Volume 497 Issue 7450, 23 May 2013

Budgetary delays exacerbate dire outlook for US research.

It is risky to oversimplify science for the sake of a clear public-health message.

Congressman Lamar Smith hopes to ‘improve’ peer review by adding a layer of accountability, but his bill aims at imaginary ideals, argues Daniel Sarewitz.

The week in science: Chile pushes for a national science ministry, Indonesia protects its forests, and Nobel laureate Heinrich Rohrer dies.

Space telescope’s mission to find planets outside the Solar System is probably over.

Political squabbles leave US science agencies without heads.

Sequestration threatens records of snow and stream levels in western United States.

Reform is in the air at the nation’s oldest research body.

Multi-nation effort is a test of scientific diplomacy.

Honeycomb lattices in different materials enable experiments impossible in the real thing.

Ed Stone has spent 36 years guiding the twin Voyager spacecraft through the Solar System. Next stop, interstellar space.

More and more studies show that being overweight does not always shorten life — but some public-health researchers would rather not talk about them.

Foster partnerships and share data to reduce hazards in fast-changing northern waters, says Hajo Eicken.

C. Glenn Begley explains how to recognize the preclinical papers in which the data won't stand up.

Mike Jay contemplates the chemical legacy of Albert Hofmann, who first synthesized LSD 75 years ago.

Shahid Naeem examines the seductive concept of repopulating habitats with locally extinct species.

Anthony King tries his luck at a casino that lays bare the psychology of risk-taking.

French freedom fighter who helped to uncover how genes are regulated.

Natural variations in the rate of protein translation in cellular organelles called mitochondria have been found to correlate with lifespan, suggesting a unified mechanism for the effects of metabolic alterations on longevity. See Article p.451

Dengue virus has a highly ordered structure when grown in mosquito cells at 28 °C. The finding that the virus expands into a less ordered form at 37 °C indicates that the human immune system does not see it as we previously thought.

How the enzyme diacylglycerol kinase can form membrane anchors and an active site from so few amino-acid residues has long been a mystery. Crystal structures reveal that it gets by with a little help from its friends. See Letter p.521

Traditional methods for detecting and identifying the handedness of molecules — their chirality — have been based on the same theoretical concept. A technique has been reported that departs from this paradigm. See Letter p.475

Aerogels have many potential applications but usually suffer from poor elasticity. The synergistic assembly of carbon nanotubes and graphene has now allowed multifunctional, ultra-lightweight and super-elastic aerogels to be made.

Unusual DNA structures, such as G-quadruplexes, can stall DNA replication with drastic consequences for the cell. The Pif1 helicase family of enzymes has evolved to disentangle these structures efficiently. See Article p.458

Mitochondrial ribosomal proteins have been identified as longevity regulators in C. elegans and mammalian systems, their role in longevity is linked to mitonuclear protein imbalance and the mitochondrial unfolded protein response.

In vitro and in vivo, the yeast Pif1 helicase is able to unwind four-stranded G-quadruplex (G4) DNA efficiently and suppress the genomic instability that occurs at such structures; these G4 maintenance activities are conserved among evolutionarily diverse Pif1 family helicases, including human PIF1, demonstrating the importance of this activity throughout evolution.

High-resolution simulations show that dynamos can generate organized fields at high conductivity in the form of propagating dynamo waves.

A magnetohydrodynamic simulation of a magnetized plasma at high conductivity shows that, whereas the magnetic flux can be considered ‘frozen’ into the medium for laminar flow, in a turbulent medium the motion of the field lines can become indeterministic, leading to a breakdown in flux freezing.

A metamaterial is fabricated that yields a ‘left-handed’ response — characterized by a negative refractive index — to ultraviolet light incident at all angles, allowing both passive and active flat lensing of arbitrarily shaped, two-dimensional objects beyond the near field in free space.

Microwave spectroscopy is used to map the sign of an electric dipole Rabi frequency — which depends directly on the chirality of the molecule — onto the phase of emitted microwave radiation, thereby determining the chirality of cold gas-phase molecules.

In the quasibiennial oscillation, the prevailing wind direction in the tropical stratosphere switches between easterly and westerly and back with a period of about two years; now an analysis of a suite of radiosonde wind data reveals that the amplitude of this oscillation has weakened over the past six decades, most probably as a result of increased tropical upwelling in the lower stratosphere.

In an auditory frequency discrimination task in rats, channelrhodopsin-2-mediated stimulation of corticostriatal neurons biases decisions in the direction predicted by the frequency tuning of the stimulated neurons, whereas archaerhodopsin-3-mediated inactivation biases decisions in the opposite direction.

Deletion of a single gene, Taar4, in mice abolishes aversion to low concentrations of volatile amines and to the odour of predator urine, indicating that individual olfactory receptor genes can affect odour perception.

Sema3A, a member of the semaphorin family of proteins, is shown to regulate bone remodelling indirectly by modulating sensory nerve development in mice.

Herpes simplex virus 2-infected individuals are shown to have skin-tissue-resident CD8αα⁺ T cells that persist at the portal of virus release in genital skin and mucosa, possess oligoclonal T-cell-receptor-β CDR3 sequences that are stable over time, and express gene signatures of antiviral and cytolytic function indicative of viral-specific immune surveillance.

TLR4 stimulation is known to contribute to acute lung injury after administration of inactivated influenza virus; here, the synthetic TLR4 antagonist Eritoran is shown to protect mice from death after infection with a lethal dose of the virus.

A microRNA, miR-235, is identified that acts downstream of the insulin/insulin growth factor signalling pathway to modulate the quiescence of blast cells in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Lamin and emerin mutations causing cardiomyopathies are associated with an impairment in actin dynamics, resulting in aberrant nuclear translocation and downstream signalling of the transcription factor MKL1, which is pivotal for cardiac development.

The proteasome degrades ubiquitin-conjugated substrates; here, structural and functional insights from studies in yeast reveal that it is reconfigured during chaperone-mediated assembly.

Analysis of whole-genome sequence data of Icelandic individuals has revealed a rare nonsense mutation within the LGR4 gene that is strongly associated with, among other things, low bone mineral density, late onset of menarche, and increased risk of biliary tract cancer.

This study presents the crystal structures of three functional forms of diacylglycerol kinase, an integral membrane protein that catalyses a crucial step in oligosaccharide and lipopolysaccharide synthesis and assembly; these X-ray structures are markedly different from the only other structure available for this unique kinase that was solved using solution NMR.

Scientists often criss-cross the globe in pursuit of their careers. The practice can be rewarding — and taxing.

Biologist wins acclaim after moving from proteins to stem cells.

US legislators propose to create research ambassador.

Researchers reap benefits from Facebook contacts, says study.

Women give men more credit in teamwork, study finds.

The enemy within.

One of sleep's most important functions is processing memory. Researchers are now starting to figure out how the brain helps us learn when we're asleep.

Studies that restrict sleep show why a lack of shut-eye can lead to serious chronic disease.

A growing body of evidence shows that getting a good night's sleep plays an important role in regulating the body's metabolism.

How can people better adapt to an 'unnatural' world of artificial lighting and alarm clocks?

The use of electric lights at night is disrupting the sleep of more and more people, says Charles Czeisler.

The causal relationships between lack of sleep and mood disorders remain murky. But one thing is clear as day: better sleep can have psychological benefits.

A combination of drugs and cognitive behavioural therapy may finally put an end to the misery of sleepless nights.

Sleep disturbances may be an early sign of neurodegenerative diseases — but could sleep deficits cause these conditions in the first place?

Researchers are defining the various functions of sleep, from how we learn to the regulation of metabolism and immunity. Insufficient sleep, a growing problem in modern society, can knock our biological clocks out of kilter, sometimes leading to chronic disease and neurodegeneration. New ways to treat troubled sleeping are being developed, and better sleep practice can help people with mood disorders.