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Volume 530 Issue 7590, 18 February 2016

Damaged seagrass meadow edge showing exposed rhizomes and roots that sequester carbon, stabilize the substratum and provide the foundational support for one of the most productive and biologically diverse ecosystems on Earth. The photograph was taken near Kolaviken, the Archipelago Sea, south-west Finland. Zostera marina, or eelgrass, is widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere. It is therefore of considerable ecological importance but � as with other seagrasses � its coastal habitats are among the world’s most threatened ecosystems. Jeanine Olsen and colleagues report the whole-genome sequence of Zostera. Their analyses provide insights into the evolutionary changes associated with the ‘back to the sea� reverse evolutionary trajectory that has occurred in this angiosperm lineage, including the loss of the entire repertoire of stomatal genes and the presence of sulfated cell-wall polysaccharides that are more macro-algal-like than plant-like. Cover photo by Pekka Tuuri.

Editorial

  • Environmental agencies must go much further in regulating aircraft emissions if they want to make a real difference.

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  • Success against cancer need not deliver the Moon.

    Editorial
  • Scientists should pay more heed to the varying effects of diet and environment on animal work.

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World View

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Research Highlights

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Social Selection

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Seven Days

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News

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Correction

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News Feature

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Comment

  • It is time to crack down on the emissions and destructive development caused by vast container vessels that pollute the air and seas, write Zheng Wan and colleagues.

    • Zheng Wan
    • Mo Zhu
    • Daniel Sperling
    Comment
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Books & Arts

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Clarification

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Correspondence

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Obituary

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News & Views

  • The force exerted by light on an object has been used to pair photons with quantum units of mechanical vibration. This paves the way for mechanical oscillators to act as interfaces between photons and other quantum systems. See Letter p.313

    • Miles Blencowe
    News & Views
  • Cross-cultural experiments find that belief in moralistic, knowledgeable and punishing gods promotes cooperation with strangers, supporting a role for religion in the expansion of human societies. See Letter p.327

    • Dominic D. P. Johnson
    News & Views
  • It emerges that ice discharge from a major ice sheet did not increase rapidly at the end of the most recent ice age. The finding points to steady, not catastrophic, ice-sheet loss and sea-level rise on millennial timescales. See Letter p.322

    • Jason P. Briner
    News & Views
  • The fission of organelles called mitochondria has now been linked to the stress-sensor protein AMPK. When activated by stress, this protein phosphorylates the mitochondrial receptor protein MFF, which recruits the fission machinery.

    • Chunxin Wang
    • Richard Youle
    News & Views
  • The discovery of sex-biased proliferation in the intestinal stem cells of fruit-fly midguts reveals that the organ's size is determined by a previously undefined, sex-specific molecular pathway. See Letter p.344

    • Justin Fear
    • Brian Oliver
    News & Views
  • The genome sequence of the marine flowering plant eelgrass (Zostera marina) sheds light on how marine algae evolved into land plants before moving back to the sea. See Letter p.331

    • Susan L. Williams
    News & Views
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Article

  • The peptidergic neuronal circuit controlling sigh generation has been identified as ~200 Nmb- or Grp-expressing neurons in the RTN/pFRG breathing control centre of the medulla that project to ~200 receptor-expressing neurons in the respiratory rhythm generator, the preBötzinger Complex.

    • Peng Li
    • Wiktor A. Janczewski
    • Jack L. Feldman
    Article
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Letter

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Technology Feature

  • Drug discovery is a daunting process that requires chemists to sift through millions of chemicals to find a single hit. DNA technology can dramatically speed up the search.

    • Asher Mullard

    Collection:

    Technology Feature
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Feature

  • Unsettled markets lead to shifting employment prospects for petroleum geoscientists.

    • Virginia Gewin
    Feature
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Q&A

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Career Brief

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Futures

  • Flight into danger.

    • Andrea Kriz
    Futures
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