government largesse will ease their way into a tough market.
doi: 10.1038/507152a
マイクログリッドが、電気のない生活を送っていたへき地に電気をもたらし始めている。
doi: 10.1038/507154a
捕食者の生態系への影響は絶大だと考えられているが、自然は必ずしもその原則に従うとはかぎらない。
doi: 10.1038/507158a
ある種のチョウの雌が複数の有毒種の色彩パターンを模倣して捕食を免れる仕組みが、進化上保存されてきた性的分化遺伝子であるdoublesexに生じた変異によって説明されることが分かった。
doi: 10.1038/nature13066
遠方にあって質量が降着しつつある巨大ブラックホールから放出される光が、宇宙の重力レンズによって増幅され、さらに4つの成分に分割されたことで、ブラックホールの自転についての測定が可能になった。
doi: 10.1038/nature13209
高圧実験が行われた結果、地球上の全ての大洋を足し合わせたのに匹敵する大きさの水の貯蔵庫が地球マントル深部に存在することが予測された。この予測が、ダイヤモンドに包含された鉱物の微小な試料によって、今回確認された。
doi: 10.1038/507174a
DNA反復配列の数の増大は神経変性疾患の原因になることが多い。C9orf72遺伝子中のそうした反復伸長の1つでは4本鎖からなる構造が形成されることが明らかになり、これが遺伝子の機能を4通りに変化させることが分かった。
doi: 10.1038/nature13067
雄のショウジョウバエが発する求愛歌の複雑さと変化の大半が、感覚的経験を運動出力に結び付ける単純な規則によって説明できることが、念入りで系統立った分析によって明らかになった。
doi: 10.1038/nature13208
雑種形成は2つの種を融合させて単一の集団にすることがある。新しい観察結果から、ガラパゴス島ではダーウィンフィンチの2つの種が現在交雑中であり、第三番目の種は同系交配によりすでに消滅したことが示唆された。
doi: 10.1038/507178b
Recent progress in the various lab-on-a-chip microtechnologies is reviewed and the clinical and research areas in which they have made the greatest impact are discussed.
doi: 10.1038/nature13118
Lung alveoli are lined by two types of alveolar epithelial cells, squamous alveolar type (AT) 1 cells that mediate gas exchange and cuboidal AT2 cells that secrete surfactant to prevent alveolar collapse during breathing; here alveolar markers, genetic lineage tracing and clonal analysis are used in mice to identify alveolar progenitor and stem cells in vivo, and to map their locations and potential during lung development, maintenance and cancer.
doi: 10.1038/nature12930
Structurally polymorphic C9orf72 hexanucleotide repeats cause an impairment in transcriptional processivity and lead to accumulation of truncated repeat-containing transcripts that bind to specific ribonucleoproteins, such as nucleolin, in a conformation-dependent manner resulting in nucleolar stress and C9orf72-linked pathology in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia.
doi: 10.1038/nature13124
Computational protein design methods are used to generate new candidates for a human respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine; artificial protein scaffolds that mimic the structure of a RSV epitope are shown to induce RSV-specific neutralizing antibodies in macaques.
doi: 10.1038/nature12966
Observations of a gravitationally lensed quasar at redshift 0.658 imply a high spin parameter, which indicates that this supermassive black hole grew by coherent accretion rather than in a chaotic manner.
doi: 10.1038/nature13031
A set of parameters based on the response of a molecule’s properties to infrared vibrations can be used to model and predict selectivity trends for molecular reactions with interlinked steric and electronic effects at positions of interest
doi: 10.1038/nature13019
In anilines and benzylic amines, a recyclable chemical template can direct the olefination and acetoxylation of meta-C–H bonds as far as 11 bonds away from a functional group; in particular, it is able to direct the meta-selective C–H functionalization of bicyclic heterocycles via a highly strained, tricyclic-cyclophane-like palladated intermediate.
doi: 10.1038/nature12963
X-ray diffraction, Raman and infrared spectroscopic evidence for the inclusion of water-rich ringwoodite in diamond from Juína, Brazil, indicates that, at least locally, the Earth’s transition zone is hydrous to about 1 weight per cent.
doi: 10.1038/nature13080
A complete pre-agricultural European human genome from a ~7,000-year-old Mesolithic skeleton suggests the existence of a common genomic signature across western and central Eurasia from the Upper Paleolithic to the Mesolithic, and ancestral alleles in several skin pigmentation genes suggest that the light skin of modern Europeans was not yet ubiquitous in Mesolithic times.
doi: 10.1038/nature12960
The phenomenon of sex-limited mimicry is phylogenetically widespread in the swallowtail butterfly genus Papilio — now, a single gene, doublesex, is shown to control supergene mimicry, a finding that is in contrast to the long-held view that supergenes are likely to be controlled by a tightly linked cluster of loci.
doi: 10.1038/nature13112
Drosophila male courtship songs were thought to have a fixed structure with song repetition variations introduced unintentionally because of neural noise; this behavioural assay and computational modelling study instead reveals that males use fast changes in sensory information to actively pattern individual song sequences.
doi: 10.1038/nature13131
The AgRP-expressing neurons in the arcuate nucleus drive food-seeking behaviours during caloric restriction; a mouse study of monosynaptic retrograde rabies spread and optogenetic circuit mapping reveals that these neurons are activated by input from hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus cells and their activation or inhibition can modulate feeding behaviour.
doi: 10.1038/nature12956
L-Myc, a paralogue of the proto-oncogene c-Myc, is shown to regulate dendritic cell homeostasis and functionality; unlike c-Myc, L-Myc is not repressed by interferons and its expression allows for optimal dendritic cell proliferation and T-cell priming in the presence of inflammation.
doi: 10.1038/nature12967
The DNA-binding protein PfAP2-G is found to be a master regulator of sexual development in the malaria parasite; this protein appears to regulate early gametocytogenesis and is epigenetically silenced in the majority of blood-stage parasites.
doi: 10.1038/nature12920
Malaria parasites must produce gametocytes for transmission to the mosquito vector, although the molecular mechanisms underlying commitment to gametocyte production remain unclear; here this process is found to be controlled by PbAP2-G, a member of the ApiAP2 family of DNA-binding proteins, in the rodent-infecting Plasmodium berghei parasite.
doi: 10.1038/nature12970
Here, Argonaute from the prokaryote Thermus thermopiles is shown to use small DNA guides to interfere directly with invading foreign DNA, rather than being involved in RNA-guided RNA interference, as observed in eukaryotes.
doi: 10.1038/nature12971
