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The mechanical properties of structural ceramics are characterized by a high degree of fragility and brittleness. This study demonstrates that, contrary to expectation, their brittleness can be reduced substantially by introducing nanopores together with weak grain boundary phases.
The spin Hall effect and its inverse allow conversion between charge and spin currents in both magnetic and nonmagnetic materials. Weiet al.observe an anomaly in the temperature dependence of the inverse spin Hall effect, which suggests that it can also be used as a sensor for very small magnetic moments.
Inducing superconductivity in topological insulators by proximity to superconductors is a promising strategy for quantum computing. Here the authors induce high-temperature superconductivity in the topological insulators Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3by placing them in contact with a cuprate superconductor.
The pulvinar nucleus is involved in modulating visual information. Fischer and Whitney use brain imaging to study the pulvinar during visual attention, and find that the positions and orientations of attended objects are precisely encoded in the pulvinar, while information about ignored objects is gated out.
Seizure activity in the brain is characterized by the recruitment of cortical neuronal activity. Schevon and colleagues study seizure activity in human subjects and find that the recruitment of neurons is hypersynchronous and that there is an intrinsic restraint on the propagation of this activity.
Microscopic imaging techniques have a high spatio-temporal resolution but, in living animals, are hampered by cardiac and respiratory motion. This paper describes a microscopic setup that allows fluorescent confocal imaging of the beating mouse heart over a period of several hours.
Environmental factors can influence one's susceptibility to cancer, but it is not clear whether such an influence extends beyond the directly exposed generations. Here, feeding pregnant rats with a high-fat diet or a hormone derivative, the authors observe increased breast cancer risk in up to three subsequent generations.
Cyclin B–Cdk1 is thought to be synonymous with the promoting factor that drives entry into M-phase of the cell cycle. Here, Greatwall kinase is shown to be required for the breakdown of the nuclear envelope and the assembly of the spindle on entry into M-phase, suggesting that it too is a part of the M-phase-promoting factor.
TGF-β signalling suppresses tumorigenesis in breast cancer cells but its effects on breast cancer initiating cells have not been reported. Using cells in culture, Brunaet al. show that TGF-β increases breast cancer initiating cell numbers in cells that have low levels of the tight junction protein claudin.
Methanol is an important industrial chemical and liquid fuel, and is usually produced by the syn-gas route from natural gas. Wuet al. develop a new catalytic process that directly converts ethylene glycol, derived from biomass or fossil fuels, to methanol in hydrogen using a Pd/Fe2O3co-precipitated catalyst.
Permanent magnets based on magnetic ferrites such as Fe3O4 and Fe2O3 are used in a wide range of applications. This study demonstrates that introducing rhodium into nanoparticles consisting of the ε phase of Fe2O3gives rise to a very high coercivity.
Frequency comb synthesizers are important for metrology, but they have been difficult to use as frequency rulers in the terahertz region due to their low power. Consolinoet al. phase-lock a quantum cascade laser to a free-space-propagating terahertz comb, demonstrating that they can overcome this limitation.
The iron–sulphur enzyme IspH catalyses the final step of the methylerythritol phosphate isoprenoid biosynthesis pathway. Spanet al. report that IspH can hydrate acetylenes to aldehydes and ketones, in addition to its role as a 2H+/2e−reductase.
Spin dynamics in magnetic materials can be driven by ultrafast light pulses, resulting in transient magnetization changes on femtosecond timescales. Rudolphet al. find that in magnetic trilayers the magnetization of one layer can be enhanced by superdiffusive spin currents from adjacent layers.
Blind quantum computation is a protocol that permits an algorithm, its input and output to be kept secret from the owner of the computational resource doing the calculation. Morimae and Fujii propose a strategy for topologically protected fault-tolerant blind quantum computation that is robust to environmental noise.
Reconstructing short-term plate-motion changes through time provides important geodynamical information, but data noise is a problem at fine temporal resolution. This study presents a trans-dimensional hierarchical Bayesian framework that eliminates noise without loss of temporal resolution.
The paratympanic organ in the avian middle ear is similar to the fish spiracular organ, but its developmental origin is unresolved. O'Neillet al. use fate mapping techniques to show that the avian paratympanic organ and its afferent neurons arise from a previously undiscovered neurogenic placode.
Many drugs exist that target the β-adrenergic receptor, but they have different efficacies. Kofukuet al. use NMR to show that methionine 82 in the transmembrane domain undergoes conformational changes depending on whether agonists or inverse agonists are bound, explaining the differential drug efficacy.
Sex pheromones are used by adult members of a species to attract a mate. This study proposes that the larvae of the cotton leafwormSpodoptera littoralisare attracted to sex pheromones and prefer a food source containing it, suggesting an alternative use of the sex pheromone to trigger food search in caterpillars.
Mast cells are mediators of type I allergic disease and inflammation. Here, Kurashimaet al. show that mast cells are increased in the colons of mice with colitis, and that activation of the cells and subsequent inflammation can be blocked by inhibition of the purinoceptor, P2X7.