Contents
Vol 335, Issue 6067
Contents
This Week in Science
Editorial
Editors' Choice
Podcasts
- Science Podcast
The show includes repeatability in natural selection, livestock grazing and locust outbreaks, new frontiers in supercomputing, 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, outbreaks of H5N1 continue in poultry in south and southeast Asia—and the human death toll mounts; the University of Tokyo plans to shift the start of its school year from April to autumn; researchers are looking for signs of life in the Tissint meteorites; the Natural History Museum in London is under fire for its scientific cooperation with an Israeli company that conducts research in the occupied West Bank; Marco Antônio Raupp will become Brazil's new minister of science, technology, and innovation; and NASA's twin moon orbiters were officially christened Ebb and Flow.
- Random Sample
Peerage of Science, an online social network founded by three Finnish ecologists, aims to provide journals with already-peer-reviewed manuscripts. And this week's numbers quantify NIH grant success rates and the number of bats that have died from white nose syndrome.
- Newsmakers
This week's Newsmakers are Terence Tao of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Jean Bourgain of the Institute for Advanced Study, winners of the Crafoord Prize in mathematics; Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and Andrea Ghez of UCLA, who will claim the prize for astronomy; and Cristián Samper, who in August will become the president and CEO of the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Findings
News & Analysis
- Flu Controversy Spurs Research Moratorium
Amid a growing global controversy over the potential dangers of experiments involving the H5N1 avian influenza virus, a group of leading influenza researchers last week agreed to a 60-day moratorium on some sensitive flu studies.
- Ron Fouchier: In the Eye of the Storm
Science talked to Ron Fouchier of Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, who carried out one of the two controversial H5N1 avian influenza studies that triggered the international debate.
- An Explosive Return of the 'Great Pox'
As a result of widespread migration, rising inequality, and evolving sexual mores, China now holds the dubious title of the nation with the largest increase in reported syphilis cases in the penicillin era.
- Worldwide Telescope Aims to Look Into Milky Way Galaxy's Black Heart
Last week, astronomers gathered to work out a plan to combine data from radio telescopes worldwide and create, in effect, a dish the size of Earth that will be able to peer into our galaxy's heart.
- DOE Funding Crunch Threatens Future of Only U.S. Collider Still Running
A $500 million upgrade planned for early next decade would enable the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider to answer a key puzzle about the proton itself—if RHIC doesn't fall victim to budget cuts.
News Focus
- What It'll Take to Go Exascale
Scientists hope the next generation of supercomputers will carry out a million trillion operations per second. But first they must change the way the machines are built and run.
- Ferreting Out the Hidden Cracks in the Heart of a Continent
Deep beneath the central United States, researchers find signs of buried faults that have triggered earthquakes in the past—and may still be kicking.
- Modernizing an Academic Monastery
The venerable Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences has been trying to reinvent itself by applying behavioral science to 21st century problems.
Letters
Books et al.
- Ecocide or Utopia on Easter Island?
Drawing on their own primary research, Hunt and Lipo argue that Easter Island's population did not collapse from human exploitation of the environment.
- The Pursuit of Love
Combining historical and ethnographic perspectives, Silverman explores the various ways in which researchers, practitioners, and activists have interpreted and responded to autism.
- Books Received
A listing of books received at Science during the week ending 20 January 2012.
Essays on Science and Society
- An Inquiry-Based Curriculum for Nonmajors
Light, Sight, and Rainbows, the IBI prize-winning module, provides questions for exploring simple atmospheric phenomena.
Policy Forum
- Mixed Messages on Prices and Food Security
We need a more nuanced debate on how prices and policies affect food security; neither high nor low prices are panaceas.
Perspectives
- Antigen Feast or Famine
The asymmetric distribution of antigen during B cell division affects the fate of B cells and their function.
- A Clearer View from Fuzzy Images
Jumping spiders use defocus as a gauge of depth perception to locate prey.
- The Role of Coevolution
Coevolution of a virus and a bacterium leads to the emergence of a key adaptive innovation.
- The Risk of Prion Zoonoses
Transmission of prions between species through both lymphoid and neural tissues has implications for public health and risk management.
- Creating New Types of Carbon-Based Membranes
Graphene oxide membranes can show unusually high water permeability, and diamond-like carbon membranes exhibited ultrafast permeation of organic solvents.
- Another Remembered Present
Could conscious perception reflect a memory process?
- The Inner Workings of a Dynamic Duo
Structures of two–pore domain potassium channels reveal key differences from the more widely found tetrameric channels.
Association Affairs
Review
Brevia
- Broadband Light Bending with Plasmonic Nanoantennas
A plasmonic antenna array is used to control the propagation of a light beam across an interface.
Research Articles
- Repeatability and Contingency in the Evolution of a Key Innovation in Phage Lambda
A receptor shift required four mutations that accumulated by natural selection and with the host’s coevolution.
- Crystal Structure of the Human Two–Pore Domain Potassium Channel K2P1
Structural features provide a basis for understanding gating and ion conduction of these channels.
- Crystal Structure of the Human K2P TRAAK, a Lipid- and Mechano-Sensitive K+ Ion Channel
Structural features provide a basis for understanding gating and ion conduction of these channels.
Reports
- Unimpeded Permeation of Water Through Helium-Leak–Tight Graphene-Based Membranes
Graphite oxide membranes are impermeable to many liquids, vapors, and gases, including He, but allow evaporation of water.
- Ultrafast Viscous Permeation of Organic Solvents Through Diamond-Like Carbon Nanosheets
Membranes made from diamond-like carbon are used to rapidly separate organic compounds.
- An All-Silicon Passive Optical Diode
A silicon-based device is developed that allows the asymmetric propagation of light.
- Reversible Reduction of Oxygen to Peroxide Facilitated by Molecular Recognition
The highly reactive peroxide dianion (O22–) can be captured and stabilized by hydrogen bonding in a molecular box.
- A Long-Lived Lunar Core Dynamo
Analysis of a lunar basalt sample suggests that a lunar core dynamo existed between 4.2 and 3.7 billion years ago.
- The Molecular Diversity of Adaptive Convergence
Replicate Escherichia coli lines show multiple convergent adaptations via different mutations in response to high temperature.
- Centrosome Loss in the Evolution of Planarians
Analysis of centriole assembly in planaria gives insight into the evolution and function of the centrosome in animal cells.
- Global Correlations in Tropical Tree Species Richness and Abundance Reject Neutrality
Comparison of species numbers between forests shows that patterns of diversity are dominated by deterministic processes.
- Heavy Livestock Grazing Promotes Locust Outbreaks by Lowering Plant Nitrogen Content
High-protein plants inhibit locust swarming, which explains why grazed systems are more prone to outbreaks.
- Depth Perception from Image Defocus in a Jumping Spider
To jump exact distances to capture prey, spiders, like computers, use defocus as a major cue for depth perception.
- Facilitated Cross-Species Transmission of Prions in Extraneural Tissue
Lymphoid tissue is more permissive than the brain to foreign prions.
- Asymmetric Segregation of Polarized Antigen on B Cell Division Shapes Presentation Capacity
Antigen distribution across activated B cells influences B-T lymphocyte interactions.
Technical Comments
