Contents
Vol 330, Issue 6004
Special Issue
Epigenetics
Introduction to special issue
Reviews
Perspectives
Contents
This Week in Science
Editorial
Editors' Choice
Podcasts
- Science Podcast
The show includes distribution of exoplanets, cancer epigenetics, how people detect errors, and more.
Products & Materials
- New Products
A weekly roundup of information on newly offered instrumentation, apparatus, and laboratory materials of potential interest to researchers.
News of the Week
- Campaign for U.K. Science Helps Deflect Budget Ax
Despite warnings to expect funding cuts of 20%, 30%, or even 40%, the U.K. science budget has been fixed for the next 4 years at this year's amount, £4.6 billion ($7.2 billion).
- Liquid Water Found on Mars, But It's Still a Hard Road for Life
Researchers appear to have finally achieved one of the Phoenix lander's primary goals. After digging through piles of data left from the mission to Mars more than 2 years ago, they've discovered signs that liquid water has lately flowed on the frigid planet.
- From the Science Policy Blog
ScienceInsider reported this week that a battle over a prize in the life sciences that honors Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, president and longtime dictator of Equatorial Guinea, has ended with the effective cancellation of the award, among other stories
- Nobelist 'Coach' Takes On U.S. Science Education
Carl Wieman took up the job of associate director for science in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in September. He sat down with Science on 21 October to discuss the state of science, technology, engineering, and math education and how he became involved.
- From Science's Online Daily News Site
ScienceNOW reported this week that a new sensor can detect the explosive triacetone triperoxide, malaria in India is much worse than feared, exercise boosts muscle stem cells, and new clues to the origins of higher primates have been found, among other stories.
- 1000 Genomes Project Gives New Map of Genetic Diversity
The 1000 Genomes Project has produced a compendium of millions of previously unknown single-nucleotide polymorphisms and other variants, described in work published this week. A second analysis in this week's issue of Science describes an approach for determining another aspect of genetic variation that arises when genes and other stretches of DNA are duplicated.
- Leaked Documents Provide Bonanza for Researchers
The Pentagon is fuming after last week's release of a huge cache of classified Iraq War data by the organization WikiLeaks. But researchers struggling to build an accurate picture of the death toll in post-invasion Iraq are thrilled.
Random Samples
News Focus
- Epigenetic Drugs Take On Cancer
Armed with nearly $10 million raised by telethons, a research “dream team” hopes to prove that a new approach to cancer therapy can halt solid tumors.
- Genes Link Epigenetics and Cancer
Recent reports that genes affecting chromatin structure are mutated in several types of solid tumors could help resolve the conundrum of whether so-called epigenetic changes are a cause or a consequence of disease.
- Gene Variants Affect Hepatitis C Treatment, But Link Is Elusive
Genome scans have turned up single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with different responses to treatment, but efforts to uncover the mechanism have drawn a blank.
- Data Say Retention Is Better Answer to 'Shortage' Than Recruitment
Most efforts to improve education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics start with recruitment. But working with those teachers already in the classroom may yield a bigger payoff.
- What's in a Number?
How far would training 10,000 more science, technology, engineering, and math teachers a year for the next 10 years go toward achieving President Barack Obama's goal of making the country No. 1 in math and science education? No one seems to know.
- Going Back to the Future To Understand Climate Change
Several speakers at the meeting used paleontological data to predict the future, drawing on species' behavior during past episodes of climate change to predict how they will fare—and how to help them—as greenhouse gases warm the planet.
- Snapshots From the Meeting
Snapshots from the meeting include a clue to how the large, fleet-footed, meat-eating dinosaurs called abelisaurids used their stubby arms and evidence that climatic shifts can have a "kaleidoscopic" effect, breaking up communities of animals that then reassemble in new patterns.
- When Rodents Marched Into Paris
At the meeting, researchers announced the discovery of some of the world's oldest rodents, an important clue to the mystery of how the first modern mammals spread around the globe, replacing archaic animals and ushering in the age of modern mammals.
Letters
Books et al.
- Exploiting Entanglement
Writing for nonspecialists and the interested public and drawing heavily on research by him and his colleagues, Zeilinger discusses quantum entanglement, the development of our understanding of the phenomenon, and its potential technological uses.
- Unbounding the Mind
The contributors examine Clark and Chalmers's claim that the mind is not confined to the head but extends into the world and discuss its implications.
- Six-Legged Fun
This exhibition introduces the insect diversity of Portugal by guiding visitors through a series of questions that allow them to place sample species in their taxonomic order.
- Books Received
A listing of books received at Science during the week ended 22 October 2010.
Essays on Science and Society
- Physical Phenomena in Real Time
The use of videos allows teachers to tame the vagaries of experimentation while engaging students in the process of physics.
Policy Forum
- Sustaining the Data and Bioresource Commons
Globalization of biomedical research requires sustained investment for databases and biorepositories.
Perspectives
- Innate Lymphoid Cell Relations
A common progenitor cell gives rise to distinct lineages of innate lymphoid cells in the gastrointestinal tract.
- Caging Carbon Dioxide
A better understanding of amine-CO2 interactions may be pivotal in functionalizing novel adsorbents for carbon capture.
- Forced to Be Unequal
The distribution of a motor protein generates an unequal contractile force that controls the asymmetric division of eukaryotic cells.
- Epigenome Disruptors
What can stem cells tell us about epigenetic perturbations?
- A Little Chemistry Helps the Big Get Bigger
The coarsening of small metal particles can be enhanced when metal atoms are transported between particles as part of larger complexes.
- The Tao of Chloride Transporter Structure
A protein structure from a heat-loving alga offers insight into the diverse family of CLC chloride channels and transporters.
- Infection Protection and Natural Selection
On an island off Scotland, variation in sheep immune response imposes fitness costs and benefits.
- Georges Charpak (1924–2010)
A generous Nobel laureate had a passion for particle detectors and reforming science education.
Association Affairs
Brevia
- Magnitude of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Leak
Modeling videos suggest that around 4.4 million barrels of oil escaped from the broken Deepwater Horizon well.
Research Articles
- Structure of a Eukaryotic CLC Transporter Defines an Intermediate State in the Transport Cycle
The structure of a chloride transporter and its regulatory domain provides insight into the ion-exchange mechanism.
- Diversity of Human Copy Number Variation and Multicopy Genes
Specific gene copies can be identified in regions of high copy number variability in the human genome.
Reports
- Rate of Gas Phase Association of Hydroxyl Radical and Nitrogen Dioxide
Laboratory measurements of a critical atmospheric rate constant should improve predictions of tropospheric ozone formation.
- Direct Observation and Quantification of CO2 Binding Within an Amine-Functionalized Nanoporous Solid
Crystallographic resolution of bound carbon dioxide in a porous solid validates methods of theoretically predicting binding behavior.
- The Occurrence and Mass Distribution of Close-in Super-Earths, Neptunes, and Jupiters
About one-quarter of observed Sun-like stars harbors a close-in terrestrial-mass planet.
- Transferable GaN Layers Grown on ZnO-Coated Graphene Layers for Optoelectronic Devices
Graphene can replace sapphire crystals as the substrate for the growth of gallium nitride layers.
- Large δ13C Gradients in the Preindustrial North Atlantic Revealed
The preanthropogenic distribution of carbon isotopes in the North Atlantic provides a correct baseline for climate studies.
- Early Use of Pressure Flaking on Lithic Artifacts at Blombos Cave, South Africa
Tools dating to ~75,000 years ago show evidence of pressure flaking, long before the technique became widespread.
- Fitness Correlates of Heritable Variation in Antibody Responsiveness in a Wild Mammal
In Soay sheep, self-reactive antibodies are indicators of an evolutionary trade-off between survival and reproduction.
- Lineage Relationship Analysis of RORγt+ Innate Lymphoid Cells
Immune cells develop to preempt intestinal colonization by microbial symbionts.
- Filtering of Visual Information in the Tectum by an Identified Neural Circuit
A neural circuit in zebrafish is preferentially activated by small visual stimuli, facilitating the capture of prey.
- Visualizing Ribosome Biogenesis: Parallel Assembly Pathways for the 30S Subunit
A time-resolved electron microscopy method provides snapshots that reveal the mechanism of ribosome self-assembly.
- Polarized Myosin Produces Unequal-Size Daughters During Asymmetric Cell Division
Motor proteins help to produce developmentally distinct daughter cells during development
- A Size Threshold Limits Prion Transmission and Establishes Phenotypic Diversity
Yeast prion conformations specify phenotypes by affecting the size distribution of aggregates.
- Cognitive Illusions of Authorship Reveal Hierarchical Error Detection in Skilled Typists
One error-detection mechanism monitors the correctness of one’s action, whereas a second mechanism monitors the output.
- Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups
A metric for group performance on a battery of cognitive tasks yields a group intelligence quantity: collective intelligence.
From the AAAS Office of Publishing and Member Services
