Hot off the presses! Jul 23 Nature

The Jul 23 issue of the Nature is now up on Pubget (About Nature): if you're at a subscribing institution, just click the link in the latest link at the home page. (Note you'll only be able to get all the PDFs in the issue if your institution subscribes to Pubget.)

Latest Articles Include:

• Growing pains
  - Nature 460(7254):435 (2009)
  The fledgling European Research Council is struggling against the constraints imposed by the European Commission. It needs to be completely independent.
• Beyond the pristine
  - Nature 460(7254):435-436 (2009)
  Earth's disturbed ecosystems have much more to offer than many would give them credit for.
• The carbon count
  - Nature 460(7254):436 (2009)
  Scientists need better Earth-monitoring tools to see whether climate policies are working.
• Biophysics: Skink or swim?
  - Nature 460(7254):438 (2009)
  
• Astronomy: Reionizers spotted
  - Nature 460(7254):438 (2009)
  
• Cell biology: Spindle sandwich
  - Nature 460(7254):438 (2009)
  
• Physics: Scattered showers
  - Nature 460(7254):438 (2009)
  
• Cancer biology: Doing more with less
  - Nature 460(7254):438 (2009)
  
• Neuroscience: Knowledge rewards
  - Nature 460(7254):438-439 (2009)
  
• Evolution: Safe sex for primroses
  - Nature 460(7254):439 (2009)
  
• Bioenergetics: Winter wrecked
  - Nature 460(7254):439 (2009)
  
• Physics: Jet stream
  - Nature 460(7254):439 (2009)
  
• Palaeontological genetics: Untraceable Etruscans
  - Nature 460(7254):439 (2009)
  
• Journal club
  - Nature 460(7254):439 (2009)
  
• Red tape strangles basic research grants
  - Nature 460(7254):440-441 (2009)
  European Research Council finds itself mired in bureaucracy. Janez Potočnik acknowledges the need for change at the European Research Council.UPPA/PHOTOSHOT The European Commission's strict rules on finance and administration are hampering efforts by the European Research Council (ERC) to fund scientists, Nature has learned. The rigid bureaucracy is causing peer reviewers to desert the grant-review process, and some worry it could threaten the future viability of the council. The ERC was set up two years ago as a pan-European initiative to fund frontier research judged solely on excellence. At the time, many scientists urged that it should be kept free of the European Commission's notoriously complex bureaucracy (see Nature 436, 441–442; 2005). They had hoped that the council would be responsible for its own budget and be allowed to create its own rules on administration, structure and employment. But ultimately it was created as an executive agency run through the commission. Sources of frustration now emerging include the extensive requirements for documenting the time spent on work funded by the council, plus administrative delays in areas such as expense claims for peer reviewers. "In general the scientific community is impressed by what the commission has done in establishing the ERC," says Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, whose term as the council's secretary-general ended on 1 July. "But in time I think they will run out of patience." On 23 July, a high-level panel led by the former president of Latvia, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, will publish a review of the ERC's structure and governance. It is expected to comment on these problems and make recommendations to address them. The commission is due to respond officially to the review in October. But speaking exclusively to Nature, Janez Potočnik, the European commissioner for research, agrees that some of the current rules are "too rigid" for organizations such as the ERC. "This needs to be looked at clearly, and we are doing it," he says. If the ERC is to have a strong international reputation, he says, "the commission needs to work more on how to create an autonomous and accountable institution. And we are doing just that." "We are of course committed to having the most efficient and appropriate structure for the ERC," adds José Manuel Silva Rodríguez, who heads the commission's research directorate responsible for the ERC. The vision for the ERC was to give the best European researchers the freedom to explore ideas, through grants similar to those of the US National Science Foundation. So far, the council has selected around 600 projects for funding worth around €900 million (US$1.3 billion). The ERC's scientific strategy, priorities and peer-review process are established by its scientific council. Many would like to award researchers a lump sum with as few obligations as possible other than showing the fruits of their endeavours — publications, for instance — at the end of the project, as is done at many other funding agencies. But the ERC must follow the commission's legal rules in awarding contracts. Recipients of awards must negotiate in line-by-line detail how much money they need and on what it will be spent. And they must reach clear milestones with expected outcomes before receiving the next parcel of money. "You want these people to do first-rate frontier research and then you impose contractual obligations on them. The symbolic value of this is obvious," says a member of the ERC's scientific council, who asked not to be named for fear that the commission might baulk at making changes. "You want people to do first-rate frontier research and then you impose contractual obligations on them." Unpaid peer reviewers of grant applications are also hit by red tape. They have to provide proof of their identity, which the commission must authorize, before they can be given any information about the applicant or the proposal they are being asked to review, says Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, chairman of the ERC's peer-review panel for young mathematicians. "I have never seen anything like this for peer review," says Bourguignon, who heads the Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies (IHES) near Paris. A number of potential peer reviewers "refused to be involved", he adds. "They were very upset." Bourguignon says he has had to write hundreds of e-mails to reviewers apologizing for the rules in an attempt to persuade them to help. He says that out of some 225 reviewers contacted over three grant rounds, two-thirds initially refused to help, and from that group he managed to salvage one-third. The same problem has been experienced across all the panels, says the science council member. Other researchers who initially signed up to review dropped out in later rounds because the commission took three months to reimburse their travel costs. Silva Rodríguez says that new procedures are being adopted to streamline processes such as the approval of outside peer reviewers. Travel expenses for overseas experts are now paid in about 20 days, he says. Teething troubles "We have wasted an enormous amount of energy trying to solve even the most minor of things that should not be causing any problem. Hopefully this difficult period is now over," says Helga Nowotny, vice-president of the ERC and a professor emeritus in social science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. She says the ultimate goal of the scientific council is for the ERC to be administratively and financially independent of the commission. Winnacker, meanwhile, argues that power needs to shift away from the commission towards scientists. He suggests that the director of the executive agency, who authorizes each funding award, should be a scientist appointed by the scientific council, and that its steering committee should have a majority of scientists. Having scientists in charge, he says, could make it easier to solve some of the problems that the ERC has encountered because there is "room for interpretation" in the commission's rules. Dieter Imboden, president of EUROHORCs, a group of the heads of Europe's research councils, agrees. "We wrote a letter to the commission in March about the problems the ERC was having," he says. "Mr Silva Rodríguez met with me to discuss the problems but said that there was nothing he could do. We don't accept this. He does not use the room for manoeuvre he has as the director-general for interpreting the rules." ADVERTISEMENT "All my contacts so far with the scientific community, the European Union member states and research institutions have strongly reassured me that we, the commission and the scientific council, each with their respective responsibility, are on the right track," says Silva Rodríguez. Potočnik's term ends in October, but he has time to follow up on the results of the ERC review before he leaves. page 435 Add your own comment You can be as critical or controversial as you like, but please don't get personal or offensive, and do keep it brief. Remember this is for feedback and discussion - not for publishing papers, press releases or advertisements, for example. If you ramble on in an annoying way too often, we may remove your posting privileges. You need to be registered with Nature to leave a comment. Please log in or register as a new user. You will be re-directed back to this page. * Log in / register
• Cuts bite in California
  - Nature 460(7254):441 (2009)
  The ten-campus University of California (UC) system — a national star of US public universities — has begun haemorrhaging top researchers as its financial crisis escalates. On 16 July, the UC board of regents voted to give its president Mark Yudof the power to force university staff to take unpaid leave through a furlough plan.
• Insuring against climate
  - Nature 460(7254):442-443 (2009)
  Farmers in the Ethiopian village of Adi Ha have been busy sowing fresh crops of grain in recent weeks, as is customary when their maize crops struggle because of drought. But this year, they have a second backstop against hunger: insurance.
• US Congress revives hydrogen vehicle research
  - Nature 460(7254):442-443 (2009)
  House vote is set to put programme back on the road. A prototype hydrogen-fueled vehicle from Honda.HONDA US funding for hydrogen-fuelled transportation research got a boost on 17 July as the House of Representatives voted to restore $85 million to the research budget. The administration of President Barack Obama had proposed cutting the funds altogether. In May, energy secretary Steven Chu sparked an uproar when he proposed slashing current spending on research into hydrogen-based energy technology by 60%, from $168 million this fiscal year to $68 million in 2010, and cutting funding entirely for work on hydrogen vehicles. Former president George W. Bush made hydrogen transportation a cornerstone of his energy research strategy, but Chu said biofuels and batteries offer a better short-term pathway to reducing oil use and greenhouse-gas emissions. Advocates both among scientists and on Capitol Hill have rushed to defend the hydrogen programme in recent weeks. It seems to have worked: the House included a total of $153 million for hydrogen-energy research in its version of the 2010 energy and water spending bill. In the Senate, appropriators have provided $190 million for hydrogen research — a 13% increase over the base budget for 2009 — although the full Senate has yet to take up the legislation. A final bill is unlikely to come for another few months, but some level of funding for hydrogen vehicle research is likely to survive. Also last week, a National Research Council (NRC) panel weighed in on the debate with a preliminary report on the FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership, a research consortium involving industry and government. The NRC committee endorsed the general thrust of the transportation research agenda of the Department of Energy (DOE) but said it is concerned about efforts to scale back work on hydrogen-fuelled transport. Citing the long-term potential of hydrogen fuel cells, the panel said it is not yet clear which vehicle technologies will prevail in the market. "There was no disagreement on the DOE's approach to put more emphasis on nearer-term technologies, but we felt that the long-term, high-risk, high-payoff activities should not be abandoned, in particular those related to hydrogen fuel cells," says Vernon Roan, a retired professor from the University of Florida in Gainsville who chaired the panel. Pat Davis, who manages the DOE's Vehicle Technologies Program in Washington DC, says the department requested the report to update its vehicle research plans. He called the report "highly favourable" in general, but acknowledged that the administration has a different view of hydrogen research. Hydrogen fuel cells combine hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity, producing only water vapour in the process, and they have already powered prototype vehicles. Fuel cells are expensive, however, as would be the infrastructure required to support large numbers of hydrogen-powered vehicles on the roads. And although renewable energy sources could be used to produce hydrogen, at present it is generally made from natural gas in a process that also produces greenhouse gases. Nonetheless, hydrogen's advocates say they are making progress on all these fronts, in part thanks to support from within the DOE itself. Byron McCormick, who headed the fuel-cell programme at General Motors until he retired in January, was a member of the DOE's own technical advisory committee on hydrogen fuel cells. He resigned this spring, however, frustrated because Chu had not reached out to the committee before proposing to slash hydrogen research funding. ADVERTISEMENT "I decided that I had better things to do with my time than communicate with somebody who didn't seem too interested," McCormick says. He points to ongoing research programmes in Europe and Japan and says he found it particularly "disconcerting" that the Obama administration would make such an assessment, despite its emphasis on clean energy. "It strikes me as rather bizarre that the United States would be the only country backing away from such initiatives," he says. Patrick Serfass, a spokesman for the National Hydrogen Association in Washington DC, says the DOE's proposal to slash hydrogen research surprised both businesspeople and researchers. Hundreds of pilot fuel-cell vehicles are already on the roads, and major car-makers are preparing to roll out hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles by the middle of the next decade, he says. "This decision was not really made with a lot of outside opinion or outside input from the industry," Serfass says. Add your own comment You can be as critical or controversial as you like, but please don't get personal or offensive, and do keep it brief. Remember this is for feedback and discussion - not for publishing papers, press releases or advertisements, for example. If you ramble on in an annoying way too often, we may remove your posting privileges. You need to be registered with Nature to leave a comment. Please log in or register as a new user. You will be re-directed back to this page. * Log in / register
• Psychiatry manual revisions spark row
  - Nature 460(7254):445 (2009)
  The question of how best to revise the 'bible' of American psychiatry once again has tempers flaring. The manual, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), is significant because it is used to determine clinical diagnoses, insurance reimbursements and research agendas throughout the United States, and is often used as a reference in other countries.
• Regulators face tough flu-jab choices
  - Nature 460(7254):446 (2009)
  Rich countries' pandemic strategies may cause vaccine shortages elsewhere. A fistful of vaccines: but will there be enough to go round?G. Baker/AP Imminent decisions on a strategy for H1N1 pandemic flu vaccination in the United States could leave other countries short of vital doses if it elects not to follow World Health Organization (WHO) advice on vaccine formulation. The United States is the biggest buyer among a group of rich countries whose combined orders for vaccine against the H1N1 2009 virus could potentially tie up most of the world's pandemic vaccine production capacity for 6 months or longer, so depriving other countries of vaccine. To counter this prospect, the WHO recommended on 13 July that countries use shots that contain adjuvants, chemicals that boost the immune system's response to a vaccine. This allows smaller amounts of antigen — the molecule that stimulates the immune response — to be used in each dose, boosting the overall amount of vaccine available from existing production capacity and allowing orders to be filled more quickly. The United States' global responsibility to consider dose-sparing strategies is briefly alluded to in the minutes of a mid-June US National Bio­defense Science Board meeting, released on 17 July: "Federal decision-making will affect not only the 300 million Americans who depend on the government to support the public health system but also people all around the world." The United States has certainly kept open the option of using adjuvants. It has already allocated almost US$2 billion for antigen and adjuvant to provide every American with up to two doses of vaccine. That sum includes orders of $483 million for Novartis's MF59 adjuvant, and $215 million for GlaxoSmithKline's AS03 adjuvant. But although Canada and many European countries are set to use adjuvanted pandemic flu vaccines, the United States may do so only as a last resort. "All things being equal, an unadjuvanted vaccine is often just fine in terms of giving protection against influenza virus," Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, told a media briefing on 17 July. "Adjuvant use would be contingent upon showing that it was needed or clearly beneficial." "Adjuvant use would be contingent upon showing that it was needed or clearly beneficial," added Jesse Goodman, acting chief scientist and deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). "But we want them on the table in case there are issues where they might be needed to protect people in this country." If there is significant genetic drift in the virus, for example, adjuvanted vaccines are better able to handle such strain variations. And early attempts at pandemic vaccine manufacture are so far producing two to four times less antigen than seasonal flu strains, raising the threat that the world's production capacity is actually much less than was hoped. If each shot of pandemic flu vaccine contains 15 micrograms of antigen — the dose used in seasonal flu — and no adjuvant, annual global capacity stands at about 876 million doses, according to the WHO. But as virtually no one is immune to the virus, most experts say that each person will need two doses, immediately halving that capacity. Moreover, higher doses of antigen may be needed to get an adequate response, further reducing capacity. Using adjuvants would boost annual capacity — to more than two billion doses in some WHO projections. Europe is well placed to quickly authorize adjuvanted pandemic vaccines. Since 2003, the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) has had a fast-track approval system in which manufacturers can prepare 'mock-up dossiers' — vaccine registration applications that use non-pandemic viral strains but for which pandemic strains can subsequently be substituted. GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis already have mock-up dossiers in place for the H5N1 avian flu virus, and plan to file H1N1 substitutions by the end of July. ADVERTISEMENT Although the EMEA requires the companies to provide new clinical testing and data as they roll out their products, the product itself can be approved in five days if the agency is satisfied that the extrapolation to the new strain is valid, says Martin Harvey-Allchurch, a spokesman for the EMEA. In contrast, the United States has never licensed an adjuvanted flu vaccine, and has no fast-track system in place, although the FDA can give emergency authorization for new vaccines. The regulators are also mindful of political and public concerns about mass vaccination of the population, given that a vaccination programme in 1976 against a new strain of swine flu caused neurological side effects in about 1 in 100,000 people, and killed 25. Modern flu vaccines, however, have a very good safety record. The WHO's Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety says "no significant safety concern or barriers" exist to using adjuvanted pandemic H1N1 vaccines. But regulatory agencies may have to approve pandemic vaccines — both adjuvanted and non-adjuvanted — without all the data they would normally require, warns Marie-Paule Kieny, the WHO's vaccine research director. Some preliminary clinical and safety data may be available by September, when flu cases could surge in the Northern Hemisphere, but complete data for adults are unlikely to be available until the end of December, and not until February 2010 for children. Regulators would accompany pandemic vaccine rollouts with parallel clinical trials, and, as in any mass-vaccination campaign, extensive surveillance would monitor for any adverse side effects. www.nature.com/swineflu Add your own comment You can be as critical or controversial as you like, but please don't get personal or offensive, and do keep it brief. Remember this is for feedback and discussion - not for publishing papers, press releases or advertisements, for example. If you ramble on in an annoying way too often, we may remove your posting privileges. You need to be registered with Nature to leave a comment. Please log in or register as a new user. You will be re-directed back to this page. * Log in / register
• Scientists strive to boost US–Cuban collaboration
  - Nature 460(7254):447 (2009)
  Breaking the barriers proves to be a slow process. A drive to increase scientific exchange between the United States and Cuba is off to a slow start. In the past four months, Cuban officials have cancelled two planned trips of top US scientific leaders to the island nation. Citing other visitors and events that took up their time, the officials have turned down requests for scientists to enter the country organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the New America Foundation non-governmental organization, both based in Washington DC. In April, the administration of US President Barack Obama said it would work to improve relationships between the two countries, including promoting the "freer flow of information". The organizers, who have had the trips in the works since before Obama took office, remain hopeful that a delegation might visit Cuba this autumn, says Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell and is working on a New America initiative aimed at Cuba. The delegation is expected to address topics such as tapping Cuba's strengths in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and studies involving hurricane research, food production and salt-resistant crops. "Of course we would like more scientific exchange," says Miguel Abad Salazar, a researcher at the BIOECO conservation facility near Santiago in eastern Cuba. "Of course we would like more scientific exchange." Travel restrictions remain a major stumbling block for US–Cuban collaboration. For instance, US scientists seeking to travel to Cuba can't use federal funds without special government permission. And any US scientist travelling to Cuba must get a licence from the treasury department to spend US dollars there, even if funds come from the private foundations that typically pay for such trips. It has also been nearly impossible for Cuban scientists to come to the United States; one immediate barrier is the US$150 non-refundable fee for a visa application. During the Obama administration, however, a handful of Cuban scientists have visited the United States, and US scientists have been increasingly venturing to Cuba. Observers say that the exchanges reflect a growing thaw in bilateral relations, which began before Obama's election. In May, for instance, David Winkler of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, went to Cuba to teach an ornithology course to about two dozen scientists at a BIOECO meeting. He went as part of Cornell's Neotropical Conservation Initiative, coordinated by Eduardo Iñigo-Elias, who has been studying in Cuba for years. "The students and scientists were as well trained as anywhere in Latin America," says Winkler. "They would be great ambassadors to work on research projects in other countries." His group hopes to develop such an exchange programme. These individual exchanges, rather than a coordinated governmental programme, should be the wave of the future, says Peter Feinsinger, a wildlife conservationist who has visited Cuba about a dozen times in the past six years to train biologists. "I favour a scientific grass-roots initiative," says Feinsinger, who works for Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff but is largely funded through the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York. "I think this will happen naturally." US researchers often partner with colleagues in other countries to do fieldwork in Cuba. For instance, Kam-biu Liu, a geographer at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, collaborates with Matthew Peros, an ecologist at the University of Ottawa in Canada, to acquire sediment samples from Cuba to track hurricane history in the region. Peros has to perform the isotopic analysis on the cores for Liu, who cannot use US funds for the research. ADVERTISEMENT None of the US-based funds that flow into the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research — the organization based outside São Paulo, Brazil, that funds the hurricane work — can similarly be used for work in Cuba. "I have to invent constructs to fund these projects" with funds from other sources, says Holm Tiessen, the institute's director. Observers hope that more aggressive efforts to ease US–Cuban relations will be forthcoming as more people fill key jobs in the US Department of State. Add your own comment You can be as critical or controversial as you like, but please don't get personal or offensive, and do keep it brief. Remember this is for feedback and discussion - not for publishing papers, press releases or advertisements, for example. If you ramble on in an annoying way too often, we may remove your posting privileges. You need to be registered with Nature to leave a comment. Please log in or register as a new user. You will be re-directed back to this page. * Log in / register
• Cash boost for mapping the human brain
  - Nature 460(7254):449 (2009)
  
• ExxonMobil invests in algae for biofuel
  - Nature 460(7254):449 (2009)
  
• Italian court sidesteps stem-cell challenge
  - Nature 460(7254):449 (2009)
  
• Copernicus honoured in periodic-table addition
  - Nature 460(7254):449 (2009)
  
• Jupiter takes a hit
  - Nature 460(7254):449 (2009)
  A. WESLEY; P. KALAS, UCB; M. FITZGERALD, LLNL/UCB; F. MARCHIS, SETI INST./UCB; J. GRAHAM, UCB An amateur astronomer has spotted the impact of an unknown object on Jupiter. The dark spot near Jupiter's southern pole (pictured, inset) was detected by Anthony Wesley of Murrumbateman, near Canberra, Australia, on 19 July. Shortly afterwards, word of the finding spread quickly via e-mails and the Internet. Follow-up observations by the Keck infrared telescope (pictured) and by NASA's InfraRed Telescope Facility, both on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, rule out a storm, according to Glenn Orton, a planetary scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "This looks like nothing on Jupiter that is occurring naturally," Orton says. The impact took place almost exactly 15 years after the first fragments of the comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 slammed into the giant planet. Add your own comment You can be as critical or controversial as you like, but please don't get personal or offensive, and do keep it brief. Remember this is for feedback and discussion - not for publishing papers, press releases or advertisements, for example. If you ramble on in an annoying way too often, we may remove your posting privileges. You need to be registered with Nature to leave a comment. Please log in or register as a new user. You will be re-directed back to this page. * Log in / register
• Nominate Japan's best mentors
  - Nature 460(7254):449 (2009)
  The Nature Awards for Mentoring in Science are annual prizes that have been awarded by Nature since 2005 in recognition of excellence in the nurturing of young scientists. The 2009 awards will be held in Japan, the first time that they have honoured mentors from an Asian nation. Nominations are invited for outstanding mentors from any scientific discipline based in Japan, in two categories: mid-career (up to 59 years of age) and lifetime achievement (60 years of age and over). Nominations can come from current or former students or colleagues of the nominee from anywhere in the world, and must be supported by two additional people mentored at different times during the nominee's career. The awards, worth ¥1.5 million (US$16,000) each, will be presented in December 2009 at a ceremony at the UK ambassador's residence in Tokyo. Nominations opened on 22 July, and will close on 25 September 2009. Applications may be made in either Japanese or English. Further details and nomination forms are available for download from www.natureasia.com/en/mentor (English) or www.natureasia.com/japan/mentor (Japanese). Add your own comment You can be as critical or controversial as you like, but please don't get personal or offensive, and do keep it brief. Remember this is for feedback and discussion - not for publishing papers, press releases or advertisements, for example. If you ramble on in an annoying way too often, we may remove your posting privileges. You need to be registered with Nature to leave a comment. Please log in or register as a new user. You will be re-directed back to this page. * Log in / register
• Ecology: Ragamuffin Earth
  - Nature 460(7254):450-453 (2009)
  Joe Mascaro, a PhD student in a T-shirt and floral print shorts, is soaking in the diversity of the Hawaiian jungle. Above, a green canopy blocks out most of the sky.
• Environment: The globe's green avenger
  - Nature 460(7254):454-455 (2009)
  In 1971, Maurice Strong did something most people would find unthinkable: he showed up at the office of India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to tell her that she was wrong. The formidable Gandhi, like the leaders of other developing nations, wanted to boycott the United Nations' first major international environmental conference, planned for the following year in Stockholm.
• Outrage at high price paid for a fossil
  - Nature 460(7254):456 (2009)
  In your Editorial 'Media frenzy' (Nature 459, 484; 2009), you discuss the hype surrounding the description of a 47-million-year-old fossil primate (J. L. Franzen et al. PLoS ONE 4, e5723; 2009
• Peer review and impact statements vital to UK research
  - Nature 460(7254):456 (2009)
  Cameron Neylon's Correspondence 'Funding ban could break careers at the toss of a coin' (Nature 459, 641; 2009) is an example of some of the negative reactions to the proposed changes in the peer-review system used for grant applications at the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
• Time running out to deal with banks of greenhouse gases
  - Nature 460(7254):457 (2009)
  In your Special Report 'Cutting out the chemicals', you discuss the possible shift of regulatory control of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to the Montreal Protocol (Nature 457, 518–519; 2009). Since then, amendments to the protocol have been proposed that would establish HFC phase-down schedules, in parallel with similar provisions in US climate legislation — as mentioned in your News story 'Climate burden of refrigerants rockets' (Nature 459, 1040–1041; 2009).
• Petitioning for a revised statement on climate change
  - Nature 460(7254):457 (2009)
  We write in response to your issue discussing "the coming climate crunch", including the Editorial 'Time to act' (Nature 458, 1077–1078; 2009).
• Indigenous people defend rainforest as well as their rights
  - Nature 460(7254):457 (2009)
  What can we learn about the relationship between native peoples and environmentalism in the Amazon from last month's tragic clashes between indigenous protesters and government security forces in Bagua, Peru? The event, in which more than 30 people were killed, underscores the overlooked and sometimes hazardous role of indigenous groups and organizations in confronting powerful commercial interests in the Amazon.
• The incredible shrinking venture capital
  - Nature 460(7254):459 (2009)
  Venture funding is declining quickly and is unlikely to bounce back. But less money means lower expectations — good news for smaller science start-ups, says John Browning.
• Great inventions of life
  - Nature 460(7254):460 (2009)
  A book setting out the ten greatest transformations delivered by evolution contains surprises but neglects crucial innovations such as proteins and embryos, Lewis Wolpert finds.
• Digesting evolution
  - Nature 460(7254):461 (2009)
  The Evolution of Obesity is a fusion cuisine that brings together proximate explanations of weight-regulation mechanisms and the evolutionary reasons for why these can fail. The result is a rich meal that is memorable, if slightly hard to digest.
• Mathematical memories
  - Nature 460(7254):461-462 (2009)
  The Housekeeper and the Professor does for number theory what Jostein Gaarder's best-seller Sophie's World (Aschehoug, 1991) did for the history of philosophy, but with a far lighter touch. The narrator, ignorant of mathematics, becomes a surrogate for the average reader as the recipient of a great deal of detailed information.
• Reflecting the impossible
  - Nature 460(7254):462 (2009)
  Two artists embody the saying that mathematics and art are so far apart they are practically neighbours — Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) and Maurits Cornelius Escher (1898–1972). Whereas Da Vinci searched for the possible, generating functional designs such as his flying machines, Escher searched for the impossible, creating images by distorting nature's rules.
• Correction
  - Nature 460(7254):462 (2009)
  The book review 'Cooking debate goes off the boil' by Pat Shipman (Nature 459, 1059–1060; 2009) incorrectly stated that carbohydrates can be obtained from fat and marrow when, in fact, it is fat that is obtained from these sources.
• Ecology: Production in pristine lakes
  - Nature 460(7254):463-464 (2009)
  An investigation of lakes in Sweden has delivered results that run counter to the idea that primary production is generally limited by the availability of nutrients. There are lessons for limnologists in this.
• Quantum mechanics: Hidden context
  - Nature 460(7254):464-465 (2009)
  The idea that physical phenomena might be described by a more downto-earth theory than quantum physics has met with resistance from many physicists. Indeed, it seems that nature is not as simple as we would like.
• Materials science: Soft particles feel the squeeze
  - Nature 460(7254):465-466 (2009)
  It's hard to fit in when you're different — especially if you're a large particle trying to squeeze into an array of smaller ones. But some soft, polymeric particles simply shrink to fit the space available.
• Cancer: Three birds with one stone
  - Nature 460(7254):466-467 (2009)
  The core domain of the p53 protein has been found to affect microRNA processing — its third known antitumour activity. Most cancerous p53 mutations affect this domain and may abolish all tumour-suppressor functions.
• 50 & 100 years ago
  - Nature 460(7254):467 (2009)
  Puzzle-Math. By Dr. George Gamow and Dr. Marvin Stern — Books of the 'mathematics for fun' type are often neither very mathematical nor very funny, but those who know some of Dr. Gamow's earlier writings will expect this volume, in spite of its catchpenny title, to combine amusement with instruction, and they will not be disappointed.
• Geomorphology: Landscape texture set to scale
  - Nature 460(7254):468-469 (2009)
  Why, in many landscapes, does ridge–valley spacing show such regularity? The combination of high-resolution data and an elegant model offers a solution to this long-standing puzzle, for some cases at least.
• Bioengineering: Cellular control in two clicks
  - Nature 460(7254):469-470 (2009)
  If complex tissues are to be engineered, synthetic materials will be needed that provide cells with precisely located molecular cues. A method that attaches such cues to specific areas of a gel could be the answer.
• Infectious diseases: An ill wind for wild chimps?
  - Nature 460(7254):470-471 (2009)
  Simian immunodeficiency virus is associated with increased mortality in a subspecies of chimpanzee living under natural conditions in East Africa. This is worrying news for the chimpanzee populations involved.
• Distinctive chromatin in human sperm packages genes for embryo development
  Hammoud SS Nix DA Zhang H Purwar J Carrell DT Cairns BR - Nature 460(7254):473-478 (2009)
  Because nucleosomes are widely replaced by protamine in mature human sperm, the epigenetic contributions of sperm chromatin to embryo development have been considered highly limited. Here we show that the retained nucleosomes are significantly enriched at loci of developmental importance, including imprinted gene clusters, microRNA clusters, HOX gene clusters, and the promoters of stand-alone developmental transcription and signalling factors. Notably, histone modifications localize to particular developmental loci. Dimethylated lysine 4 on histone H3 (H3K4me2) is enriched at certain developmental promoters, whereas large blocks of H3K4me3 localize to a subset of developmental promoters, regions in HOX clusters, certain noncoding RNAs, and generally to paternally expressed imprinted loci, but not paternally repressed loci. Notably, trimethylated H3K27 (H3K27me3) is significantly enriched at developmental promoters that are repressed in early embryos, including many biv! alent (H3K4me3/H3K27me3) promoters in embryonic stem cells. Furthermore, developmental promoters are generally DNA hypomethylated in sperm, but acquire methylation during differentiation. Taken together, epigenetic marking in sperm is extensive, and correlated with developmental regulators.
• Argonaute HITS-CLIP decodes microRNA–mRNA interaction maps
  - Nature 460(7254):479-486 (2009)
  MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have critical roles in the regulation of gene expression; however, as miRNA activity requires base pairing with only 6-8 nucleotides of messenger RNA, predicting target mRNAs is a major challenge. Recently, high-throughput sequencing of RNAs isolated by crosslinking immunoprecipitation (HITS-CLIP) has identified functional protein–RNA interaction sites. Here we use HITS-CLIP to covalently crosslink native argonaute (Ago, also called Eif2c) protein–RNA complexes in mouse brain. This produced two simultaneous data sets—Ago–miRNA and Ago–mRNA binding sites—that were combined with bioinformatic analysis to identify interaction sites between miRNA and target mRNA. We validated genome-wide interaction maps for miR-124, and generated additional maps for the 20 most abundant miRNAs present in P13 mouse brain. Ago HITS-CLIP provides a general platform for exploring the specificity and range of miRNA action in vivo, and identifies precise sequences! for targeting clinically relevant miRNA–mRNA interactions.
• Liquid water on Enceladus from observations of ammonia and 40Ar in the plume
  - Nature 460(7254):487-490 (2009)
  Jets of water ice from surface fractures near the south pole1 of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus produce a plume of gas and particles2, 3, 4, 5. The source of the jets may be a liquid water region under the ice shell—as suggested most recently by the discovery of salts in E-ring particles derived from the plume6—or warm ice that is heated, causing dissociation of clathrate hydrates7. Here we report that ammonia is present in the plume, along with various organic compounds, deuterium and, very probably, 40Ar. The presence of ammonia provides strong evidence for the existence of at least some liquid water, given that temperatures in excess of 180 K have been measured near the fractures from which the jets emanate8. We conclude, from the overall composition of the material, that the plume derives from both a liquid reservoir (or from ice that in recent geological time has been in contact with such a reservoir) as well as from degassing, volatile-charged ice.
• Asymmetric auroral intensities in the Earth's Northern and Southern hemispheres
  - Nature 460(7254):491-493 (2009)
  It is commonly assumed that the aurora borealis (Northern Hemisphere) and aurora australis (Southern Hemisphere) are mirror images of each other because the charged particles causing the aurora follow the magnetic field lines connecting the two hemispheres. The particles are believed to be evenly distributed between the two hemispheres, from the source region in the equatorial plane of the magnetosphere. Although it has been shown that similar auroral features in the opposite hemispheres can be displaced tens of degree in longitude1, 2 and that seasonal effects can cause differences in global intensity3, 4, the overall auroral patterns were still similar. Here we report observations that clearly contradict the common assumption about symmetric aurora: intense spots are seen at dawn in the Northern summer Hemisphere, and at dusk in the Southern winter Hemisphere. The asymmetry is interpreted in terms of inter-hemispheric currents related to seasons, which have been pred! icted5, 6 but hitherto had not been seen.
• State-independent experimental test of quantum contextuality
  - Nature 460(7254):494-497 (2009)
  The question of whether quantum phenomena can be explained by classical models with hidden variables is the subject of a long-lasting debate1, 2. In 1964, Bell showed that certain types of classical models cannot explain the quantum mechanical predictions for specific states of distant particles, and some types of hidden variable models3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 have been experimentally ruled out. An intuitive feature of classical models is non-contextuality: the property that any measurement has a value independent of other compatible measurements being carried out at the same time. However, a theorem derived by Kochen, Specker and Bell10, 11, 12 shows that non-contextuality is in conflict with quantum mechanics. The conflict resides in the structure of the theory and is independent of the properties of special states. It has been debated whether the Kochen–Specker theorem could be experimentally tested at all13, 14. First tests of quantum contextuality have been proposed ! only recently, and undertaken with photons15, 16 and neutrons17, 18. But these tests required the generation of special quantum states and left various loopholes open. Here we perform an experiment with trapped ions that demonstrates a state-independent conflict with non-contextuality. The experiment is not subject to the detection loophole and we show that, despite imperfections and possible measurement disturbances, our results cannot be explained in non-contextual terms.
• Near-field focusing and magnification through self-assembled nanoscale spherical lenses
  - Nature 460(7254):498-501 (2009)
  It is well known that a lens-based far-field optical microscope cannot resolve two objects beyond Abbe's diffraction limit. Recently, it has been demonstrated that this limit can be overcome by lensing effects driven by surface-plasmon excitation1, 2, 3, and by fluorescence microscopy driven by molecular excitation4. However, the resolution obtained using geometrical lens-based optics without such excitation schemes remains limited by Abbe's law even when using the immersion technique5, which enhances the resolution by increasing the refractive indices of immersion liquids. As for submicrometre-scale or nanoscale objects, standard geometrical optics fails for visible light because the interactions of such objects with light waves are described inevitably by near-field optics6. Here we report near-field high resolution by nanoscale spherical lenses that are self-assembled by bottom-up integration7 of organic molecules. These nanolenses, in contrast to geometrical optics! lenses, exhibit curvilinear trajectories of light, resulting in remarkably short near-field focal lengths. This in turn results in near-field magnification that is able to resolve features beyond the diffraction limit. Such spherical nanolenses provide new pathways for lens-based near-field focusing and high-resolution optical imaging at very low intensities, which are useful for bio-imaging, near-field lithography, optical memory storage, light harvesting, spectral signal enhancing, and optical nano-sensing.
• Formation of evenly spaced ridges and valleys
  - Nature 460(7254):502-505 (2009)
  One of the most striking examples of self-organization in landscapes is the emergence of evenly spaced ridges and valleys1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Despite the prevalence of uniform valley spacing, no theory has been shown to predict this fundamental topographic wavelength. Models of long-term landscape evolution can produce landforms that look realistic7, 8, 9, but few metrics exist to assess the similarity between models and natural landscapes. Here we show that the ridge–valley wavelength can be predicted from erosional mechanics. From equations of mass conservation and sediment transport, we derive a characteristic length scale at which the timescales for erosion by diffusive soil creep and advective stream incision are equal. This length scale is directly proportional to the valley spacing that emerges in a numerical model of landform evolution, and to the measured valley spacing at five field sites. Our results provide a quantitative explanation for one of the most wide! ly observed characteristics of landscapes. The findings also imply that valley spacing is a fundamental topographic signature that records how material properties and climate regulate erosional processes.
• Light limitation of nutrient-poor lake ecosystems
  - Nature 460(7254):506-509 (2009)
  Productivity denotes the rate of biomass synthesis in ecosystems and is a fundamental characteristic that frames ecosystem function and management. Limitation of productivity by nutrient availability is an established paradigm for lake ecosystems1, 2, 3. Here, we assess the relevance of this paradigm for a majority of the world's small, nutrient-poor lakes, with different concentrations of coloured organic matter4, 5. By comparing small unproductive lakes along a water colour gradient, we show that coloured terrestrial organic matter controls the key process for new biomass synthesis (the benthic primary production) through its effects on light attenuation. We also show that this translates into effects on production and biomass of higher trophic levels (benthic invertebrates and fish). These results are inconsistent with the idea that nutrient supply primarily controls lake productivity, and we propose that a large share of the world's unproductive lakes, within natur! al variations of organic carbon and nutrient input, are limited by light and not by nutrients. We anticipate that our result will have implications for understanding lake ecosystem function and responses to environmental change. Catchment export of coloured organic matter is sensitive to short-term natural variability and long-term, large-scale changes, driven by climate and different anthropogenic influences6, 7. Consequently, changes in terrestrial carbon cycling will have pronounced effects on most lake ecosystems by mediating changes in light climate and productivity of lakes.
• Partial penetrance facilitates developmental evolution in bacteria
  - Nature 460(7254):510-514 (2009)
  Development normally occurs similarly in all individuals within an isogenic population, but mutations often affect the fates of individual organisms differently1, 2, 3, 4. This phenomenon, known as partial penetrance, has been observed in diverse developmental systems. However, it remains unclear how the underlying genetic network specifies the set of possible alternative fates and how the relative frequencies of these fates evolve5, 6, 7, 8. Here we identify a stochastic cell fate determination process that operates in Bacillus subtilis sporulation mutants and show how it allows genetic control of the penetrance of multiple fates. Mutations in an intercompartmental signalling process generate a set of discrete alternative fates not observed in wild-type cells, including rare formation of two viable 'twin' spores, rather than one within a single cell. By genetically modulating chromosome replication and septation, we can systematically tune the penetrance of each mutan! t fate. Furthermore, signalling and replication perturbations synergize to significantly increase the penetrance of twin sporulation. These results suggest a potential pathway for developmental evolution between monosporulation and twin sporulation through states of intermediate twin penetrance. Furthermore, time-lapse microscopy of twin sporulation in wild-type Clostridium oceanicum shows a strong resemblance to twin sporulation in these B. subtilis mutants9, 10. Together the results suggest that noise can facilitate developmental evolution by enabling the initial expression of discrete morphological traits at low penetrance, and allowing their stabilization by gradual adjustment of genetic parameters.
• Increased mortality and AIDS-like immunopathology in wild chimpanzees infected with SIVcpz
  - Nature 460(7254):515-519 (2009)
  African primates are naturally infected with over 40 different simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs), two of which have crossed the species barrier and generated human immunodeficiency virus types 1 and 2 (HIV-1 and HIV-2)1, 2. Unlike the human viruses, however, SIVs do not generally cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in their natural hosts3. Here we show that SIVcpz, the immediate precursor of HIV-1, is pathogenic in free-ranging chimpanzees. By following 94 members of two habituated chimpanzee communities in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, for over 9 years, we found a 10- to 16-fold higher age-corrected death hazard for SIVcpz-infected (n = 17) compared to uninfected (n = 77) chimpanzees. We also found that SIVcpz-infected females were less likely to give birth and had a higher infant mortality rate than uninfected females. Immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization of post-mortem spleen and lymph node samples from three infected and two uninfected c! himpanzees revealed significant CD4+ T-cell depletion in all infected individuals, with evidence of high viral replication and extensive follicular dendritic cell virus trapping in one of them. One female, who died within 3 years of acquiring SIVcpz, had histopathological findings consistent with end-stage AIDS. These results indicate that SIVcpz, like HIV-1, is associated with progressive CD4+ T-cell loss, lymphatic tissue destruction and premature death. These findings challenge the prevailing view that all natural SIV infections are non-pathogenic and suggest that SIVcpz has a substantial negative impact on the health, reproduction and lifespan of chimpanzees in the wild.
• Regulation of the innate immune response by threonine-phosphatase of Eyes absent
  - Nature 460(7254):520-524 (2009)
  Innate immunity is stimulated not only by viral or bacterial components, but also by non-microbial danger signals (damage-associated molecular patterns)1. One of the damage-associated molecular patterns is chromosomal DNA that escapes degradation. In programmed cell death and erythropoiesis, DNA from dead cells or nuclei expelled from erythroblasts is digested by DNase II in the macrophages after they are engulfed. DNase II-/- (also known as Dnase2a-/-) mice suffer from severe anaemia or chronic arthritis due to interferon- (IFN-) and tumour necrosis factor- (TNF-) produced from the macrophages carrying undigested DNA2, 3 in a Toll-like receptor (TLR)-independent mechanism4. Here we show that Eyes absent 4 (EYA4), originally identified as a co-transcription factor, stimulates the expression of IFN- and CXCL10 in response to the undigested DNA of apoptotic cells. EYA4 enhanced the innate immune response against viruses (Newcastle disease virus and vesicular stomatitis v! irus), and could associate with signalling molecules (IPS-1 (also known as MAVS), STING (TMEM173) and NLRX1). Three groups have previously shown that EYA has phosphatase activity5, 6, 7. We found that mouse EYA family members act as a phosphatase for both phosphotyrosine and phosphothreonine. The haloacid dehalogenase domain at the carboxy terminus contained the tyrosine-phosphatase, and the amino-terminal half carried the threonine-phosphatase. Mutations of the threonine-phosphatase, but not the tyrosine-phosphatase, abolished the ability of EYA4 to enhance the innate immune response, suggesting that EYA regulates the innate immune response by modulating the phosphorylation state of signal transducers for the intracellular pathogens.
• Helical extension of the neuronal SNARE complex into the membrane
  - Nature 460(7254):525-528 (2009)
  Neurotransmission relies on synaptic vesicles fusing with the membrane of nerve cells to release their neurotransmitter content into the synaptic cleft, a process requiring the assembly of several members of the SNARE (soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor attachment protein receptor) family. SNAREs represent an evolutionarily conserved protein family that mediates membrane fusion in the secretory and endocytic pathways of eukaryotic cells1, 2, 3. On membrane contact, these proteins assemble in trans between the membranes as a bundle of four -helices, with the energy released during assembly being thought to drive fusion4, 5, 6. However, it is unclear how the energy is transferred to the membranes and whether assembly is conformationally linked to fusion. Here, we report the X-ray structure of the neuronal SNARE complex, consisting of rat syntaxin 1A, SNAP-25 and synaptobrevin 2, with the carboxy-terminal linkers and transmembrane regions at 3.4 Å resolution. The ! structure shows that assembly proceeds beyond the already known core SNARE complex7, resulting in a continuous helical bundle that is further stabilized by side-chain interactions in the linker region. Our results suggest that the final phase of SNARE assembly is directly coupled to membrane merger.
• Modulation of microRNA processing by p53
  - Nature 460(7254):529-533 (2009)
  MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have emerged as key post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression, involved in diverse physiological and pathological processes. Although miRNAs can function as both tumour suppressors and oncogenes in tumour development1, a widespread downregulation of miRNAs is commonly observed in human cancers and promotes cellular transformation and tumorigenesis2, 3, 4. This indicates an inherent significance of small RNAs in tumour suppression. However, the connection between tumour suppressor networks and miRNA biogenesis machineries has not been investigated in depth. Here we show that a central tumour suppressor, p53, enhances the post-transcriptional maturation of several miRNAs with growth-suppressive function, including miR-16-1, miR-143 and miR-145, in response to DNA damage. In HCT116 cells and human diploid fibroblasts, p53 interacts with the Drosha processing complex through the association with DEAD-box RNA helicase p68 (also known as DDX5) and! facilitates the processing of primary miRNAs to precursor miRNAs. We also found that transcriptionally inactive p53 mutants interfere with a functional assembly between Drosha complex and p68, leading to attenuation of miRNA processing activity. These findings suggest that transcription-independent modulation of miRNA biogenesis is intrinsically embedded in a tumour suppressive program governed by p53. Our study reveals a previously unrecognized function of p53 in miRNA processing, which may underlie key aspects of cancer biology.
• The CREB coactivator CRTC2 links hepatic ER stress and fasting gluconeogenesis
  - Nature 460(7254):534-537 (2009)
  In fasted mammals, circulating pancreatic glucagon stimulates hepatic gluconeogenesis in part through the CREB regulated transcription coactivator 2 (CRTC2, also referred to as TORC2)1, 2. Hepatic glucose production is increased in obesity, reflecting chronic increases in endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress that promote insulin resistance3. Whether ER stress also modulates the gluconeogenic program directly, however, is unclear. Here we show that CRTC2 functions as a dual sensor for ER stress and fasting signals. Acute increases in ER stress triggered the dephosphorylation and nuclear entry of CRTC2, which in turn promoted the expression of ER quality control genes through an association with activating transcription factor 6 alpha (ATF6, also known as ATF6)—an integral branch of the unfolded protein response4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. In addition to mediating CRTC2 recruitment to ER stress inducible promoters, ATF6 also reduced hepatic glucose output by disrupting the CREB–CR! TC2 interaction and thereby inhibiting CRTC2 occupancy over gluconeogenic genes. Conversely, hepatic glucose output was upregulated when hepatic ATF6 protein amounts were reduced, either by RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated knockdown or as a result of persistent stress in obesity. Because ATF6 overexpression in the livers of obese mice reversed CRTC2 effects on the gluconeogenic program and lowered hepatic glucose output, our results demonstrate how cross-talk between ER stress and fasting pathways at the level of a transcriptional coactivator contributes to glucose homeostasis.
• Life without a wall or division machine in Bacillus subtilis
  - Nature 460(7254):538 (2009)
  Nature 457, 849–853 (2009) It has been drawn to our attention that proliferation by a 'budding' process, similar to the one we described, has been reported many years ago for pleuropneumonia-like organisms and L-form bacteria1, 2. The implication that this mode of replication is common to a wide range of bacteria supports the idea that 'extrusion-resolution' is representative of an ancient mode of proliferation invented before the divergence of the main groups of modern bacteria.
• The problem of Junior
  - Nature 460(7254):544 (2009)
  Parent trap.