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Volume 499 Issue 7456, 4 July 2013

The most heavily cratered terrains on Mercury exhibit a lower density of craters smaller than about 100 km in diameter than on the Moon, a deficit that has been attributed to resurfacing by formation of ancient intercrater plains. Simone Marchi et al. used a crater areal density map based on data from the MESSENGER spacecraft (the colour-coded foreground on cover, with a global surface mosaic in the background) to locate the oldest surfaces on Mercury and interpret the crater populations in the framework of a recent lunar crater chronology. They conclude that the oldest surfaces were emplaced just after the start of the Late Heavy Bombardment 4.0 to 4.1 billion years ago. The large impact basins, not previously dated, yield a similar surface age. This agreement implies that resurfacing was global and due to volcanism, perhaps aided by heavy bombardment as previously suggested. Cover: Simone Marchi/MESSENGER data: NASA/JHUAPL/Carnegie Institution of Washington

Editorial

  • US President Barack Obama gave a fine speech on global warming, but now he must deliver on regulations for coal power and greater fuel economy.

    Editorial

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  • Reforms without consultation will destroy the Russian Academy of Sciences.

    Editorial
  • More must be done to boost tissue donation for transplantation and research.

    Editorial
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World View

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Research Highlights

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Seven Days

  • The week in science: Dutch researcher settles case over fabricated data, two HIV patients on path to cure, and NIH retires nearly all research chimpanzees.

    Seven Days
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News

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Correction

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News Feature

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Comment

  • We must mine the biodiversity in seed banks to help to overcome food shortages, urge Susan McCouch and colleagues.

    • Susan McCouch
    • Gregory J. Baute
    • Daniel Zamir
    Comment
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Books & Arts

  • Joanne Baker plunges into an exhibition on visionaries who break all the rules.

    • Joanne Baker
    Books & Arts
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Correspondence

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Obituary

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News & Views

  • An investigation into the causes of the decline in the number of children being born finds that economic motivations are more influential than child mortality or social learning, but also reinforces the relatedness of these factors.

    • Ruth Mace
    News & Views
  • The detection of two planets in an open star cluster demonstrates that planetary systems are able to survive disruptive events, such as supernova explosions, during the dense, early stages of the life of such clusters. See Letter p.55

    • William F. Welsh
    News & Views
  • The sequencing of a complete horse genome from a bone dating to around 700,000 years ago sheds light on equine evolution and dramatically extends the known limit of DNA survival. See Letter p.74

    • Craig D. Millar
    • David M. Lambert
    News & Views
  • A genome-wide analysis of DNA and RNA sequences, gene expression and DNA modifications in 200 samples of acute myeloid leukaemia sets the stage for data integration and verification that will enhance our understanding of this cancer.

    • Stein Aerts
    • Jan Cools
    News & Views
  • Obese people are at higher risk of multiple types of cancer, but why? One explanation could be that obesity enhances the production of pro-inflammatory, and carcinogenic, bile acids by gut microorganisms. See Letter p.97

    • Suzanne Devkota
    • Peter. J. Turnbaugh
    News & Views
  • Malaria parasites switch between developmental stages to facilitate their transmission to the mosquito vector. This switch seems to be initiated by parasite-to-parasite communication through membrane-bound vesicles.

    • Leann Tilley
    • Malcolm McConville
    News & Views
  • Synthetic analogues of the catalytic subsite of the hydrogen-producing enzyme HydA1 have been disappointingly inactive. The incorporation of such analogues into the enzyme's active site reveals the requirements for activity. See Letter p.66

    • Ryan D. Bethel
    • Marcetta Y. Darensbourg
    News & Views
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Article

  • The Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network reports an integrative analysis of more than 400 samples of clear cell renal cell carcinoma based on genomic, DNA methylation, RNA and proteomic characterisation; frequent mutations were identified in the PI(3)K/AKT pathway, suggesting this pathway might be a potential therapeutic target, among the findings is also a demonstration of metabolic remodelling which correlates with tumour stage and severity.

    • Chad J. Creighton
    • Margaret Morgan
    • Heidi J. Sofia.
    Article Open Access
  • This study shows that 53BP1 recruitment to sites of DNA damage involves dual recognition of H4K20me2 and H2AK15 histone ubiquitination; the ubiquitin mark and the surrounding epitope on H2A are read by a region of 53BP1 designated the ubiquitination-dependent recruitment motif.

    • Amélie Fradet-Turcotte
    • Marella D. Canny
    • Daniel Durocher
    Article
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Letter

  • The transits of two Sun-like stars by small planets in an open star cluster are reported; such a stellar environment is unlike that of most planet-hosting field stars, and suggests that the occurrence of planets is unaffected by the stellar environment in open clusters.

    • Søren Meibom
    • Guillermo Torres
    • Justin Crepp
    Letter
  • Analysis of craters on Mercury’s oldest, most heavily cratered terrains shows that they were formed 4.0–4.1 billion years ago, and that the planet’s previous geological history was erased, most probably by voluminous volcanism, which may have been triggered by heavy asteroidal bombardment at that time.

    • Simone Marchi
    • Clark R. Chapman
    • Robert G. Strom
    Letter
  • The quantum light–matter interaction between a superconducting artificial atom and squeezed vacuum reduces the transverse radiative decay rate of the atom by a factor of two, allowing the corresponding coherence time, T2, to exceed the ordinary vacuum decay limit, 2T1.

    • K. W. Murch
    • S. J. Weber
    • I. Siddiqi
    Letter
  • Three synthetic mimics of the di-iron centre in [FeFe]-hydrogenases are loaded onto the HydF protein and then transferred to apo-HydA1; full activation of HydA1 was achieved only with the HydF hybrid protein that contained the mimic with an azadithiolate bridge, confirming the presence of this ligand in the active site of native [FeFe]-hydrogenases.

    • G. Berggren
    • A. Adamska
    • M. Fontecave
    Letter
  • Large volumes of molten rock break through the Earth’s crust during continental breakup, and here it is shown that the cause is primarily very high mantle temperatures (under a thick plate), rather than plate thinning.

    • D. J. Ferguson
    • J. Maclennan
    • G. Yirgu
    Letter
  • A large-scale analysis of variation in human protein levels between individuals is performed using mass-spectrometry-based proteomic technology, and a number of protein quantitative trait loci are identified; over 5% of proteins vary by more than 1.5-fold in their expression levels between individuals, and this variation is not always linked to RNA level.

    • Linfeng Wu
    • Sophie I. Candille
    • Michael Snyder
    Letter
  • A pair of Drosophila brain cells is identified and its activation alone is found to induce the fly’s complete feeding motor routine when artificially induced; suppressing or ablating these two neurons eliminates the sugar-induced feeding behaviour, but ablation of just one neuron results in asymmetric movements.

    • Thomas F. Flood
    • Shinya Iguchi
    • Motojiro Yoshihara
    Letter
  • Cellular reprogramming is shown to occur in an ordered, stepwise manner, marked by changes in the cell-surface markers CD44, ICAM1 and Nanog–eGFP; molecular characterization of discrete subpopulations of partially reprogrammed cells shows that reprogramming is not simply the reversal of the normal development process.

    • James O’Malley
    • Stavroula Skylaki
    • Keisuke Kaji
    Letter
  • Under stress conditions such as acute blood loss or chronic anaemia, glucocorticoids trigger self-renewal of early burst-forming unit–erythroid (BFU–E) progenitors in the spleen, however, the mechanism of glucocorticoid action is not well understood; here the RNA binding protein ZFP36L2 is identified as a transcriptional target of the glucocorticoid receptor in BFU-Es and is shown to be involved in the process of erythroid cell expansion following exposure to glucocorticoids.

    • Lingbo Zhang
    • Lina Prak
    • Harvey F. Lodish
    Letter
  • Obesity is shown in a mouse model of liver cancer to strongly enhance tumorigenesis; a high fat diet alters the composition of intestinal bacteria, leading to more production of the metabolite DCA which, probably together with other factors, induces senescence and the secretion of various senescence-associated cytokines in hepatic stellate cells, thus promoting cancer.

    • Shin Yoshimoto
    • Tze Mun Loo
    • Naoko Ohtani
    Letter
  • A novel platform for vaccines has been developed using self-assembling ferritin-based nanoparticles displaying influenza virus haemagglutinin; the haemagglutinin–nanoparticle vaccine induces more broad and potent neutralizing antibodies against diverse virus strains than a licensed influenza vaccine in mice and ferrets.

    • Masaru Kanekiyo
    • Chih-Jen Wei
    • Gary J. Nabel
    Letter
  • The X-ray crystal structure of a member of the Ca2+/H+ (CAX) antiporter family from Saccharomyces cerevisiae in a cytosol-facing, substrate-bound conformation is solved; using the structure, a mechanism by which members of the Ca2+:cation (CaCA) superfamily facilitate Ca2+ transport across cellular membranes is proposed.

    • Andrew B. Waight
    • Bjørn Panyella Pedersen
    • Robert M. Stroud
    Letter
  • The crystal structure of the FACT histone chaperone domain Spt16M in complex with the H2A–H2B heterodimer is solved; Spt16M makes several interactions with histones and seems to block the interaction of H2B with DNA, which could explain how FACT destabilizes nucleosomes to promote transcription.

    • Maria Hondele
    • Tobias Stuwe
    • Andreas G. Ladurner
    Letter
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Feature

  • Graduate students often work alone, but programmes exist to teach them how to work towards publication in teams.

    • Cameron Walker
    Feature
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Career Brief

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Futures

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