News & Views in 2011

Age brings not just wisdom, but also, alas, many traits that to most of us are much less attractive. It now seems that, at least in mice, clearance of senescent cells delays some of the maladies associated with ageing. See Letter p.232

Nanoscale systems designed to imitate functions from the macroscopic world lead to a new appreciation of the complexity needed to actuate motion at the limits of miniaturization. A nanoscale 'car' is the latest example. See Letter p.208

A recent surge in the intensity of tropical cyclones in the Arabian Sea has brought unprecedented damage and loss of life. Anthropogenic air pollution might be increasing the destructiveness of these storms. See Letter p.94

Diamond-based quantum computers could potentially operate at room temperature with optical interfacing, but their construction is challenging. Silicon carbide, used widely in electronics, may provide a solution. See Letter p.84

Little is known about mammalian evolution in South America during the age of the dinosaurs. The discovery of 100-million-year-old skulls confirms that mammalian faunas were endemic in southern continents at this time. See Letter p.98

Caspase-1 is one of the main culprits behind sepsis, a form of systemic inflammation. The related enzyme caspase-11 is also involved, but the relative roles of the two proteins have been confusing, until now. See Letter p.117

Grid cells confer a spatial impression of an animal's environment on the brain. Their firing patterns in a cave-dwelling bat reopen old questions about how they do this, and pose some compelling new ones. See Letter p.103

The observation of unusually low ozone levels over the Arctic last winter provides reassuring evidence that our knowledge of stratospheric chemistry is robust. Whether such an episode will happen again is an open question. See Article p.469

Plants and fungi follow a complex route to make the vitamin thiamine for carbohydrate metabolism. One of the pathway's protein participants turns out to be a surprising player, sacrificing its own activity in the process. See Letter p.542

A stellar occultation by the dwarf planet Eris provides a new estimate of its size. It also reveals a surprisingly bright planetary surface, which could indicate the relatively recent condensation of a putative atmosphere. See Letter p.493

The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history. The first complete genome sequence of the causative Yersinia pestis bacterium provides a fresh perspective on plague evolution. See Letter p.506

The idea that space-time might be fundamentally fuzzy is much debated among theorists. A search for signatures of this effect on light from distant cosmic sources has come up empty-handed, but shows the potential of this approach.

The tendency of hydrophobic surfaces to aggregate in water is often invoked to explain how biomolecules recognize and bind to each other. Water seems to have a much more active role in these processes than had been thought.

The protein Hsp90 is a target of promising anticancer drugs. An analysis of the components of Hsp90 complexes in tumours reveals a path that may lead to predictive assays of drug sensitivity in cancer patients.

The origin of unusually hot stars in a sparse cluster has been attributed to their being members of binary systems rather than stellar collisions. This prompts a rethink of how stars merge when they collide. See Letter p.356

An analysis of neutrino data suggests that there may be additional types of neutrinos beyond the three currently known. If confirmed, the existence of these additional particles could have an impact on astrophysics and cosmology.

Skin-cancer stem cells secrete a factor that organizes a blood-supply system to fuel tumour growth. But the same factor has another sinister function — it stimulates the stem cells to propagate uncontrollably. See Letter p.399

Unlike in other mammals, neuron production in the subventricular region of the human brain becomes depleted in early infancy. This finding calls for a reassessment of the potential role of adult neurogenesis in health and disease. See Letter p.382

Some biological macromolecules can control their own assembly into elegant hierarchical structures. Synthetic supramolecules are catching up fast, promising new advances for optical and biomedical materials. See Letter p.364