Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Volume 460 Issue 7252, 9 July 2009

Chromosomal instability (CIN) an increased rate of gain or loss of whole chromosomes is a hallmark of many cancers and correlates with the presence of extra centrosomes. Previously the subject of much debate, this week David Pellman and colleagues use long-term live-cell imaging to define the mechanism linking extra centrosomes to CIN. The cover shows a transient multipolar spindle intermediate in a human cell with extra centrosomes. Microtubules are shown red, centrosomes green and chromosomes white. [Cover image: Neil J. Ganem]

Authors

Top of page ⤴

Editorial

  • With changing demographics, a tight economy and increasing competition, Japan could slide from the top ranks of research nations. Drastic action is needed.

    Editorial
  • Organizers have only two options for their meetings: open or closed.

    Editorial
  • President Barack Obama should be applauded for his decision to scrap commercial reprocessing.

    Editorial
Top of page ⤴

Research Highlights

Top of page ⤴

Journal Club

Top of page ⤴

News

Top of page ⤴

News in Brief

Top of page ⤴

News Feature

  • When the cystic fibrosis gene was found in 1989, therapy seemed around the corner. Two decades on, biologists still have a long way to go, finds Helen Pearson.

    • Helen Pearson
    News Feature
  • With its electron microscope, genetic sequencing machines and observatory, the Yokohama Science Frontier High School is equipped like no other. Will future scientists be inspired there, asks David Cyranoski.

    • David Cyranoski
    News Feature
Top of page ⤴

Correspondence

Top of page ⤴

Commentary

  • Voluntary reporting of nanomaterials by industry has failed. Mandatory measures are a step in the right direction, but the field needs more data sharing and oversight, say Andrew Maynard and David Rejeski.

    • Andrew Maynard
    • David Rejeski
    Commentary
Top of page ⤴

Essay

  • We must look for mental commonalities between humans and other animals to understand the minds of either, says Frans B. M. de Waal, rebutting a recent claim to the contrary.

    • Frans B. M. de Waal
    Essay
Top of page ⤴

Books & Arts

  • The profit motive has led pirates to come up with surprisingly democratic and egalitarian social structures. It is a lesson in bottom-up economics, explains Michael Shermer.

    • Michael Shermer
    Books & Arts
  • New portraits of physicists David Brewster and Peter Higgs show that naturalistic images can find distinct ways to reflect scientists and their work, Martin Kemp explains.

    • Martin Kemp
    Books & Arts
Top of page ⤴

News & Views

  • Can microorganisms learn from history? When a sequence of environmental changes is repeated, natural selection might select for responses that enable the microbes to prepare for later challenges in the sequence.

    • Tim F. Cooper
    News & Views
  • A receptor usually found on immune cells implicated in allergy turns out to be a diagnostic marker and promising treatment target for a degenerative eye disease. Curiously, its role in the eye seems to be unrelated to inflammation.

    • Maria Grant
    News & Views
  • Dendralene hydrocarbons have a reputation for being difficult — it seemed that these molecules couldn't easily be made. A practical synthesis of dendralenes opens them up for study, and reveals some surprises.

    • Henning Hopf
    News & Views
  • A study of lymphocytes that lack a DNA-repair enzyme challenges long-standing dogma about the spatial separation of processes that rearrange antibody genes, and provides clues about the origins of B-cell cancers.

    • Marilyn Diaz
    • Janssen Daly
    News & Views
  • A vast number of DNA sequences are possible, and so finding the few that bind to a particular non-DNA entity is a daunting task. A systematic search algorithm has found sequences that target specific carbon nanotubes.

    • Mark C. Hersam
    News & Views
  • Practical quantum computation will require a scalable, robust system to generate and process information with precise control. This is now possible using a superconducting circuit and a little quantum magic.

    • Raymond W. Simmonds
    • Frederick W. Strauch
    News & Views
Top of page ⤴

Horizons

  • Insights from evolutionary developmental biology and the mind sciences could change our understanding of the human capacity to think and the ways in which the human mind constrains cultural expressions.

    • Marc D. Hauser
    Horizons
  • Driven by remarkable advances in the understanding of structure and reaction mechanisms, organic synthesis will be increasingly directed to producing bioinspired and newly designed molecules.

    • Paul A. Wender
    • Benjamin L. Miller
    Horizons
  • The use of biomarkers to predict human behaviour and psychiatric disorders raises social and ethical issues, which must be resolved by collaborative efforts.

    • Ilina Singh
    • Nikolas Rose
    Horizons
  • The testing of substances for adverse effects on humans and the environment needs a radical overhaul if we are to meet the challenges of ensuring health and safety.

    • Thomas Hartung
    Horizons
Top of page ⤴

Review Article

  • Virtually all massive galaxies host central black holes, the growth of which releases vast amounts of energy that powers quasars and other weaker active galactic nuclei. However, a tiny fraction of this energy could halt star formation by heating and ejecting ambient gas; a central question in galaxy evolution is the degree to which this process has caused the decline of star formation in large elliptical galaxies.

    • A. Cattaneo
    • S. M. Faber
    • L. Wisotzki
    Review Article
Top of page ⤴

Article

  • Habitats where environmental change occurs in a reliable order offer microorganisms the opportunity to prepare in advance. Here, in both the bacterium Escherichia coli and the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, stimuli that typically appear early in the ecology of the organism are shown to induce genes that are useful for coping with conditions that normally occur later, a process that is also shown to improve fitness.

    • Amir Mitchell
    • Gal H. Romano
    • Yitzhak Pilpel
    Article
  • Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a major cause of blindness. Now, the eosinophil/mast cell chemokine receptor CCR3 is shown to be specifically expressed in choroidal neovascular endothelial cells in humans with AMD, and targeting CCR3 or its ligands in mice inhibits the choroidal neovascularization that underlies AMD. In the mouse model, CCR3 blockade was more effective and less toxic than VEGF-A neutralization, which is currently in clinical use.

    • Atsunobu Takeda
    • Judit Z. Baffi
    • Jayakrishna Ambati
    Article
  • Editing and class switch recombination, two processes in the development of B cells, are thought to be separated in the bone marrow and spleen, respectively. Errors in either of these processes can initiate chromosomal translocations, including those of B cell lymphomas, but collaboration between them may also initiate translocations. Here it is shown that both editing and class switch recombination can occur in peripheral B cells, offering insights into the origin of the translocations observed in certain B cell lymphomas.

    • Jing H. Wang
    • Monica Gostissa
    • Frederick W. Alt
    Article
Top of page ⤴

Letter

  • Type IIn supernovae are luminous core-collapse explosions of massive stars that, unlike other types, are very bright in the ultraviolet and have strong, long-lived emission lines that should enable detection at redshift z ≈ 2. Here, three spectroscopically confirmed type IIn supernovae are reported at redshifts z = 0.808, 2.013 and 2.357, detected in archival data.

    • Jeff Cooke
    • Mark Sullivan
    • Erik Tollerud
    Letter
  • Quantum computers, which harness the superposition and entanglement of physical states, hold great promise for the future. Here, the demonstration of a two-qubit superconducting processor and the implementation of quantum algorithms, represents an important step in quantum computing.

    • L. DiCarlo
    • J. M. Chow
    • R. J. Schoelkopf
    Letter
  • Lasers are recognized for coherent light emission, the onset of which is reflected in a change in photon statistics; but, until now, attempts to directly measure correlations in the individual photon emission events of semiconductor lasers have been unsuccessful. By using a streak camera technique with sufficient time resolution, the dynamical evolution of correlations between individual photon emission events is now demonstrated.

    • J. Wiersig
    • C. Gies
    • D. Hommel
    Letter
  • Methods for production of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) generate mixtures of metallic and semiconducting tubes with different diameters and chiralities. However, many fundamental studies and technical applications of SWNTs require a population of tubes with identical chirality. A new method that is capable of purifying each species in a nanotube mixture is now demonstrated.

    • Xiaomin Tu
    • Suresh Manohar
    • Ming Zheng
    Letter
  • Although the modern Arctic Ocean is regarded as a barometer of global change and an amplifier of global warming, little is known about its state in the greenhouse period of the Late Cretaceous epoch (65–99 million years ago). Here, a seasonally resolved Cretaceous sedimentary record from the Alpha ridge of the Arctic Ocean is presented; evidence suggests seasonal diatom productivity in a stratified ocean with possible winter sea ice cover.

    • Andrew Davies
    • Alan E. S. Kemp
    • Jennifer Pike
    Letter
  • Adult bone marrow contains numerous adipocytes, the numbers of which correlate inversely with the haematopoietic activity of the marrow. It had been unclear whether adipocytes participate in haematopoietic regulation or simply expand to fill marrow space; here it is shown that murine haematopoiesis is reduced in adipocyte-rich marrow during homeostasis, and that adipocytes antagonize haematopoietic recovery after bone-marrow irradiation.

    • Olaia Naveiras
    • Valentina Nardi
    • George Q. Daley
    Letter
  • Here, CD14 is shown to regulate mouse dendritic cell apoptosis after lipopolysaccharide stimulation via a pathway involving activation of the transcription factor NFAT; an event that is essential for maintaining self-tolerance and preventing autoimmunity. Given the involvement of CD14 in diseases such as sepsis and heart failure, the discovery of signal transduction pathways activated exclusively by CD14 is an important step towards the development of potential new treatments.

    • Ivan Zanoni
    • Renato Ostuni
    • Francesca Granucci
    Letter
  • The mechanisms controlling excessive inflammatory responses, which can result in damage to tissues and diseases such as arthritis and type-2 diabetes, are poorly understood. Mouse effector and memory CD4+ T cells are now shown to inhibit inflammasome activity, revealing a mechanism by which effector and memory T cells can suppress potentially damaging inflammation while leaving the primary inflammatory response intact.

    • Greta Guarda
    • Catherine Dostert
    • Jürg Tschopp
    Letter
  • Although naked DNA has a relatively static and easy to grasp information capacity, reversible phosphorylation at several sites in even a single protein encodes a potentially large amount of information, and the calculation of this information capacity is complex. Here, this complexity is reduced to solving two algebraic equations, allowing the estimation of the information capacity of a signalling protein as a function of the varying amounts of kinases and phosphatases.

    • Matthew Thomson
    • Jeremy Gunawardena
    Letter
  • Chromosomal instability (CIN) is a hallmark of many tumours and correlates with the presence of extra centrosomes, but a direct mechanistic link between CIN and extra centrosomes has not been established. Live-cell imaging is now used to demonstrate that extra centrosomes can promote chromosome missegregation as a consequence of cells passing through a transient 'multipolar spindle intermediate'.

    • Neil J. Ganem
    • Susana A. Godinho
    • David Pellman
    Letter
  • Small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) that are associated with gene silencing have been discovered in most eukaryotes. In Arabidopsis thaliana, siRNAs are now shown to be uniparentally expressed from the maternal genome, having maximal expression in the young developing seed. This unusual pattern of expression provides evidence for a link between genomic imprinting and RNA silencing in plants.

    • Rebecca A. Mosher
    • Charles W. Melnyk
    • David C. Baulcombe
    Letter
  • Histone H3 trimethylation at lysine 36 (H3K36me3) is associated with actively transcribed regions and may provide landmarks for continuing transcription. Here it is shown that the H3K36me3-specific histone methyltransferase Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome candidate 1 (WHSC1) functions in transcription regulation together with developmental transcription factors whose defects overlap with the human disease Wolf-Hirschorn syndrome (WHS). Furthermore, Whsc1-deficient mice display defects similar to those seen in WHS patients.

    • Keisuke Nimura
    • Kiyoe Ura
    • Yasufumi Kaneda
    Letter
Top of page ⤴

Addendum

Top of page ⤴

Erratum

Top of page ⤴

Prospects

  • A new approach can revitalize literature updates, building skills and teamwork at the same time. B. Harihara Venkatraman, Dipankar Basak and Dhandapani Venkataraman report.

    • B. Harihara Venkatraman
    • Dipankar Basak
    • Dhandapani Venkataraman
    Prospects
Top of page ⤴

Postdoc Journal

Top of page ⤴

Career Brief

  • Bulletin identifies the best in biotech.

    Career Brief
  • US graduate numbers rise in science and engineering.

    Career Brief
  • Free service helps scientists get published.

    Career Brief
Top of page ⤴

Futures

  • It's all about timing.

    • Bruce W. Ferguson
    Futures
Top of page ⤴
Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Quick links