Volume 456 Issue 7221, 27 November 2008

Another protracted fight over genetically modified crops in Africa will be costly and wasteful.

The spirit of collaboration in the race to define the LHC's successor sets an example for large projects.

A proton-accelerator complex will incorporate one of the world's most intense pulsed neutron sources.

As all eyes turn to Poland for the start of the United Nations meeting next week, Jeff Tollefson looks at what progress is likely to be made.

Survey tracks world's most endangered marine mammal.

Criticism grows over high number of self-penned articles in physics journal.

Sirtuin proteins linked to lifespan in mammals.

A new generation of lithium-ion batteries, coupled with rising oil prices and the need to address climate change, has sparked a global race to electrify transportation. Jeff Tollefson investigates.

Argentina's government has pledged to reverse a decades-long scientific brain drain. Rex Dalton reports.

Misrepresentation of stem-cell science in Italy by political and religious groups is damaging that nation's laws and the funding and perceived value of biomedical research, argues Elena Cattaneo.

The seeds of systems biology were sown 450 years ago by a classic medical text, explains G. Rickey Welch.

A highly precise calculation of the masses of strongly interacting particles, based on fundamental theory, is testament to the age-old verity that physical reality embodies simple mathematical laws.

Various aspects of turtle evolution are the subject of vigorous debate among vertebrate palaeontologists. A newly described fossil species, the oldest yet discovered, adds grist to the mill.

The credit crunch is forcing people to tighten their belts, but chemists have long known the benefits of being economical with atoms. The latest synthesis of an anticancer agent shows how effective parsimony can be.

Genomic instability often underlies cancer. Analyses of proteins implicated in a cancer-predisposing condition called Bloom's syndrome illustrate the intricacies of protein interactions that ensure genomic stability.

Replacing the 'micro' in microscope with 'nano', and using invisible light instead of visible, won't give scientists an instrument that can image nanostructures — unless they first beat the system's diffraction limit.

Gibberellins regulate many aspects of plant growth and development. Crystal structures of their receptors provide a view in unprecedented detail of how these hormones operate at the molecular level.

The variety of mineral species has increased since the birth of the Solar System and the development of terrestrial planets. A refreshing view likens the steady rise in mineral diversity to biological evolution.

Photonic circuits can allow light to be tightly confined on a chip. A clever experiment reveals how this process can be exploited to create optical forces that drive a nanoscale mechanical oscillator.

Gibberellin is an important plant hormone that regulates several development processes. This paper presents a ternary complex of gibberellin bound to its receptor and a fragment of a DELLA protein. The structures reveal the mechanistic basis of gibberellin recognition, which is distinct from auxin perception.

Recent studies have indicated that a cell's proteome is significantly larger than the number of protein-coding genes due to extensive alternative splicing. This study describes an unbiased, genome-wide method to characterize RNA-protein binding interactions in vivo. The binding sites of the neuron-specific splicing factor Nova are characterized with the unexpected result that Nova may have an additional function in regulating alternative polyadenylation as well.

This paper reports on an intensive bioinformatic analysis of human alternative splicing in various tissues and cancers. The analysis offers insight into tissue specificity, coordinated regulation and sequence conservation of alternative splicing. Evidence is also obtained that alternative splicing is mechanistically linked to a modification of mRNAs known as polyadenylation.

A plume of water vapour escapes from fissures crossing the south polar region of Saturn's moon, Enceladus. This study reports observations of an occultation of a star by the plume on 24 October 2007, which revealed four high-density gas jets at positions that coincide with those of the previously seen dust jets. The amount of water seen does not agree with earlier predictions.

The direct detection and exploitation of optical forces in an integrated silicon photonic circuit that contains a nanomechanical resonator is reported. This nanomechanical device, which is a freestanding, vibrating waveguide, is driven by a laser diode and its motion can be read-out through evanescent coupling of the light through the waveguide to the dielectric substrate. This demonstration uncovers a new optical force that enables all-optical operation of nanomechanical systems on a CMOS compatible platform.

The ideal in organic synthesis is to prepare complex molecules using the smallest possible number of steps. Also important is atom economy, limiting waste by ensuring that most of atoms present in the reactants end up in the product. This paper demonstrates both of these principles to great effect in the synthesis of bryostatin 16, a biologically active, naturally occurring compound. The synthesis uses nearly half the number of steps of previously reported routes to bryostatins.

The Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) mixes heat and salinity among ocean basins and between deep and shallow waters. Global climate effects, including moderation of the climate of western Europe, are extensive. Changes in the strength of the MOC could thus have dramatic impacts for local to regional climate change, but evidence for systematic changes is, to date, equivocal. Analysis of the residuals between a coarse resolution ocean model and a model with a localized fine-resolution grid shows that the input of warm and salty water transferred around the southern tip of Africa (termed the Agulhas leakage) contributes strongly to the strength of the MOC.

An examination of inclusion assemblages in Hadean zircons from Jack Hills (Western Australia) is presented, which constrain the magmatic formation conditions to about 700 °C and 7 kbars. This result implies a near-surface heat flow about 3–5 times lower than estimates of global Hadean heat flow. As the only site of magmatism on modern Earth that is characterized by heat flow of about one-quarter of the global average is above subduction zones, it is suggested that the magmas from which the Jack Hills Hadean zircons crystallized were formed largely in an underthrust environment, perhaps similar to modern convergent margins.

220-million-year-old fossils from southwestern China represent the most primitive turtle known, and shed light on intermediate steps in the acquisition of the unique and highly specialized turtle body-plan.

Clonal analysis is used to show that muscle satellite cells are in fact stem cells and are capable of self renewal. A single luciferase-expressing muscle stem cell is transplanted into the muscle of mice, and it is shown that it is capable of extensive proliferation, contributes to muscle fibres and can be transplanted. Imaging is also used to show that the muscle stem cells are highly proliferative following muscle damage in the course of repair.

The generation of isolated lymphoid follicles is shown to depend on NOD1-induced responses to bacterial components. Isolated lymphoid follicles are in turn are shown to affect the composition of the host microbiota.

Many neuromuscular conditions are characterized by an exaggerated exercise-induced fatigue response. This form of inactivity is a major determinant of disability. The mechanism underlying this type of fatigue remains unknown. It is shown in mice that such exaggerated fatigue is due to a lack of contraction-induced signalling from sarcolemma-localized nNOS. In addition, in patient biopsies from a large number of distinct myopathies, sarcolemmal nNOS is reduced—pointing towards a common mechanism of fatigue.

Synthetic biologists aim to apply well-known principles of gene regulation to build living systems with desired properties. This study has combined microfluidics, single-cell microscopy and computational modelling to develop a bacterial gene oscillator that is fast, robust, persistent and whose frequency can be tuned externally. The combination of experimental and theoretical work reveals a simplified oscillator design without the need for positive feedback.

Gibberellin is an important plant hormone that regulates several development processes. This paper presents the struccture of gibberellin bound to its receptor.

53BP1 is required for V(D)J recombination and for joining of DNA breaks in telomeres. In V(D)J recombination, the ends of the programmed double-strand break are degraded when 53BP1 is absent, and joining between distal V and DJ segments is affected. At broken telomeres, 53BP1 increases the mobility of the DNA ends in the nucleus so that they are more likely to encounter a partner to which they can be ligated. Thus, 53BP1 facilitates repair by changing the dynamics of movement of broken ends, making long-range interactions more frequent.

A previously unrecognized defect in the joining phase of V(D)J recombination in 53BP1-deficient lymphocytes that is distinct from that found in classical non-homologous-end-joining-, H2ax-, Mdc1- and Atm-deficient mice, is reported.

The association of particular major histocompatibility complex (MHC) polymorphisms with susceptibility to a number of autoimmune disease has been a puzzling phenomenon. This paper proposes a mechanism that might account in part for the onset of coeliac disease. Transaminase-mediated deamination of glutamine residues in gluten peptides may cause them to bind more tightly to disease-associated MHC alleles, activating heteroclitic gluten-peptide specific T-cell autoreactivity in the gut.

They may have first been lured by the romance of underwater discovery, but oceanographers are now riding a wave of career growth and recognition, says Quirin Schiermeier.

Swiss cell-biology leader returns home.

Despite economic downturn, Toyota opens Michigan R&D centre.

Postdoc-turned-lecturer enjoys calm before the storm.

He who dares ...

Technique cuts time and resources to make complex potential drug.