Contents
Vol 332, Issue 6035
Contents
This Week in Science
Editorial
Editors' Choice
Podcasts
- Science Podcast
The show includes assessing microcredit programs, preschool's lasting impacts, the archaeology of human cognition, 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, Brazil's environment agency approved construction of an immense hydroelectric station in the Amazon rainforest, a spending bill passed by the House of Representatives would drastically downsize science and technology programs at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the World Health Organization has concluded that cell phones may be carcinogenic, and a new report warns that international funding needed to maintain progress in fighting HIV/AIDS has been declining.
- Random Sample
National Academies reports can now be downloaded free of charge. Researchers have attempted to mate a pair of rare corpse flowers. And this week's numbers quantify Arctic lands that will be unreachable by 2050 and points devoted to a math problem later found to be unsolvable.
- Newsmakers
This week's Newsmakers are Rosalyn Yalow, winner of the 1977 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for developing a radioimmunoassay for measuring minute quantities of hormones in blood with radioactive tracers, who died on 30 May at the age of 89; and the winners of the 2011 Gruber Cosmology Prize and the Shaw Prizes, which highlight achievements in astrophysics, immunology, and geometry.
Findings
News & Analysis
- Scientists Rush to Study Genome of Lethal E. coli
Scientists are getting to know the pathogen causing the deadliest outbreak of enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli bacteria on record in unprecedented detail via tweets, wikis, and blogs.
- Computer Scientist Goes on Offensive to Defend Climate Scientists
John Mashey is spending his retirement years compiling voluminous critiques of what he calls the "real conspiracy" to produce "climate antiscience."
- Mice Prompt Look at Cholesterol's Role in Female Fertility
A small group of researchers is wondering whether cholesterol helps maintain fertility—and whether cholesterol abnormalities impair a woman's ability to get and stay pregnant.
- Stigma of HIV Imperils Hard-Won Strides in Saving Lives
Critics warn that further gains in lowering AIDS mortality in China are jeopardized by rampant discrimination against HIV-infected individuals and the entrenched stigma of homosexuality in China.
- Planetary Two-Step Reshaped Solar System, Saved Earth?
A new model of the early solar system shows that its fate was changed forever when Saturn snagged the inrushing Jupiter and together they backed off before driving the still-growing Earth into oblivion.
News Focus
- A Bengali Recipe for Disaster
Under a thick blanket of mud in the Bengal Basin, the crust is twisting and crumpling. A major earthquake is inevitable. Can the region's teeming, shoddily built cities avert calamity?
- Enceladus Now Looks Wet, So It May Be ALIVE!
Accumulating evidence from a Saturn orbiter points to liquid water in a distant moon, but further investigation of this likely habitable zone may be out of reach.
- South African Cave Slowly Shares Secrets of Human Culture
In the hands of a skilled archaeologist, a South African site serves as a laboratory for testing ideas about early human culture and cognition.
Letters
Books et al.
- A Roadmap to Nature's Benefits
The contributors highlight tools for implementing the concept of ecosystem services in biodiversity conservation, development, and sustainability efforts.
- Why We Laugh
Contemplating why we find some things funny, the authors provide cognitive and evolutionary perspectives on humor and its importance to humans.
Education Forum
- Preparing Future Math Teachers
Poor precollege math abilities, and too little emphasis on college-level math, can reduce the number of highly capable math teachers.
Perspectives
- No Need to Coax Monocytes
Although inflammation has been thought to rely on recruitment of macrophages from the blood, tissue macrophages can proliferate for an inflammatory response.
- Taking the High Road and Getting There Before You
Quantum-mechanical tunneling causes an organic molecule to follow the “wrong” reaction pathway with a higher energy barrier.
- New mTOR Targets Grb Attention
The cellular phosphorylation targets of an important growth promoting enzyme are identified and may provide clinically relevant insights.
- Why Finance Matters
A study from the Philippines adds to the case for rethinking the use and impact of microcredit loans.
Review
Research Articles
- Microcredit in Theory and Practice: Using Randomized Credit Scoring for Impact Evaluation
A randomized controlled trial reveals both expected and surprising effects of microcredit.
- Local Macrophage Proliferation, Rather than Recruitment from the Blood, Is a Signature of TH2 Inflammation
Proliferation in situ, rather than immune cell recruitment, drives macrophage expansion in response to parasitic infection.
Reports
- Real-Time Dynamics of Quantized Vortices in a Unitary Fermi Superfluid
A generalized theoretical approach is developed to describe the dynamics and phase transitions of Fermi superfluids.
- Transformation Optics Using Graphene
Simulations show that control of the conductivity of a region within a graphene sheet could guide optical waves.
- Wafer-Scale Graphene Integrated Circuit
Components such as inductors were fabricated alongside graphene transistors to create integrated radio-frequency mixers.
- Endotoxin-Induced Structural Transformations in Liquid Crystalline Droplets
Bacterial lipid A was detected by its interactions with defects in droplet-confined liquid crystals.
- Methylhydroxycarbene: Tunneling Control of a Chemical Reaction
Quantum tunneling induces the opposite outcome expected from traditional kinetic factors in a chemical rearrangement.
- Origin and Evolution of Prebiotic Organic Matter As Inferred from the Tagish Lake Meteorite
The study of organic matter in a well-preserved meteorite provides insight into processes that affected its parent asteroids.
- Activation of Visual Pigments by Light and Heat
Thermal activation of visual pigments involves the same chromophore-isomerization reaction as does light activation.
- A DNA Damage Response Screen Identifies RHINO, a 9-1-1 and TopBP1 Interacting Protein Required for ATR Signaling
A screen identifies proteins not previously known to function in protecting cells from DNA damage.
- The mTOR-Regulated Phosphoproteome Reveals a Mechanism of mTORC1-Mediated Inhibition of Growth Factor Signaling
A search for substrates of a growth-promoting kinase revealed a regulatory feedback loop involved in tumor suppression.
- Phosphoproteomic Analysis Identifies Grb10 as an mTORC1 Substrate That Negatively Regulates Insulin Signaling
A search for substrates of a growth-promoting kinase revealed a regulatory feedback loop involved in tumor suppression.
- Adaptation and Evolutionary Rescue in Metapopulations Experiencing Environmental Deterioration
Dispersal and previous exposure to stress help yeast adapt to highly stressful environments.
- Nicotine Decreases Food Intake Through Activation of POMC Neurons
Nicotine decreases weight gain by targeting a brain pathway involved in the regulation of energy balance and food intake.
