Volume 484 Issue 7394, 19 April 2012

The handling of results suggesting faster-than-light neutrinos was a model of fitting behaviour.

The financial crisis brings Europe unexpected opportunities for international collaboration.

Donald Boesch argues that the lessons learned from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill should be enshrined in legislation before they fade from memory.

The week in science: Premature splashdown for North Korean rocket; Johnson & Johnson fined for improper marketing of Risperdal; and US greenhouse-gas emissions rise.

International collaborations seek far-flung members to close budget gap.

Updated risk assessment warns country to prepare for much larger earthquakes and waves.

Nature quizzes the French presidential frontrunners on research policies.

Consortium of three big brands gains government backing to spur mobile technologies.

Pioneering clinical genome-sequencing projects focus on patients with developmental delay.

Neuroscience shows that the adolescent brain is still developing. The question is whether that should influence the sentencing of juveniles.

American neutrino physicists are getting the measure of their quarry in ultra-high precision.

We need to improve estimates of geomagnetic storm size, says Mike Hapgood, so we can be ready for huge disruptions to electrical systems.

A London exhibition will expose the Renaissance master's staggering medical discoveries, which languished unpublished for centuries, explains Martin Clayton.

John Whitfield gauges a study that tackles the evolutionary conflicts behind workplace inequity.

The idea that bird orientation is guided by magnetic-sensing structures in the animals' beaks has been challenged by the suggestion that the iron-containing cells are macrophages, which have no link to the brain. See Letter p.367

A carbon-nanotube transistor has been made that performs better than the best conventional silicon analogues. The result propels these devices to the forefront of future microchip technologies.

An analysis of fossil imprints of ancient raindrops suggests that the density of the atmosphere 2.7 billion years ago was much the same as that today. This result casts fresh light on a long-standing palaeoclimate paradox. See Letter p.359

The observation of a phenomenon known as coherent quantum phase slip, across a nanowire in a superconducting system, paves the way for applications in quantum computing and metrology. See Letter p.355

In the laboratory, fruitflies rely on an internal clock to alternate activity with a midday nap and night-time sleep. Surprisingly, when outdoors, they follow temperature rather than the clock, and skip siestas. See Letter p.371

‘Snapshots’ of subduction zones using space geodesy reveal that the viscous behaviour of the mantle controls crustal deformation, requiring the revision of traditional ‘elastic’ models for earthquake risk assessment.

Downregulation of the glucose transporter GLUT4 in adipose tissue occurs early in the development of type 2 diabetes; here GLUT4-mediated glucose uptake is shown to induce a novel form of the transcription factor ChREBP, which regulates de novo lipogenesis and systemic glucose metabolism.

Reduced representation bisulphite sequencing is used to generate genome-scale DNA methylation maps in mouse gametes and several stages of early, pre-implantation embryogenesis, allowing a base-pair resolution timeline of the changes in DNA methylation during developmental transitions.

The crystal structure of the entire motor domain of cytoplasmic dynein at the highest resolution so far is presented, giving insights into the communication between the different subdomains of the motor.

An upper limit has been placed on the flux of energetic neutrinos associated with γ-ray bursts that is at least a factor of 3.7 below the predictions, implying either that γ-ray bursts are not the only sources of high-energy cosmic rays or that the efficiency of neutrino production is much lower than has been predicted.

The magnetic-flux analogue to coherent Josephson tunnelling of electric charge has been observed in a strongly disordered superconducting nanowire.

Experiments dropping raindrops onto ash combined with raindrop fossil imprints yield an upper limit for air density in the Archaean.

Changes in ocean chemistry promoted during the formation of the Great Unconformity, a stratigraphic surface that separates continental basement rock from younger marine sedimentary deposits, are proposed as the cause of the Cambrian explosion of marine animals.

Birds have been thought to have a magnetic sensing system consisting of magnetite-containing dendrites in the upper beak; a comprehensive anatomical characterization in pigeons now shows that the iron-rich cells in the beak are in fact macrophages not magnetosensitive neurons.

Behavioural, neurogenetic and molecular studies of circadian 24-hour rhythms in fruitflies kept in semi-confinement outdoors challenge our established laboratory-based views of the relative importance of sources of rhythmic entrainment, including temperature, photoperiod and moonlight, as well as the role of some of the underlying clock genes in regulating circadian behaviour in the wild.

A major source of glia in the postnatal cortex in mice is the local proliferation of differentiated astrocytes.

The activation of a population of hippocampal neurons thought to encode a specific fear memory is shown to elicit freezing behaviour in mice.

Characterization of the human interactome of chromatin-associated messenger ribonucleoprotein particles identifies DBC1 and a new protein (ZIRD) as subunits of a protein complex (DBIRD) that binds directly to RNAPII, regulates alternative splicing of exons embedded in (A + T)-rich DNA, and whose depletion results in region-specific decreases in transcript elongation.

Shifts in the position of adherens junctions, triggered by a change in the ratio of Bazooka and Par-1, initiate epithelial folding in the Drosophila embryo.

Increasing the expression of intramuscular heat shock protein 72 preserves muscle strength and ameliorates the dystrophic pathology in two mouse models of muscular dystrophy, suggesting a promising way forward for the treatment of muscular dystrophy.

A model for the coupling of proton pumping and pyrophosphatase hydrolysis is proposed.

Establishing a career in astrobiology is not always easy. But keeping one's options open can lead to work in this niche field.

A postdoc’s development of a software code leads to numerous publications early in his career.

Self-promotion is a big plus when applying for jobs.

Fellowships offer opportunity to study global-health diseases in developing regions.

Venture-capital funding in the United Kingdom represents a boost for translational research.

Prose by any other name.