Volume 483 Issue 7387, 1 March 2012

Progress on rare genetic diseases shows the medical value of outliers.

Canada's government should free its scientists to speak to the press, as its US counterpart has.

France has banned commercial applications of brain imaging. So why approve its use in court, asks Olivier Oullier.

The week in science: Fire destroys Brazil’s Antarctic research station; Africa agricultural monitoring network launched; and World Bank partnership coordinates ocean conservation efforts.

A boom in unproven procedures is worrying scientists.

Small groups of agitators stop elections for governing boards.

European network pools resources to unpick the secrets of the cell.

Discovery could pave the way for new fertility treatments and a longer reproductive life.

Team admits to possible errors in faster-than-light finding.

US National Academy of Sciences reassesses risks of high-security work in cattle country.

Proposed budget changes threaten disease prevention and surveillance programmes.

A Pennsylvania clinic working with Amish and Mennonite communities could be a model for personalized medicine.

Michael Merzenich has a plan for how to convince sceptics of the worth of his brain-training video games: prove that the software can help people with schizophrenia.

Andrew Robinson pieces together the story of who deserves the credit for deciphering the hieroglyphs.

Assess the ecological risks of synthetic microbes before they escape the lab, say Genya V. Dana, Todd Kuiken, David Rejeski and Allison A. Snow.

Funding is a major stumbling block for environmental initiatives, says Edward Barbier. Taxing financial transactions or trade in arms, tobacco and fuel might help.

Thomas Misa ponders a history of computing that focuses firmly on John von Neumann and the 'Princeton crowd'.

Jo Marchant uncovers a mixed hoard in a history of Tutankhamun and the discovery of his tomb.

Daniel Cressey reflects on a play that uses astronomy and medicine to probe what it means to see.

An analysis of the intensity and polarization of sunlight reflected by Earth reveals signatures of life on our planet. What prospects are there for using similar measurements to find life on planets outside the Solar System? Planetary scientists offer some answers. See Letter p.64

Rewards and punishments can cajole people into cooperating, but they are costly to implement. A theoretical study finds that, when participation in group activities is optional, punishing uncooperative behaviour is the cheaper method.

The uncovering of a large soil surface preserved under sediment for 390 million years has exposed plant remains which show that the world's earliest forests were much more complex than previously thought. See Letter p.78

Every organic molecule has a sea of carbon–hydrogen bonds, so fishing out just one of these bonds for a reaction is difficult. Using a common chemical group as bait provides a solution to the problem. See Letter p.70

Current methods for screening libraries of compounds for biological activity are rather cumbersome, slow and imprecise. A method that breaks up a continuous flow of a compound's solution into droplets offers radical improvements.

A drug for treating melanoma is ineffective in colorectal cancers that have the same causative mutation. Studies of how cells adapt to the drug reveal why this is so, and suggest combination therapies that may be more effective. See Letter p.100

Layer six in the mouse primary visual cortex is a major mediator of cortical gain modulation and may be a node through which convergent inputs from several brain areas can regulate the earliest steps of cortical visual processing.

Structural analysis reveals the iron scavenging mechanism used by Neisseria species, involving TbpA and TbpB proteins, and sheds light on how human transferrin is specifically targeted.

Two carboxy-terminal motifs are necessary for Srs2 to recognize SUMO-conjugated PCNA, which is involved in DNA replication and repair; one motif is specific to SUMO, the other to PCNA.

Sunlight that has been reflected first from the Earth and then from the Moon is known as ‘Earthshine’, and its linear polarization spectra are found to contain signatures of life, such as oxygen and vegetation.

Unexpectedly, in superconducting iron chalcogenides, a second, much higher, maximum in the superconducting transition temperature emerges under increasing pressure.

The combination of an iridium-phenanthroline catalyst and a dihydridosilane reagent leads to the site-selective functionalization of primary C–H bonds that are proximal to a hydroxyl group.

The rate of India’s convergence with Eurasia has decreased exponentially since their collision, which suggests that the deforming continental lithosphere creates a type of viscous resistance that affects plate motion irrespective of how topography evolved.

Mapping of Eospermatopteris root systems within ‘the Earth’s earliest forest’ clarifies its palaeoecology, produces a new interpretation of aneurophytaleans and extends the range for arborescent lycopsids.

The male-specific region of rhesus macaque and human Y chromosome (MSY) are sequenced and compared to the human MSY, showing that during the last 25 million years MSY gene loss in the rhesus and human lineages was limited to the youngest stratum (stratum 5), whereas gene loss in the older strata ceased more than 25 million years ago.

In mouse frontal cortex, fear conditioning and extinction cause dendritic spine elimination and, respectively, formation to occur on the same dendritic branches in a cue- and location-specific manner.

Repetitive activation of specific circuitry in the motor cortex during motor learning can induce new clusters of dendritic spines to form, which are preferentially stabilized during prolonged learning sessions.

Circadian rhythmicity of cardiac ion-channel expression and of an index of myocardial repolarization is under the control of Klf15, a clock-dependent oscillator that is required for generating transient outward potassium current, and deficiencies or excesses of which cause loss of rhythmic variation in myocardial and abnormal repolarization, and an enhanced susceptibility to ventricular arrhythmias.

Inhibition of activated BRAF has been ineffective in colon cancers with the mutation; here, this is shown to be due to the feedback activation of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in response to BRAF inhibition.

Direct binding of Rtt106 to H3K56-acetylated (H3–H4)₂ histone tetramers contributes to nucleosome assembly with implications for DNA replication, gene silencing and maintenance of genomic stability.

Structures of the amino-terminal region of inositol-1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor 1 with and without InsP₃ bound reveal two discrete interfaces between the InsP₃-binding core and suppressor domain that are similar to and functionally interchangeable with those in the equivalent domains of ryanodine receptor 1.

Posters are a chance to show off work and to network with colleagues, but only if the design is easy on the eye.

Competitors could benefit if grant applications go public, CNSF warns.

Research programme launches at US ecological sites.

Leading research institutions help Paris, London and Boston to come out on top.

You must remember this.

Is cancer ancient, or is it largely a product of modern times? And can the latest research on prevention and treatment strategies make cancer a disease of the past?

Barbara Dunn is a programme director in the Division of Cancer Prevention at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). She tells Nature Outlook about the challenges of stopping the disease before it starts.

Scientists are combining biology and engineering to change the world.

A Boston University biomedical engineer, Collins reprograms organisms to endow them with novel or improved functions. Nature Outlook asks him how things are evolving.

How is life on Earth reacting to climate change?

A freshwater ecologist at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, Smol studies lake sediments to understand climatic and environmental change. Nature Outlook asks him to share his experience.

Do tiny floating microorganisms in the ocean's surface waters play a massive role in controlling the global climate?

Nature Outlook talks to Rutgers University environmental scientist Paul Falkowski about the effects of human activity and climate change on communities of life-sustaining oceanic microorganisms.

Stem cells are powerful tools in biology and medicine. What can scientists do with these cells to exploit their incredible potential?

As director of outreach experiences at the Morgridge Institute for Research in Madison, Wisconsin, Nirupama Shevde spreads the word about stem cells. Nature Outlook finds out what she has to say.

Immersed in the details of the latest laboratory advances, it's easy to lose track of the enormous impact biological sciences are having on our world. In this special edition of Nature Outlook, five top scientists explain how research in their specialties — cancer, climate change, stem cells, oceanography and synthetic biology — has changed our lives.