Contents
Vol 332, Issue 6029
Contents
This Week in Science
Editorial
Editors' Choice
Podcasts
- Science Podcast
The show includes dolphin research ethics, organic light-emitting transistors, your letters to Science, 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
- Around the World
In science news around the world this week, scientists have completed the first phase of an expedition to understand the origin and effects of soot on the Arctic's climate, the U.S. Department of Energy has sketched out the radiation risks over the next year to people living near Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, officials have reached milestones for boosting science and the environment in the aftermath of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Southeast Asian nations have halted plans for a 1260-megawatt hydropower dam on the Mekong River in northern Laos, and plans to build new nuclear reactors in Italy have stalled following March's accident at the Fukushima plant in Japan.
- Random Sample
Bio:Fiction, the world's first synthetic biology film festival, will be held at the Museum of Natural History in Vienna from 13 to 14 May. And this week's numbers quantify the intensity of the Large Hadron Collider's proton beams and the amount a developer has donated to the University of Michigan for stem cell research.
- Newsmakers
This week's Newsmaker is German filmmaker Werner Herzog, whose 3D documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, tours the Chauvet Cave system in southern France and chronicles scientists' efforts to unearth its secrets.
Findings
News & Analysis
- U.S. Spending Bill Limits Joint Efforts With China
Representative Frank Wolf (R–VA) has added a spending ban to the final agreement on the 2011 budget that cuts off funding for a host of scientific interactions between the United States and China.
- Peering Back 13 Billion Years, Through a Gravitational Lens
A team of researchers has made the first direct detection of gravitational lensing of cosmic microwave background radiation, the faint afterglow of the big bang that suffuses the universe.
- Shortages of Cancer Drugs Put Patients, Trials at Risk
A shortage of cytarabine, a crucial drug for many leukemia patients, including children, has drawn an outcry from oncologists around the country. Many other generic cancer drugs are also in short supply, experts say.
- Faculties Wither as Higher Education System Rapidly Expands
India has opened more than 100 elite higher education institutions in the past 5 years, yet almost a third of faculty positions at elite institutions—both new and long established—are vacant due to an acute shortage of trained teachers.
- ‘Breakthrough’ Deal on Flu Strains Has Modest Provisions
When negotiators finally reached a deal about the global sharing of influenza viruses on 15 April, the World Health Organization was quick to call it a "landmark agreement." But the most significant breakthrough may be that, after 4 years of complex and often contentious negotiations, there is a deal at all.
News Focus
- Are Dolphins Too Smart for Captivity?
A new movement seeks to end all dolphin research in zoos and aquariums, but critics say that could kill a productive field and hurt these animals in the wild.
- Using the Psychology of Evil To Do Good
Forty years after the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment, Phil Zimbardo thinks he can apply its lessons to teach ordinary people to be heroes.
- Jeremy Berg: An Independent Scientist Departs NIH's Ranks
The outgoing director of the basic research institute at the U.S. National Institutes of Health has won scientists' hearts and minds by championing transparency.
- A New Ancestor for Homo?
South African researchers announced in talks at the Paleoanthropology Society and American Association of Physical Anthropologists meetings that they had found bones and teeth from at least four individuals of a new species of early human, Australopithecus sediba.
- Ancient Footprints Tell Tales of Travel
By scrutinizing a 120,000-year-old trail of footprints, researchers have gotten their first snapshot of what a traveling group of archaic humans looked like, according to paleoanthropologists reporting at the American Association of Physical Anthropologists meeting.
- Snapshots From the Meeting
Snapshots from the American Association of Physical Anthropologists meeting include a piece of a thighbone that fits perfectly on top of a broken bone found 29 years earlier and three new wrist bones from a second individual of the diminutive "Hobbit" from the Indonesian island of Flores.
Letters
Books et al.
- Laws of Cooperation
Teaming up with science writer Highfield to address lay readers, Nowak argues for the fundamental importance of cooperation throughout life's history.
- Dodging Responsibility
Focusing primarily on politicians and bureaucrats, Hood discusses the extent and impact of efforts to avoid blame.
Essays on Science and Society
- Science Buddies: Advancing Informal Science Education
An innovative nonprofit enables scientists to present inspiring project ideas based on their own research to K–12 students, parents, and teachers.
Policy Forum
- Ethical Framework for Biofuels
Biofuels policies must protect human rights and the environment.
Perspectives
- Damping by Depletion
An immunoregulatory protein removes ligands from antigen-presenting cells, thereby suppressing immune responses.
- Phase-Change Memories on a Diet
Device design helps reduce the power requirements for switching phase-change memory.
- The Two Faces of SAM
An unusual radical mechanism enables ribosome methylation in bacteria.
- How Do You Want That Insulator?
A normal insulator is turned into an exotic topological insulator by tuning its elemental composition.
- Alternative Actions for Antibiotics
Compounds recognized as having antibiotic functions may have other possible roles in microbial interactions.
- Thomas Eisner (1929–2011)
A biologist who marveled at insects and their arsenal of compounds sparked the field of chemical ecology.
Association Affairs
Review
Reports
- Topological Phase Transition and Texture Inversion in a Tunable Topological Insulator
Two types of bulk insulator are realized in the same family of compounds through chemical doping.
- Orbital-Independent Superconducting Gaps in Iron Pnictides
Bulk photoemission studies of iron pnictides suggest a role for orbital fluctuations in creating the superconducting state.
- Low-Power Switching of Phase-Change Materials with Carbon Nanotube Electrodes
The crystallinity and resistivity of a compound semiconductor was changed with current pulses delivered by nanoelectrodes.
- Low-Voltage, Low-Power, Organic Light-Emitting Transistors for Active Matrix Displays
Efficient organic light-emitting transistors use carbon nanotubes as the source electrode.
- Proton-Catalyzed, Silane-Fueled Friedel-Crafts Coupling of Fluoroarenes
Silicon-fluorine bond formation expands the range of compounds that can be used in a reaction that forms carbon-carbon bonds.
- Venus’s Southern Polar Vortex Reveals Precessing Circulation
Observations with the Venus Express Orbiter reveal complex polar atmospheric dynamics.
- Surface-Generated Mesoscale Eddies Transport Deep-Sea Products from Hydrothermal Vents
Deep-reaching eddies transport heat and material hundreds of kilometers from the northern East Pacific Rise.
- Brain Evolution Triggers Increased Diversification of Electric Fishes
Evolution of the perceptual abilities of mormyrid electric fishes increased signal variation and species diversification.
- Self-Organizing and Stochastic Behaviors During the Regeneration of Hair Stem Cells
Cycling of active and quiescent states of the hair follicle integrates activator and inhibitor signals for patterning.
- Conserved Eukaryotic Fusogens Can Fuse Viral Envelopes to Cells
A Caenorhabditis elegans cell-surface fusion protein can promote viral fusion with mammalian cells.
- The Spatial Periodicity of Grid Cells Is Not Sustained During Reduced Theta Oscillations
Grid cell firing vanished after medial septum inhibition, while most hippocampal place cell firing was retained.
- Reduction of Theta Rhythm Dissociates Grid Cell Spatial Periodicity from Directional Tuning
Inhibition of neuronal activity in the medial septum stops grid cells in the medial entorhinal cortex from firing in a grid.
- Trans-Endocytosis of CD80 and CD86: A Molecular Basis for the Cell-Extrinsic Function of CTLA-4
An inhibitory T cell receptor acts by stripping activating ligands off dendritic cells.
- A Radically Different Mechanism for S-Adenosylmethionine–Dependent Methyltransferases
Methylation of the bacterial ribosome by two methyltransferases proceeds by an unusual radical mechanism.
- A Crystal Structure of the Complex Between Human Complement Receptor 2 and Its Ligand C3d
The topology of this molecular interface provides a foundation for the design of therapeutics against autoreactive B cells.
Technical Comments
