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Volume 464 Issue 7293, 29 April 2010

A study of three pairs of monozygotic (so-called 'identical') twins, in which one twin had multiple sclerosis and the other did not, reveals no genetic, epigenetic or transcriptome differences to explain why one twin had the disease and the other did not. Digging deeper into the data with expression quantitative trait locus mapping revealed tantalizing differences within twin pairs that merit closer examination. And some possible causes can be ruled out. Cover graphics: Fotolia/ Jorge Oksenberg

Editorial

  • When Nature or its sister journals receive serious allegations about data or author conduct, they follow a clear procedure to work out whether the published record needs to be revised.

    Editorial

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  • A new generation of clinical trials could yield breakthroughs, but must be handled with care.

    Editorial
  • Scientists must be more proactive in encouraging good cybersecurity practices.

    Editorial
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Research Highlights

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Journal Club

    • Jean-Christophe Marine
    Journal Club
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News

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News Feature

  • Many scientists want to keep their data and resources free; cybersecurity specialists want them under lock and key. Jeffrey Perkel reports.

    • Jeffrey Perkel
    News Feature
  • Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, largely forgotten as attention turned to biofuels and batteries, are staging a comeback. Jeff Tollefson investigates.

    • Jeff Tollefson
    News Feature
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Correspondence

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Opinion

  • Dorothy Hodgkin was born 100 years ago next month. Her biographer, Georgina Ferry, reflects on the factors that propelled the Nobel-prizewinning crystallographer to greatness.

    • Georgina Ferry
    Opinion
  • As tree habitats shift towards the poles in response to climate change, we must study the neglected, trailing edges of forests, warns Csaba Mátyás — they are economically and ecologically important.

    • Csaba Mátyás
    Opinion
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Spring Books

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Summer Books

  • David Orr explains how two environmentalists' manifestos bracket the debate on climate change — one favouring technological solutions, the other local interventions.

    • David Orr
    Summer Books
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Spring Books

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News & Views

  • To combat intestinal worms, mammals rely on adaptive immune responses mediated by T cells. However, it seems that, initially, innate immune cells mimic T-cell activity, while T cells get ready for action.

    • Gérard Eberl
    News & Views
  • The asteroid belt is classically considered the domain of rocky bodies, being too close to the Sun for ice to survive. Or so we thought — not only is ice present, but at least one asteroid is covered in it.

    • Henry H. Hsieh
    News & Views
  • Metabolic disorders such as obesity are characterized by long-term, low-grade inflammation. Under certain conditions, the resident microorganisms of the gut might contribute to this inflammation, resulting in disease.

    • Ping Li
    • Gökhan S. Hotamisligil
    News & Views
  • Bose–Einstein condensates are ideal tools with which exotic phenomena can be investigated. The hitherto-unrealized Dicke quantum phase transition has now been observed with one such system in an optical cavity.

    • Cheng Chin
    • Nathan Gemelke
    News & Views
  • A neuron can receive thousands of inputs that, together, tell it when to fire. New techniques can image the activity of many inputs, and shed light on how single neurons perform computations in response.

    • Nicholas J. Priebe
    • David Ferster
    News & Views
  • Pharmacologist who changed the face of medicine.

    • Robin Ganellin
    • William Duncan
    News & Views
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Review Article

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Article

  • A phase transition occurs when a physical system suddenly changes state, for instance when it melts or freezes. The Dicke model describes a collective matter–light interaction and has been predicted to show a quantum phase transition. Here, this quantum phase transition has been realized in an open system formed by a Bose–Einstein condensate coupled to an optical cavity. Surprisingly, the atoms are observed to self-organize into a supersolid phase.

    • Kristian Baumann
    • Christine Guerlin
    • Tilman Esslinger
    Article
  • Many sensory neurons in the mammalian cortex are tuned to specific stimulus features — for example, some fire only when horizontal bars move from top to bottom in the visual field. But it has been unclear whether such tuning is encoded in a neuron's inputs, or whether the neuron itself computes its response. Here, a new technique for visualizing and mapping sensory inputs to the dendrites of neurons in the mouse visual cortex has shown that each neuron makes its own 'decision' as to the orientation preference of its output.

    • Hongbo Jia
    • Nathalie L. Rochefort
    • Arthur Konnerth
    Article
  • Adiponectin is a protein with anti-diabetic properties; its levels are decreased in obesity, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. It is shown here that mice with a muscle-specific disruption of adiponectin receptor 1 (AdipoR1) are insulin resistant and less able to endure exercise. The pathway downstream of receptor activation is delineated; the findings suggest that the decreased levels of adiponectin and AdipoR1 seen in obesity may have causal roles in the mitochondrial dysfunction and insulin resistance seen in diabetes.

    • Masato Iwabu
    • Toshimasa Yamauchi
    • Takashi Kadowaki
    Article
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Letter

  • It has been suggested that Earth's current supply of water was delivered by asteroids. The presence of water on the surface of some asteroids has been inferred from the comet-like activity of several small asteroids, including two members of the Themis dynamical family, but hitherto has not been measured. Here, infrared spectra of the asteroid 24 Themis are reported; the results show that ice and organic compounds are not only present, but also prevalent, on its surface.

    • Humberto Campins
    • Kelsey Hargrove
    • Julie Ziffer
    Letter
  • Recent evidence has blurred the line between comets and asteroids, although until now neither ice nor organic material had been detected on the surface of an asteroid. Here, the spectroscopic detection of water ice and organic material on the asteroid 24 Themis is reported. Water ice thus seems to be more common on asteroids than previously thought, and may be widespread in asteroidal interiors at smaller heliocentric distances than expected.

    • Andrew S. Rivkin
    • Joshua P. Emery
    Letter
  • Ultracold polar molecules offer the possibility of exploring quantum gases with interparticle interactions that are strong, long-range and spatially anisotropic. Here, dipolar collisions in an ultracold gas of fermionic potassium–rubidium molecules have been experimentally observed. The results show how the long-range dipolar interaction can be used for electric-field control of chemical reaction rates in an ultracold gas of polar molecules.

    • K.-K. Ni
    • S. Ospelkaus
    • D. S. Jin
    Letter
  • A major pursuit in the chemical community involves the search for efficient and inexpensive catalysts that can produce large quantities of hydrogen gas from water. Here, a molybdenum-oxo complex has been identified that can catalytically generate hydrogen gas either from pure water at neutral pH, or from sea water. The work has implications for the design of 'green' chemistry cycles.

    • Hemamala I. Karunadasa
    • Christopher J. Chang
    • Jeffrey R. Long
    Letter
  • Climate change does not occur symmetrically; instead, in a process called polar amplification, polar areas warm faster than the tropics. Recent work indicated that transport processes in the upper atmosphere account for much of the recent polar amplification, but this conclusion proved controversial. Here, updated reanalysis data have been used to show that reductions in sea ice are instead responsible.

    • James A. Screen
    • Ian Simmonds
    Letter
  • Study of two specimens of the feathered dinosaur Similicaudipteryx shows that the morphology of dinosaur feathers changed dramatically as the animals matured. Moreover, the morphology of feathers in dinosaurs was much more varied than one would expect from looking at feathers in modern birds.

    • Xing Xu
    • Xiaoting Zheng
    • Hailu You
    Letter
  • Self-fertilisation (selfing) in plants is prevented mainly by the self-incompatibility recognition system, which consists of male and female specificity genes and modifier genes. Selfing does occur in Arabidopsis plants, but it is not known how it arose. Here it is reported that selfing in Arabidopsis results from a geographically widespread, 213-base-pair inversion within the male specificity gene. When this inversion is returned to its original orientation, selfing is prevented once more.

    • Takashi Tsuchimatsu
    • Keita Suwabe
    • Kentaro K. Shimizu
    Letter
  • 'Horizontal gene transfer' refers to the passage of genetic material between non-mating species. Transposable elements (transposons) may be especially prone to horizontal gene transfer, but the mechanisms by which they can spread across diverged species have been elusive. Here it is shown that transposons can spread by hitchhiking in the genomes of parasites. The amount of DNA that can be transferred in this way underscores the impact of horizontal gene transfer on genome evolution.

    • Clément Gilbert
    • Sarah Schaack
    • Cédric Feschotte
    Letter
  • Studies of identical twins are widely used to dissect the contributions of genes and the environment to human diseases. In multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune demyelinating disease, identical twins often show differences. This might suggest that environmental effects are most significant in this case, but genetic and epigenetic differences between identical twins have been described. Here, however, studies of identical twins show no evidence for genetic, epigenetic or transcriptome differences that could explain disease discordance.

    • Sergio E. Baranzini
    • Joann Mudge
    • Stephen F. Kingsmore
    Letter Open Access
  • During atherosclerosis, crystals of cholesterol accumulate in atherosclerotic plaques. But are they a consequence or a cause of the inflammation associated with the disease? Here it is shown that small cholesterol crystals appear early in the development of atherosclerosis, and that they act as an endogenous danger signal, causing inflammation by activating the NLRP3 inflammasome pathway. Cholesterol crystals thus seem to be an early cause, rather than a late consequence, of inflammation.

    • Peter Duewell
    • Hajime Kono
    • Eicke Latz
    Letter
  • Several non-haematopoietic-cell-derived cytokines, including interleukin (IL)25, have been implicated in inducing T helper 2 (TH2) cell-dependent inflammation, but their precise role has been unclear. Here, IL25 is shown to promote the accumulation of multipotent progenitor cells in gut-associated lymphoid tissue. These cells can give rise to macrophage or granulocyte lineages that promote the differentiation of TH2 cells and contribute to protective immunity against helminth infections.

    • Steven A. Saenz
    • Mark C. Siracusa
    • David Artis
    Letter
  • Here, a new type of innate effector leukocyte cell — the nuocyte — is described and characterized. It is shown that interleukin (IL)25 and IL33 drive the expansion of the nuocyte population, that these cells secrete IL13, and that they are required for protection against helminth infection.

    • Daniel R. Neill
    • See Heng Wong
    • Andrew N. J. McKenzie
    Letter
  • The cytokine interleukin (IL)-23 has inflammatory effects on innate immune cells and can drive colitis, but the cellular and molecular pathways involved are poorly characterized. Here it is shown that bacterial-driven innate colitis involves a previously unknown population of IL-23-responsive innate leukocytes that produce IL-17 and interferon-γ. These cells may represent a target in inflammatory bowel disease.

    • Sofia Buonocore
    • Philip P. Ahern
    • Fiona Powrie
    Letter
  • Although several synaptic adhesion proteins have been identified as genetic risk factors in schizophrenia, it is unclear as to what role they play in disease progression. Here, it is shown that two such proteins — neuregulin 1 and its receptor ErbB4 — function to regulate the connectivity of specific cortical circuits. The study not only implicates these proteins in the wiring of inhibitory synapses, about which little is known, but also provides a new perspective on their involvement in schizophrenia.

    • Pietro Fazzari
    • Ana V. Paternain
    • Beatriz Rico
    Letter
  • Interleukin-17-producing helper T (TH17) cells are a distinct T-cell subset characterized by its role in autoimmune disease. Here it is shown that the development of TH17 cells requires the transcription factor IκBζ, as well as nuclear receptors of the ROR family. Mice lacking IκBζ have a defect in TH17 development and are resistant to the induction of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. The study points to some new potential molecular targets for drugs to treat autoimmune disease.

    • Kazuo Okamoto
    • Yoshiko Iwai
    • Hiroshi Takayanagi
    Letter
  • Rhodospsin is a G-protein-coupled receptor that is responsible for vision in dim light. Light isomerizes the protein's retinal chromophore and triggers concerted movements of several transmembrane helices. Here, an approach involving mutant rhodopsins and infrared spectroscopy enabled changes in the electrostatic environment to be seen as rhodopsin proceeded along its activation pathway. Early conformational changes were observed that precede the well-known larger movements of the transmembrane helices.

    • Shixin Ye
    • Ekaterina Zaitseva
    • Reiner Vogel
    Letter
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Corrigendum

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Erratum

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Careers Q&A

  • Biophysical chemist Nadine Gassner, associate director of the University of California at Santa Cruz's Chemical Screening Center, has won the Ellen Weaver Award for mentoring, from the Northern California chapter of the Association of Women in Science.

    • Virginia Gewin
    Careers Q&A
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Career Brief

  • Stimulus funding helps spur job growth in drug industry.

    Career Brief
  • Online resource aims to support a diverse scientific workforce.

    Career Brief
  • More venture capital has gone into biotech than any other industry in the past year.

    Career Brief
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Careers and Recruitment

  • Researchers seeking the latest biotechnology expertise have several options. Paul Smaglik reports.

    • Paul Smaglik
    Careers and Recruitment
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Futures

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