Contents
Vol 319, Issue 5871
Contents
This Week in Science
Editorial
Editors' Choice
Departments
Multimedia
- Video: Gene Regulation
A video introduction focusing on RNA's role in gene regulation and the evolution of life.
Products & Materials
News of the Week
- Roads, Ports, Rails Aren't Ready for Changing Climate, Says Report
A federal study released this month documents the significant impact that climate change is expected to have on the U.S. transportation system, offering "a pretty damning tale of what could happen."
- Study Fingers Soot as a Major Player in Global Warming
According to a new analysis reported online this week in Nature Geoscience, climate scientists may have seriously underestimated the role that tiny particles of black carbon, or soot, play in global warming.
- Smart Birds Lend a Beak for Food
Scientists report this week that rooks, like chimpanzees, can cooperate in food-getting tasks. The insight may help explain how cooperation evolved so spectacularly in humans.
- NIH Reports Breach of Patient Records
The theft last month of a laptop with patient data from a clinical trial under way at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, is fueling broader concerns about privacy.
- Elusive Pathogen Cornered at Last
Researchers have discovered an environmental hiding place for the bacteria that cause a devastating disease known as Buruli ulcer. The accomplishment marks a major milestone in efforts to understand and control one of the world's most neglected tropical diseases.
- China's Modern Medical Minister
A reshuffle this month put China’s minister of health, Chen Zhu, in charge of the State Food and Drug Administration. Science interviewed him about the tension between Western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine, a plan to strengthen medical research, and the more open research atmosphere in China since the SARS outbreak in 2003.
- Saudi Start-Up Hopes Grants Will Buy Time
An unusual graduate university rising in the Saudi Arabian desert is funding the research of top scientists from around the world in hopes that they will share their expertise and contacts to help the school launch its own research programs.
News
- MicroRNAs Make Big Impression in Disease After Disease
Hunting for new ways to diagnose and treat common diseases, biologists and companies are racing to decipher the promise of these RNAs.
ScienceScope
Random Samples
Newsmakers
News Focus
- Science by the Masses
By offering prizes on behalf of clients seeking scientific and engineering help, an Internet company called InnoCentive has gathered a virtual work force of 135,000 problem-solvers from around the world.
- Weighing the Climate Risks of an Untapped Fossil Fuel
As the energy industry hungrily eyes methane hydrates, scientists ponder the fuel’s impact on climate.
- With New Disease Genes, a Bounty of Questions
New techniques, including genome-wide associations, are identifying new disease risk factors; researchers are uncertain what they mean--and what to advise patients.
- Cooking Up the Solar System From the Right Ingredients
At the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, cosmochemists reported measurements of the oxygen isotopic composition of the sun that indicate that isotopically as well as physically, Earth is not at the center of things.
- New Piece of the Solar System Puzzle Fits In
At a special session at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, researchers finally identified two broken pieces of a meteorite that had defied classification.
- Snapshots From the Meeting
Snapshots from the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference include remnant martian ice and a crater that shouldn’t exist.
- What Was a 'Wet and Warm' Early Mars Really Like?
A workshop focused on the first period of martian geologic history, held prior to the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, came to few conclusions about Mars’s transition from warm and wet to cold and dry.
Letters
Books
- Another Approach to Consilience
Many who dream of unifying scientific and humanistic thinking seem to hold a one-sided view of the resulting whole: that the study of topics in the arts and humanities should be informed by science. Lehrer and Edwards offer a range of examples that suggest the benefits from working in the other direction.
- Explaining the Cosmos to the People
The author provides a scholarly, detailed consideration of the bloom of books by writers and journalists who presented science to the British public through the second half of the 19th century.
Policy Forum
- The Planet Debate Continues
The IAU decisions a year ago to define "planet" narrowly and to demote Pluto have not been universally accepted.
Perspectives
- Multitasking in Tissues and Materials
Insights into the role played by a modified amino acid residue in structural biological tissues are helping to develop biomimetic materials.
- A Milestone in Time Keeping
Researchers have made atomic clocks so precise that effects of general relativity are on the verge of complicating the concept of keeping time.
- When a Commodity Is Not Exactly a Commodity
Economic transactions for services such as health and elder care are complicated by personal interactions and emotional connections.
- Recording Earth's Vital Signs
Fifty years ago, continuous measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide were begun at Mauna Loa, Hawaii.
- A Postgenomic Visual Icon
A decade of experience in visualizing large-scale genotypic and phenotypic data as heat maps has illuminated the strengths and limitations of the approach.
Association Affairs
Review
Introduction to special issue
Special Perspectives
Brevia
- Dynamics of Saturn's South Polar Vortex
Observations from Cassini show that the cloud vortex at Saturn’s south pole shares some features with hurricanes (such as an eye wall), but forms by a different mechanism.
Reports
- Magnetar-Like Emission from the Young Pulsar in Kes 75
A pulsar exhibits x-ray bursts like that seen only in magnetars, which have ultrahigh magnetic fields, implying that neutron stars exhibit a continuum of magnetic activity.
- Sr Lattice Clock at 1 × 10–16 Fractional Uncertainty by Remote Optical Evaluation with a Ca Clock
Two clocks based on optical transitions in single trapped ions, set 4 kilometers apart, are able to keep time within a fractional error of 1 × 10-16, better than the standard atomic clock.
- Frequency Ratio of Al+ and Hg+ Single-Ion Optical Clocks; Metrology at the 17th Decimal Place
Precise measurements of the frequency ratio of two optical clocks indicate that the fine-structure constant is fine and constant to an uncertainty of 10-17.
- Self-Assembly of Large and Small Molecules into Hierarchically Ordered Sacs and Membranes
Mixing of a high–molecular weight polymer with a low–molecular weight peptide amphiphile instantly forms repairable membrane sacs large enough to encapsulate cells.
- The Transition from Stiff to Compliant Materials in Squid Beaks
The squid beak, sharp and hard only at the tip, exhibits a chemical gradient that tailors its mechanical properties to prevent damage to the attached soft muscle tissue.
- Determining Transition-State Geometries in Liquids Using 2D-IR
Tracking vibrational modes through a transition state by spectroscopy reveals an iron compound’s thermal ligand rearrangement, which was previously too fast to monitor.
- Surface Trapping of Atoms and Molecules with Dipole Rings
Holes in a boron nitride surface ringed by in-plane dipoles form a nanometer-scale pore network with a trapping potential that can hold weakly adsorbed molecules.
- Nutritional Control of Reproductive Status in Honeybees via DNA Methylation
Epigenetic modifications that involve methylation cause female honeybee larvae to become queens rather than workers when they are fed royal jelly.
- Structure of the Immature Dengue Virus at Low pH Primes Proteolytic Maturation
Dengue and West Nile viruses mature when the envelope protein precursor is cleaved at low pH, and then the cleavage product dissociates outside the cell, allowing infection.
- Insect Odorant Receptors Are Molecular Targets of the Insect Repellent DEET
The widely used insect repellent DEET acts by inhibiting olfactory neurons that respond to odors such as those that attract insects to their hosts.
- Aversive Learning Enhances Perceptual and Cortical Discrimination of Indiscriminable Odor Cues
After association of negative stimuli to one of a pair of initially indistinguishable odors, human participants learn to tell the two odors apart and show altered brain representations.
- Electric Fields Due to Synaptic Currents Sharpen Excitatory Transmission
The electrical field set up by currents within the synaptic cleft can influence diffusion of negatively charged neurotransmitters, such as glutamate, and prolong excitatory events.
- Rule Learning by Rats
Rats can learn the rules governing simple sequences of stimuli and then unexpectedly can generalize these rules to new situations.
From the AAAS Office of Publishing and Member Services
