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Volume 515 Issue 7525, 6 November 2014

A simulation of a high-efficiency plasma wakefield accelerator. An electron beam with a two-bunch structure is travelling through plasma from top-left to bottom-right. Particle colliders that operate at the high-energy frontier using electric fields generated by radio waves are approaching the limits of feasibility in terms of size and cost, but there are other acceleration techniques that could make such less expensive and more compact devices. The plasma wakefield accelerator, in which an electron bunch is accelerated by making it ‘surf� on a plasma wave excited by another electron bunch, promises an energy gain in the gigaelectron-volt regime over just a few centimetres � an energy gain that requires hundreds of metres using traditional accelerators. Previously, this technique had only been used to accelerate a very small number of electrons at a time. Now, researchers working at FACET, the Facility for Advanced Accelerator Experimental Tests at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, USA, have achieved acceleration of about half a billion electrons at once with an unprecedented efficiency for a plasma accelerator. This achievement could be a milestone in the development of affordable and compact accelerators for applications ranging from high energy physics to medical and industrial applications. Cover: Weiming An & Frank Tsung, University of California Los Angeles, using QuickPIC simulation and VisIT visualization software

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  • The week in science: Lava flow invades Hawaiian town; Poland moves to join European Southern Observatory; and China completes round-trip lunar mission.

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  • In the 25 years since the collapse of communism, the countries of central and Eastern Europe have each carved their own identity in science.

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    • Quirin Schiermeier
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  • A 'plasma afterburner' just 30 centimetres long accelerates electrons hundreds of times faster than giant conventional accelerators. The result may ultimately open up a low-cost technology for particle colliders. See Letter p.92

    • Mike Downer
    • Rafal Zgadzaj
    News & Views
  • Gradients of fibroblast growth factors often induce cells to adopt different fates. A study in zebrafish embryos reveals another, unexpected role when the factors are trapped in small spaces by a special arrangement of cells. See Letter p.120

    • James Sharpe
    News & Views
  • Massive stars are rare, but they are sources of some of the most energetic phenomena seen in the Universe today. A high-mass candidate has now been found in a star-forming region that has been observed for more than 50 years.

    • Donald F. Figer
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  • Evolutionary and ecosystem processes have long been treated as distinct. The finding that interactions among plant species cause rapid evolutionary changes that affect ecosystem function suggests that it is time for unification. See Letter p.108

    • David Tilman
    • Emilie C. Snell-Rood
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  • The report of a light-activated catalyst that dictates the three-dimensional shape — the stereochemistry — of molecules formed in an organic reaction suggests a new strategy for controlling such reactions using visible light. See Letter p.100

    • Kazimer L. Skubi
    • Tehshik P. Yoon
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  • Blocking the activity of macrophages may delay the spread of cancer. But new findings show that these immune cells can rapidly rebound to tumours after therapy withdrawal, accelerating lethal metastasis in mice. See Letter p.130

    • Ioanna Keklikoglou
    • Michele De Palma
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  • Simple cooperating groups of bacteria reproduced either by embracing or purging cheating types; those that embraced cheats adopted a life cycle of alternating phenotypic states, underpinned by a developmental switch that allowed the fitness of collectives to decouple from the fitness of constituent cells.

    • Katrin Hammerschmidt
    • Caroline J. Rose
    • Paul B. Rainey
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  • Complex I is the first enzyme of the mitochondrial electron transport chain and it is essential for oxidative phosphorylation in mammalian mitochondria; here the electron cryo-microscopy structure of complex I from bovine heart mitochondria is reported, advancing knowledge of its structure in mammals.

    • Kutti R. Vinothkumar
    • Jiapeng Zhu
    • Judy Hirst
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Letter

  • Analysis of X-ray data of galaxy clusters shows that turbulent heating of the intracluster medium is sufficient to counteract the radiative energy losses from the medium.

    • I. Zhuravleva
    • E. Churazov
    • N. Werner
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  • Cool white dwarf stars often have mysteriously strong magnetic fields (because their coolness suggests that they are old, and magnetic fields should decline in strength with age) and unexplained brightness variations; here the magnetic field is shown to suppress atmospheric convection, inhibiting cooling evolution and causing dark spots.

    • G. Valyavin
    • D. Shulyak
    • A. Burenkov
    Letter
  • To develop plasma wakefield acceleration into a compact and affordable replacement for conventional accelerators, beams of charged particles must be accelerated at high efficiency in a high electric field; here this is demonstrated for a bunch of charged electrons ‘surfing’ on a previously excited plasma wave.

    • M. Litos
    • E. Adli
    • G. Yocky
    Letter
  • The insertion of an insulating layer into a multilayer light-emitting diode (LED) based on quantum dots and produced by depositing the layers from solution increases the performance of the LEDs to levels comparable to those of state-of-the-art organic LEDs produced by vacuum deposition, while retaining the advantages of solution processing.

    • Xingliang Dai
    • Zhenxing Zhang
    • Xiaogang Peng
    Letter
  • A chiral iridium complex serves as a sensitizer for photoredox catalysis and at the same time provides very effective asymmetric induction for the enantioselective alkylation of 2-acyl imidazoles; the metal centre simultaneously serves as the exclusive source of chirality, the catalytically active Lewis acid centre, and the photoredox centre.

    • Haohua Huo
    • Xiaodong Shen
    • Eric Meggers
    Letter
  • Policies have been in place since 1987 to reduce the release of chlorine atoms in the stratosphere, where they deplete ozone; here observations show that since 2007 hydrogen chloride has been increasing in the lower stratosphere of the Northern Hemisphere, an increase that is attributed to a slowdown in atmospheric circulation.

    • E. Mahieu
    • M. P. Chipperfield
    • K. A. Walker
    Letter
  • Here, new ecological communities are established using plants from mixed-species communities or monocultures; ecosystem functioning and morphological trait diversity are shown to be greater in plants from mixed-species communities, suggesting that biodiversity effects in natural communities strengthen over time.

    • Debra Zuppinger-Dingley
    • Bernhard Schmid
    • Dan F. B. Flynn
    Letter
  • A Nodal-related gene is uncovered in Hydra and is involved in setting up the body axis, and a β-Catenin–Nodal–Pitx signalling cassette is shown to have existed before the divergence of cnidarians, including Hydra, and bilaterians.

    • Hiroshi Watanabe
    • Heiko A. Schmidt
    • Thomas W. Holstein
    Letter
  • Whole-cell recordings in mouse somatosensory cortex in vivo show that rhythmic sensory-whisker stimulation induces long-term synaptic potentiation (LTP) in layer 2/3 (L2/3) pyramidal cells, in the absence of somatic spikes, through long-lasting NMDAR-mediated depolarizations that are generated by synaptic networks originating from the posteromedial complex of the thalamus.

    • Frédéric Gambino
    • Stéphane Pagès
    • Anthony Holtmaat
    Letter
  • Through a combination of experimental and computational approaches, the interplay between the plant hormone auxin and the auxin-induced PLETHORA transcription factors is shown to control zonation and gravity-prompted growth movements in plants.

    • Ari Pekka Mähönen
    • Kirsten ten Tusscher
    • Ben Scheres
    Letter
  • In mouse models of breast cancer, anti-CCL2 therapy—thought to be potentially useful in treating cancer—is shown to accelerate the growth of lung metastases on discontinuation due to a surge of recruitment of bone marrow monocytes and increased interleukin-6-dependent vascularization of the lung metastatic environment.

    • Laura Bonapace
    • Marie-May Coissieux
    • Mohamed Bentires-Alj
    Letter
  • The modification of uridine to pseudouridine is widespread in transfer and ribosomal RNAs but not observed so far in a coding RNA; here a new technique is used to detect this modification on a genome-wide scale, leading to the identification of pseudouridylation in messenger RNAs as well as almost 100 new sites in non-coding RNAs.

    • Thomas M. Carlile
    • Maria F. Rojas-Duran
    • Wendy V. Gilbert

    Collection:

    Letter
  • The CRISPR/Cas system is an RNA-guided bacterial protection system against foreign nucleic acids of bacterial and archaeal origin; here a high-resolution crystal structure of the CRIPSR RNA–Cas complex shows that the CRIPSR RNA plays an essential role not only in target recognition but also in complex assembly.

    • Hongtu Zhao
    • Gang Sheng
    • Yanli Wang
    Letter
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  • PROMOTIONAL FEATURE. Over the past eight years, the King Abdullah International Medical Research Centre (KAIMRC) has grown to become one of the most important research institutes in Saudi Arabia. Driven by a strong focus on biomedical research, it has fostered a rich multicultural environment that fuels its passion to save lives across the world.

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  • Human actions influence many of the ecosystems that provide us with essential products and services, we must therefore modify our behaviour so that ecosystems can operate in a sustainable way. This Insight discusses terrestrial agriculture, the relationship between societies and fire, and preserving natural ecosystems through protected areas.

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