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The fisheries industry around the world is in disarray. In some regions catches are stable and fishermen insist that all is well. Yet some researchers report fish numbers in dramatic decline and are calling for restrictions on fishing grounds. A central issue is the wisdom or otherwise of using estimates of the amount of fish hauled in by fishermen each year to assess the health of fisheries. In Comment this week we try to get to the facts. Daniel Pauly argues that catches, the only data available for many fisheries, are a crucial sign of the health of fish populations. Most fishermen today are catching fewer fish than their predecessors in the same waters. Catch data provide the information that researchers will need if they are to help reverse this trend. Ray Hilborn and Trevor Branch are not convinced. Many factors, not just abundance, determine the hauls of fishermen they say. Although important in terms of fisheries management, catch data alone cannot answer the question, how many fish are there in the sea? (Cover graphic: Denis Carrier).
That robust data are not collected on births, deaths and causes of death is a scandal. A new drive and greater investment are needed to grow the field of health metrics.
The week in science: Massive meteor hits Russia; world’s first clinical study to put iPS cells in humans gets green light; and head of Fukushima health survey steps down.
Genomic data hint at the possibility of human migration from India to Australia 4,230 years ago. However, the inference that these humans took along their dogs and tools is difficult to reconcile with previous reports.
Knowing how an organism's tissues handle stress throughout life is key to understanding ageing and disease. Stems cells of the blood system seem to tackle metabolic stress by means of a process called autophagy. See Article p.323
An innovative use of measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide constrains the possible range of carbon–cycle responses to climate change during the twenty-first century, lowering expectations of tropical-forest dieback. See Letter p.341
Viruses that infect the SAR11 group of oceanic bacteria have finally been found and sequenced. Because SAR11 is ubiquitous, these viruses may be the most abundant in the oceans — and perhaps in the entire biosphere. See Letter p.357
Fast-growing 'defector mutants' can threaten the success of a bacterial infection. But one bacterial species prevails over these cheats by forming a subpopulation that has shut down expression of virulence genes. See Letter p.353
Autophagy is shown to be an essential mechanism that protects haematopoietic stem cells from metabolic stress; the transcription factor FOXO3A maintains a pro-autophagy gene expression program that poises haematopoietic stem cells to rapidly mount a protective autophagic response upon metabolic stress.
In this study a supermassive black-hole mass is measured by tracing the motions of molecular gas clouds swirling around it, a technique that promises to allow measurements of black-hole mass in many more galaxies of all types than previously possible.
The diffraction of electrons through a nanoscale hologram that imprints a certain phase modulation on the electrons’ wavefunction produces a non-spreading electron Airy beam that follows a parabolic trajectory and can reconstruct its original shape after passing an obstacle.
A linear relationship between the sensitivity of tropical land carbon storage to warming and the sensitivity of the annual growth rate of atmospheric CO2 to tropical temperature anomalies provides a tight constraint on the sensitivity of tropical land carbon to climate change.
A genetic and behavioural study in related species of Nasonia wasps reveals how pheromone changes relevant to speciation could evolve through genes creating a new pheromone component by changing the stereochemistry of an existing pheromone molecule.
The resilience of a global sample of ecosystems to an increase in drought conditions is assessed, comparing data from the early twenty-first with the late twentieth century; results indicate a cross-ecosystem capacity for tolerating low precipitation and responding to high precipitation during recent warm drought and yet suggest a threshold to resilience with prolonged warm drought.
Viruses are isolated from the SAR11 bacterial clade, the most abundant group of bacteria in the ocean, that were thought to be resistant to viral infection; because of the essential role of SAR11 in carbon cycling these viruses are also an important factor in biogeochemical cycling.
T-helper-1-cell cytokines tumour necrosis factor and interferon-γ are shown to drive tumour cells into senescence in a mouse model of β-cell carcinoma and human carcinoma cells.
The DNA cytosine deaminase APOBEC3B is shown to be overexpressed and highly active in most breast cancers; deamination by APOBEC3B could serve as an endogenous, continual source of DNA damage leading to mutations, including C-to-T transitions and other aberrations seen in many breast tumours.
MG53 acts as an E3 ligase that targets the insulin receptor and IRS1 for ubiquitin-dependent degradation; when MG53 is upregulated, metabolic syndrome ensues.
The crystal structure of the complex between the hydroxylase and regulatory component of soluble methane monooxygenase is presented, revealing how the latter component controls substrate access to the hydroxylase active site.
High-resolution cryo-electron microscopy shows that the Trypanosoma brucei kinetoplastid ribosome is characterized by the presence of large expansion segments, ribosomal-protein extensions and additional rRNA insertions, which may have implications for the protein-translation regulation process.