Nature (Vol. 435, No. 7045, 23 June 2005)

135 Pages·2005·13.164 MB·English

Volume 435 Number 7045 pp1003-1136
In this issue (23 June 2005) • Essay
• News and Views
• Editorials • Brief Communications
• Research Highlights • Brief Communications Arising(this
• News content only available online)
• News Features • Articles
• Business • Letters
• Correspondence • Naturejobs
• Books and Arts • Futures

Editorials
In praise of soft science p1003
'Hard' scientists should stop looking down their noses at social scientists, and instead share methods
that could help them address pressing societal problems.

Not-so-deep impact p1003
Research assessment rests too heavily on the inflated status of the impact factor.

Toyota on a roll p1004
Japan's approach to industrial innovation may be out of fashion, but it still delivers the goods.

Research Highlights
Research highlights p1006

News
Drug targeting: is race enough? p1008
Pharmaceutical firms urged to look beyond race as first 'Personalized' drug is approved
Meredith Wadman

Trouble brews over contested trend in hurricanes p1008
Latest analysis suggests global warming will increase intensity of storms.
Quirin Schiermeier

China's chicken farmers under fire for antiviral abuse p1009
Bird flu virus develops resistance to common drug thanks to overuse.
David Cyranoski

Databases in peril p1010
Life-sciences databases are in crisis, say their operators, as funders keen to support exciting new
projects lose interest in maintaining existing services. Nature investigates the scale of the problem.
Zeeya Merali and Jim Giles

Earth holds comet smash in its sights p1013
Wider astronomy community watches and awaits Deep Impact.
Tony Reichhardt

Sidelines p1014

Bill on deep-sea fish farms brings wave of disapproval p1014
US government in deep water over plan to bring marine aquaculture within federal control.
Rex Dalton

Retracted papers damage work on DNA repair p1015
Colleagues in field left to 'start from scratch'
Erika Check

News in brief p1016

News Features
A trip of a lifetime p1018
Are research expeditions to far-flung destinations as glamorous as they sound? Amanda Haag joins a few
research novices who gave up their holidays for science.

Back to our roots p1022
It was cold and clammy, but it changed the rules of life for ever. Helen Pilcher goes in search of the
ancestor of all animals.

I
Dalton Conley profile: Harder than Rocket Science p1024
Dalton Conley is an award-winning researcher who works on the politically charged issues of race, gender
and class. He tells Tony Reichhardt why he wants to stress the 'science' in the social sciences.

Business
Toyota's production line leads from lab to road p1026
Sparks of inspiration and close relations with group companies keep Toyota's central research labs motoring
along, as Ichiko Fuyuno reports.

In brief p1027

Market watch p1027

Correspondence
Turkish research council is proud of its independence p1028
Nüket Yetis

No political agenda in academic bill of rights p1028
Sara Dogan

Sale of public databases puts biological data at risk p1028
A. Jamie Cuticchia and Gregg W. Silk

Books and Arts
Switching on evolution p1029
How does evo−devo explain the huge diversity of life on Earth?
Jerry A. Coyne reviews Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo by Sean B. Carroll

Exhibition: Fresh flowers p1030
Colin Martin

Flood warnings p1031
Christer Nilsson reviews The Future of Large Dams: Dealing with the Social, Environmental and Political
Costs by Thayer Scudder

Essay
Dynamic Universe p1033
The first person to carry out a modern survey of the night sky, Fritz Zwicky's astronomical observations
led to a new picture of a turbulent Universe that is punctuated by violent events.
Freeman Dyson

News and Views
Low-temperature physics: A quantum revolution p1035
Tiny quantum tornadoes observed in ultracold gases of fermionic atoms provide definitive evidence of
superfluidity, and open up new vistas in the modelling of quantum many-body systems.
Rudolf Grimm

Neuroscience: Friends and grandmothers p1036
How do neurons in the brain represent movie stars, famous buildings and other familiar objects? Rare
recordings from single neurons in the human brain provide a fresh perspective on the question.
Charles E. Connor

Earth science: New Madrid in motion p1037
A new network of geodetic field stations has greatly improved monitoring of relative motion across a seismic
zone in the central United States. It seems that rapid deformation is occurring across this fault system.
Martitia P. Tuttle

50 and 100 years ago p1038

Evolutionary biology: Island of the clones p1039
The discovery of an all-female population of damselflies in the Azores archipelago provides a novelty
for entomologists. It also highlights the unique selection pressures faced by species that colonize
islands.
Thomas N. Sherratt and Christopher D. Beatty

Consciousness: Crick and the claustrum p1040
Francis Crick believed that, in biology, structure is the natural path to understanding function. In his
later career, he applied this dictum to the study of consciousness.
Charles F. Stevens

Animal behaviour: Congo's art p1040
Tim Lincoln

Granular matter: A tale of tails p1041
Granular materials such as sand can either be jammed and rigid, or yield and flow. Puzzling changes in
the forces between the grains deepen the mystery surrounding this basic, but poorly understood, transition.
Martin van Hecke
II
Neuroscience: An intrusive chaperone p1042
Stargazin is best known for helping to ferry receptor proteins to the surface of neurons. The discovery
that it has an unexpected additional role has widespread implications for the way that neurons talk to
each other.
Anders S. Kristensen and Stephen F. Traynelis

Obituary: Fred S. Rosen (1930−2005) p1044
Immunologist, paediatrician and polymath
Walter Gratzer and David G. Nathan

Brief Communications
Surface tension: Floater clustering in a standing wave p1045
Capillarity effects drive hydrophilic or hydrophobic particles to congregate at specific points on a wave.
G. Falkovich, A. Weinberg, P. Denissenko and S. Lukaschuk

Biodiversity: Disease threat to European fish p1046
Rodolphe E. Gozlan, Sophie St-Hilaire, Stephen W. Feist, Paul Martin and Michael L. Kent

Brief Communications Arising
Plant communities: Ecosystem stability in Inner Mongolia pE5
Shiping Wang, Haishan Niu, Xiaoyong Cui, Shu Jiang, Yonghong Li, Xiangming Xiao, Jinzhi Wang, Guojie Wang,
Dehua Huang, Qiuhui Qi and Zonggui Yang

Plant communities: Ecosystem maturity and performance pE6
Qinfeng Guo

Plant communities: Ecosystem stability in Inner Mongolia (reply) pE6
Jianguo Wu, Yongfei Bai, Xingguo Han, Linghao Li and Zuozhong Chen

Articles
Vortices and superfluidity in a strongly interacting Fermi gas p1047
M. W. Zwierlein, J. R. Abo-Shaeer, A. Schirotzek, C. H. Schunck and W. Ketterle

Stargazin modulates AMPA receptor gating and trafficking by distinct domains p1052
Susumu Tomita, Hillel Adesnik, Masayuki Sekiguchi, Wei Zhang, Keiji Wada, James R. Howe, Roger A. Nicoll
and David S. Bredt

A structural basis for allosteric control of DNA recombination by integrase p1059
Tapan Biswas, Hideki Aihara, Marta Radman-Livaja, David Filman, Arthur Landy and Tom Ellenberger

Letters
A planetary system as the origin of structure in Fomalhaut's dust belt p1067
Paul Kalas, James R. Graham and Mark Clampin

Timescales of shock processes in chondritic and martian meteorites p1071
P. Beck, Ph. Gillet, A. El Goresy and S. Mostefaoui

Structural signature of jamming in granular media p1075
Eric I. Corwin, Heinrich M. Jaeger and Sidney R. Nagel

Contact force measurements and stress-induced anisotropy in granular materials p1079
T. S. Majmudar and R. P. Behringer

Astronomical pacing of late Palaeocene to early Eocene global warming events p1083
Lucas J. Lourens, Appy Sluijs, Dick Kroon, James C. Zachos, Ellen Thomas, Ursula Röhl, Julie Bowles
and Isabella Raffi

Space geodetic evidence for rapid strain rates in the New Madrid seismic zone of central
USA p1088
R. Smalley, Jr, M. A. Ellis, J. Paul and R. B. Van Arsdale

First evidence of a venom delivery apparatus in extinct mammals p1091
Richard C. Fox and Craig S. Scott

Aerodynamics of the hovering hummingbird p1094
Douglas R. Warrick, Bret W. Tobalske and Donald R. Powers

Extracellular electron transfer via microbial nanowires p1098
Gemma Reguera, Kevin D. McCarthy, Teena Mehta, Julie S. Nicoll, Mark T. Tuominen and Derek R. Lovley

Invariant visual representation by single neurons in the human brain p1102
R. Quian Quiroga, L. Reddy, G. Kreiman, C. Koch and I. Fried

III
An endocannabinoid mechanism for stress-induced analgesia p1108
Andrea G. Hohmann, Richard L. Suplita, Nathan M. Bolton, Mark H. Neely, Darren Fegley, Regina Mangieri,
Jocelyn F. Krey, J. Michael Walker, Philip V. Holmes, Jonathon D. Crystal, Andrea Duranti, Andrea Tontini,
Marco Mor, Giorgio Tarzia and Daniele Piomelli

Early developmental arrest of mammalian limbs lacking HoxA/HoxD gene function p1113
Marie Kmita, Basile Tarchini, Jozsef Zàkàny, Malcolm Logan, Clifford J. Tabin and Denis Duboule

Abnormal display of PfEMP-1 on erythrocytes carrying haemoglobin C may protect against
malaria p1117
Rick M. Fairhurst, Dror I. Baruch, Nathaniel J. Brittain, Graciela R. Ostera, John S. Wallach, Holly L.
Hoang, Karen Hayton, Aldiouma Guindo, Morris O. Makobongo, Owen M. Schwartz, Anatole Tounkara, Ogobara
K. Doumbo, Dapa A. Diallo, Hisashi Fujioka, May Ho and Thomas E. Wellems

R gene expression induced by a type-III effector triggers disease resistance in rice p1122
Keyu Gu, Bing Yang, Dongsheng Tian, Lifang Wu, Dongjiang Wang, Chellamma Sreekala, Fan Yang, Zhaoqing
Chu, Guo-Liang Wang, Frank F. White and Zhongchao Yin

EphB receptor activity suppresses colorectal cancer progression p1126
Eduard Batlle, Julinor Bacani, Harry Begthel, Suzanne Jonkeer, Alexander Gregorieff, Maaike van de Born,
Núria Malats, Elena Sancho, Elles Boon, Tony Pawson, Steven Gallinger, Steven Pals and Hans Clevers

Naturejobs
Prospect
Fixing a broken record p1131
Visualizing 'career space' can help you navigate more easily between disciplines, sectors and job function
Paul Smaglik

Special Report
Picture this p1132
Buoyed by a range of new technologies, science illustration is expanding its remit to offer careers beyond
publishing in areas such as advertising and law. Virginia Gewin reports
Virginia Gewin

Futures
Omphalosphere: New York 2057 p1136
A trip to the Zoo, a visit to the Library.
Jack Cohen
IV
23.6 Editorial 1003-4 MH 21/6/05 2:47 PM Page 1003
www.nature.com/nature Vol 435 |Issue no. 7045|23 June 2005
In praise of soft science
‘Hard’ scientists should stop looking down their noses at social scientists, and instead share methods that
could help them address pressing societal problems.
I
t is the conventional wisdom in the biological and physical sci- issue of the American Sociological Association magazine Contexts,
ences, and within research agencies, that the social sciences are, for example, Harold Wilensky, a political scientist at the University
well, ‘soft’, and lacking in methodological rigour. That’s why it is of California, Berkeley, says that social scientists have identified
arresting that the US National Science Foundation’s prestigious Alan specific, practical solutions for problems such as crime prevention
T. Waterman award for young scientists has gone this year to Dalton and access to health care. But their advice is largely ignored by US
Conley, a sociologist at New York University (see page 1024). policy-makers, Wilensky argues, adding that governments in north-
Conley specializes in the detailed study of economic outcomes ern Europe and Japan have a better track record of implementing
among underprivileged groups, and says he avoids research on atti- social scientists’ findings.
tudes because they can’t be measured accurately. Research agencies It can be argued, of course, that social scientists have brought
in the United States and elsewhere need to support more social sci- much of this upon themselves. A lot of their work is politically
entists like him, because their work can potentially make a valuable contentious by its very nature, and the spread of what can be loosely
contribution to the study of important societal problems. termed ‘relativism’ has reduced their clout. With so many gifted
Take, for example, climate change and biodiversity loss, two global amateurs working their territory, social scientists have a tougher
environmental problems for which human behaviour is a significant time asserting the unique nature of their expertise than do astro-
driver. Research on these issues tends to focus on the physical nature physicists, for example. Few of us know much about the dynamics
of the phenomena in question. Study of whatever underlies the of the cosmos, but we all know plenty about human nature — or at
behaviour itself is too often regarded as ‘soft’ science and dismissed least we think we do.
as second-rate. So the onus falls on the social scientists themselves to hone their
Or consider the relationship between biomedical research and methods and ensure that they are ready to stand up to external
public health. The United States has constructed a well-funded scrutiny. The National Science Foundation has recognized the need
and carefully calibrated system to research and develop the best to strengthen methodology in the social sciences. Since the terrorist
pharmaceuticals and medical equipment that modern science can attacks of 11 September 2001, it has also, to its credit, devoted con-
provide. But what good is that if patients don’t take their drugs siderable effort to increasing the resources available to its directorate
correctly, or pharmacists routinely misread a doctor’s handwriting? of social, behavioural and economic sciences.
A 1999 US Institute of Medicine study found that medical errors On the campuses, meanwhile, ‘hard’ scientists need to get over
— human errors — kill as many as 98,000 people every year, more their disdain for their ‘soft’ colleagues. The study of society can’t just
than the number who die from traffic accidents, breast cancer or be left to poets and politicians. As the almost boundless complexity
HIV/AIDS. Shouldn’t psychology and sociology be better harnessed of physical and biological systems becomes increasingly apparent,
to address this problem? along with the pressing need to better understand patterns of human
Even when social science is confident in its assertions, it often feels behaviour, now is as good at time as any for a rapprochement
that it gets no respect from the outside world. Writing in the current between the two wings of the scientific academy. ■
Not-so-deep impact numbers to persist. The result is an overemphasis of what is really a
limited metric.
To obtain the latest impact factors, which were released last week,
Research assessment rests too heavily on the the ISI number-crunchers added the total number of citations from
inflated status of the impact factor. all the monitored journals during 2004 to items in the journal of
interest that were published in 2002 and 2003. They then divided
E
very year at the end of June, scientific publishers’ eyes turn to that total by the number of ‘citable items’ — loosely, papers and
Philadelphia, where the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) review articles — that were published in the journal during those
releases a snippet of data that they crave: the impact factor of same two years.
each journal. In due course, bureaucrats in research agencies will roll The impact factor is taken by some administrators as a measure
the impact figures into their performance indicators, and those sci- of the typical citation rate for the journal. But for many journals, it
entists who worry about such things will quietly note which journal’s isn’t ‘typical’ at all. Nature’s latest impact factor is 32.2, an increase
number wins them the most brownie points. on last year and a high number that we’re proud of, but it’s one that
Attempts to quantify the quality of science are always fraught merits a closer look.
with difficulty, and the journal impact factors are among the few For example, we have analysed the citations of individual papers
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EDITORIALS NATURE|Vol 435|23 June 2005
in Natureand found that 89% of last year’s figure was generated by climatology typically achieved fewer than 50 citations. Clearly, these
just 25% of our papers. reflect differences in disciplinary dynamics, not in quality.
The most cited Naturepaper from 2002–03 was the mouse genome, The impact factor also mixes citations to diverse types of content:
published in December 2002. That paper represents the culmination unsurprisingly, review articles are typically the most highly cited, but
of a great enterprise, but is inevitably an important point of refer- citations of our Commentaries, News Features and News & Views
ence rather than an expression of unusually deep mechanistic articles also contribute in a minor
insight. So far it has received more than 1,000 citations. Within the way to the numerator (although “Impact factors don’t
measurement year of 2004 alone, it received 522 citations. Our next these items are not counted in tell us as much as
most cited paper from 2002–03 (concerning the functional organi- the denominator).
some people think
zation of the yeast proteome) received 351 citations that year. Only The net result of all these vari-
about the quality of the
50 out of the roughly 1,800 citable items published in those two years ables is a conclusion that impact
received more than 100 citations in 2004. The great majority of our factors don’t tell us as much as science that journals
papers received fewer than 20 citations. some people may think about are publishing.”
These figures all reflect just how strongly the impact factor is the respective quality of the sci-
influenced by a small minority of papers — no doubt to a lesser ence that journals are publishing. Neither do most scientists judge
extent in more specialized journals, but significantly nevertheless. journals using such statistics; they rely instead on their own assess-
However, we are just as satisfied with the value of our papers in the ment of what they actually read.
‘long tail’ as with that of the more highly cited work. None of this would really matter very much, were it not for
The citation rate of our papers also varies sharply between disci- the unhealthy reliance on impact factors by administrators and
plines. Many of Nature’s papers in immunology published in 2003 researchers’ employers worldwide to assess the scientific quality of
have since received between 50 and 200 citations. Significant pro- nations and institutions, and often even to judge individuals. There
portions of those in cancer and molecular and cell biology have is no doubt that impact factors are here to stay. But these figures
been in the 50–150 range. But papers in physics, palaeontology and illustrate why they should be handled with caution. ■
Toyota on a roll to ‘junk’ status. That apparently prompted Okuda’s intervention: the
Toyota chairman felt that a fresh crisis in the US car industry could
lead to a surge in protectionist sentiment that might damage Toyota.
Japan’s approach to industrial innovation may be Then, a few weeks ago, General Motors announced that it is plan-
out of fashion, but it still delivers the goods. ning to shed 25,000 people, almost a quarter of its factory workforce
in North America.
F
or the Japanese car company Toyota, 2005 has been a bumper Perhaps the starkest difference in approach between Toyota and
year. The company’s global fortunes are at such a high level that its US rivals has been the way they tackled environmental innova-
the chairman, Hiroshi Okuda, suggested back in April that it tion. Detroit car executives have
“When oil prices went
might raise its prices to give “some breathing space” to its bloated acted like parodies of themselves,
US rivals, Ford and General Motors. accepting generous subsidies through the roof last year,
The car industry isn’t quite the economic driver that it was a few from the federal government it was Toyota and Honda
decades ago, but cars still account for a huge portion of consumer under then President Clinton’s
— not General Motors or
spending. And despite the industry’s traditional conservatism, it has much-trumpeted Partnership for
Ford — who were ready
become a hotbed of innovation in electronics, materials, environ- a New Generation of Vehicles
mental engineering and other spheres. programme and asking for less at the starting gate with
Basic scientific research usually operates a few steps away from regulation in return — as though ‘hybrid’ vehicles.”
technological innovation in the motor industry. But Toyota is doing their participation was doing the
some interesting things at its central research and development taxpayer a favour. That initiative came and went, but when oil prices
laboratory near Nagoya (see page 1026). As in other sectors, the flew through the roof last year it was the Japanese manufacturers
period of transition from scientific knowledge to industrial applica- Toyota and Honda — not General Motors or Ford — who were
tion is shrinking. ready at the starting gate with their ultra-economic ‘hybrid’ vehicles.
Toyota’s success has always been more about industrial efficiency Toyota’s approach to science, technology and innovation isn’t
than technical innovation. But its technology has progressed steadily exactly off-the-wall. It can’t afford to be: the company knows that the
over the past ten years, while the competition in the United States product has to work when it is delivered. And Toyota’s scientists
has been resting on its laurels. Now that the boom in sales of large, and engineers don’t match the flamboyant modern paradigm of
conservatively designed sport utility vehicles seems to be over, US innovation, as inspired by California’s Silicon Valley. They are,
car-makers are experiencing a rude awakening. instead, meticulous, intensely loyal to the corporation, collaborative
As the prospects for the Detroit industry darkened earlier this in outlook, and keen to keep a low profile. The outcome is impres-
year, credit agencies humiliated Ford and General Motors by reduc- sive — and demonstrates that successful innovation can take many
ing the ratings of some bonds that the two companies have issued different forms. ■
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RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
CHEMISTRY N
Express delivery Bad vibrations KENTI
R
A
W
Org. Biomol. Chem. doi:10.1039/b504988a (2005) Anim. Behav.doi:10.1016/ M.
It is difficult to design drugs that can cross the j.anbehav.2004.09.019 (2005) K.
blood–brain barrier. But a team led by Jean Tree-frog embryos have a
Louis Kraus of the Mediterranean University remarkable ability to hatch
in Marseilles, France, has found that ascorbic early when their eggs are
acid can act as a delivery vehicle. attacked by snakes. This
Ascorbic acid is actively transported depends on sophisticated
from the blood to the brain, where it has a sensing of vibrational cues,
reports Karen Warkentin of
protective function. The researchers showed
Boston University,
that attaching ascorbic acid to a drug called
Massachusetts.
DAPT, used to treat Alzheimer’s disease,
Eggs of the red-eyed tree frog,
dramatically increased DAPT uptake into the
Agalychnis callidryas, usually
brains of live mice. Furthermore, the drug’s
hatch after seven days, but the
activity in vitro was increased by linking it
embryos can emerge up to 30%
to ascorbic acid.
earlier to escape a predator’s
attack. Warkentin shows that
EARTH SCIENCE eggs are more likely to hatch
Taking the strain when exposed to vibrations
recorded from a snake attack
Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 234,421–435 (2005) than when exposed to
Monitoring barely perceptible tremors recordings of the vibrations
could reveal whether geological slip faults caused by heavy rain. The
are likely to spawn larger earthquakes, embryos must therefore be able
propose Rocco Malservisi, now at the to distinguish between these
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, different kinds of motion.
and his colleagues.
The researchers studied the Hayward
fault, which is part of the San Andreas fault GENETICS communication in mice could make the
system in California. The build-up of strain Muffled mice mouse brain a useful model for addressing
along this slip fault is gently released as questions about the control of speech and
segments of rock creep past each other. But Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA articulation in humans.
jammed regions have triggered significant doi:10.1073/pnas.0503739102 (2005)
earthquakes in the past. Modelling the The Foxp2gene has previously been CELL BIOLOGY
‘microquakes’ allowed the researchers to associated with speech and language in Disentangling DNA
map the jammed areas far below the surface. people, and with song learning in zebra
finches and canaries. By engineering mice Nature Struct. Mol. Biol. doi: 10.1038/nsmb953 (2005)
STEM CELLS with one or two disrupted copies of Foxp2, a Mutations in the BRCA1gene are associated
Cancer source group led by Joseph Buxbaum of the Mount with breast cancer, and it is well known that
Sinai School of Medicine in New York has the protein produced by this gene is
Cell121,823–835 (2005) now shown that disrupting even a single important for tumour suppression and
The starting point for some lung cancers copy of the gene impedes the ability of baby the repair of damaged DNA.
(pictured right) may be a newly discovered mice to call out to their mother. Researchers led by Junjie Chen at the
type of stem cell, according to Tyler Jacks’s If confirmed, the link between Foxp2and Mayo Clinic in Rochester have identified
team at the Massachusetts Institute of a new role for the BRCA1 protein in
Y
Technology in Cambridge. AR maintaining the integrity of DNA in normal
R
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where stem cells were found. Lung injuries ANI Phys. Rev. Lett. (in the press)
that increased the incidence of tumours also UN Preprint astro-ph/0412066 at http://arxiv.org (2004)
D
boosted the number of stem cells, suggesting RE Microwave radiation left over from the Big
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that these cells explain the link between M Bang, known as the cosmic microwave
tissue damage and lung cancer. background, contains ripples that reflect the
1006
© 2005 Nature PublishingGroup
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NATURE|Vol 435|23 June 2005 RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
distribution of matter in the 300,000-year- CANCER JOURNAL CLUB
old Universe. Skin deep
Roberto Trotta from the University of Christopher Miller
Oxford and Alessandro Melchiorri of the Nature Genet.doi:10.1038/ng1586 (2005) Brandeis University,
University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’ claim they A mouse model of human skin cancer has Waltham, Massachusetts
can detect fluctuations in this radiation caused been created by Paul Khavari’s group at
A biochemist whose expertise
by the distribution of neutrinos — weakly Stanford University, California, allowing the
lies in observing ion channels
interacting particles that formed in the first researchers to investigate the genetic
spots parallels in the study of
minutes of the Universe. Trotta and Melchiorri mutations that underpin the disease.
protein synthesis.
base this claim on data collected by the space- Although many genes have been linked to
based Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy tumours known as melanomas, it is not “What walks on four legs at dawn,
Probe during its first year in orbit. Their find known which mutations have an active role in two at noon and three at sunset?”
seems consistent with the standard model of initiating tumour development. The team asked the Sphinx. Oedipus’ correct
cosmology, but further data are needed to engineered human cells from the base of the answer was “Man, who crawls as
strengthen their assertion. skin’s surface layer to express some of these an infant, strides as an adult, and
mutations. They added these cells into human hobbles with a stick in old age.”
BACTERIOLOGY skin tissue grown on mice. The progress of the But I would say that techniques in
Deadly mix up disease revealed the potency of the selected science follow the same trajectory.
mutations, validating an approach that might I first witnessed this three
J. Exp. Med.doi:10.1084/jem.20050112 (2005) now be applied to other human tumours. decades ago, when electro-
Cerebrospinal meningitis can strike swiftly physiological recording made it
and fatally, which is surprising because the CLIMATE CHANGE possible to see single molecules in
bacteria that cause it, Neisseria meningitidis, Watery world cells’ ion channels. The method’s
normally reside benignly in the nose. morning was characterized by
Researchers led by Xavier Nassif of the Science308,1772–1774 (2005) ‘spot-the-blip’ papers, whose
National Institute for Health and Medical The volume of fresh water that has flooded results simply said: Look at me,
Research in Paris have shown that a phage into the North Atlantic Ocean since 1965 has I’m a protein! Only later, as noon
— a virus that invades bacteria — may been quantified for the first time, providing approached, did the method allow
participate in this apparently unpredictable hints for how climate change may affect us to explore mechanisms.
switch to infectiousness. ocean currents (pictured). Now I am watching the
The researchers compared the genomes Ruth Curry from the Woods Hole exceptionally sexy techniques of
of different strains taken from a large Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts single-molecule fluorescence
epidemiological collection in the Czech and Cecilie Mauritzen from Oslo’s travel the same path. An initial
Republic. A particular gene cluster was flurry of papers simply described
NST. detected in all the strains isolated from using a light microscope to see
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OK/ Engineered muscle can now be grown in vitro bonds in proteins. The authors track
O
ATION: J. C wtMeicathhssn raiecqahudueys d-emettvase dIlnoep sbteliotduo btdey ovRefo sTbseeeclrsht,n Lthoalanonggkeysr a tonof d athe N orth Atlantic Current fctlhauelol efriedrss ttcr aeannmsti fvneeorr RasicNoidnAsss oo, wff amh ipocrlhoe ctceauirlnerys
R
UST his colleagues. This should make it possible chain into the cell’s translation
ILL to grow thicker tissue samples for transplants, machinery. They clearly see the
because the vessels supply nutrients to cells Norwegian Meteorological Institute calculate transfer RNAs going through two
deep within the sample. that a torrent of fresh water caused a famous stages of checks before allowing the
Langer’s approach is surprisingly simple. ‘salinity anomaly’ in the 1960s, but had little bond between the amino acids to
His team mixed endothelial cells and effect on ocean currents because it mostly form, some 100 milliseconds later.
precursors of mural cells — the cells that ended up in remote subpolar basins. Since Such processes have never before
form blood vessels — into a culture of muscle then, an average of 100 cubic kilometres of been observed directly.
precursor cells, known as myoblasts. The fresh water from rain, rivers and melting ice From my own ion-channel
endothelial and mural cells self-assembled has diluted the upper layers of the Nordic experience, I anticipate a long
into a vascular network as the muscle tissue seas each year, affecting the water density. and mechanistically informative
grew. When the muscle was transplanted into Within a century, the seas’ decreasing salinity midday for the single-molecule
mice, the vessels grown in vitrohooked up could weaken the Atlantic circulation that fluorescence field, before the
with the animal’s existing vessels, improving takes cold, dense water southwards and inevitable methodological
the implant’s survival. brings vital, warm water northwards. decrepitude of evening sets in.
1007
© 2005 Nature PublishingGroup
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Vol 435|23 June 2005
NEWS
Drug targeting: is race enough?
WASHINGTON DC which lowers blood pressure. It is made by differences in drug response. Even if blacks
The expected approval in the United States NitroMed of Lexington, Massachusetts. The respond better on average to BiDil than whites,
of the first drug targeted to a specific racial drug was initially tested in a population that he points out, the drug will still be ineffective
group is sparking debate about the future of was about two-thirds white and one-third for those who don’t possess a particular
‘personalized’ medicine. black by another company. The results weren’t cardiac physiology or combination of genes.
Enthusiasts predict a future in which people persuasive, and the FDA turned down a There may also be a minority of whites who
are given genetic tests to help choose the drug request for marketing approval in 1997. would benefit from taking BiDil.
to which they will respond best. But some But Jay Cohn, a cardiologist at the University Collins contrasts BiDil with Iressa (gefi-
experts worry about the precedent of accept- of Minnesota, reanalysed the data and found tinib), the AstraZeneca drug whose effective-
ing race as a crude marker for underlying bio- that the black patients had responded much ness at treating advanced lung cancer was so
logical differences — which could still leave better to the drug. disappointing that the FDA last
“We should move
many individuals being treated with drugs that Cohn and NitroMed were week restricted its use to
without delay from
don’t work well for them. granted a precedent-setting current users and patients in
Last week, an advisory committee to the patent on BiDil as a racially tar- blurry surrogates for clinical trials. Nevertheless, in
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recom- geted drug, and the company about 10% of patients on
drug response to more
mended that BiDil, a drug for congestive heart launched a new trial in 1,050 Iressa, lung tumours shrink
specific causes.”
failure, should be approved for sale with a label black patients. BiDil reduced rapidly. Japanese patients are
designating African Americans as the target deaths by 43%, proving so suc- three times as likely as whites
population. The FDA usually follows the cessful that the trial was stopped early, in 2004. to fall into this group. But the underlying
advice of its experts and is expected to make its The drug’s anticipated approval has been difference is that patients who respond well
decision by 23 June. greeted with enthusiasm by both cardiologists have specific mutations in the receptor for
Francis Collins, director of the National and the drugs industry. “This is the most epidermal growth factor.
Human Genome Research Institute in important advance in the care of black people This opens up the possibility of using Iressa
Bethesda, Maryland, says that the drug’s effec- that we’ve seen in my lifetime,” Charles Curry, to treat people whose tumours have these
tiveness in blacks is “something to celebrate”. president of the International Society on mutations. “Wouldn’t it be unfortunate if at
Even so, he argues: “We should move without Hypertension in Blacks, told the FDA. this point all we knew is that there is a better
delay from blurry and potentially misleading But Collins is wary of using the “biologically chance of responding if you are Japanese?”
surrogates for drug response, such as race, to inaccurate and socially dangerous” surrogate says Collins.
the more specific causes.” of race, rather than pushing researchers and But will drug companies have sufficient
BiDil is a combination of isosorbide di- companies to investigate the genetic and envi- incentive to go beyond using race or other
nitrate, used to treat angina, and hydralazine, ronmental factors that determine individual crude surrogates, when to do so would entail
Trouble brews over contested trend in hurricanes
The debate over whether global warming is Open season: the
making hurricanes worse has been nothing if latest hurricane
not stormy. analysis will wind
The issue came to a head in January, when up those who say
leading US meteorologist Chris Landsea that worsening
resigned from the Intergovernmental Panel on storms are not
Climate Change, complaining that a colleague related to global
on the panel, Kevin Trenberth, had supported warming.
a link between warming and storms in a press
conference. Now, just in time for the 2005 hur-
ricane season, Trenberth has clarified his views
in print (Science308,1753–1754; 2005). He extremely cautious about connecting hurri- section of the National Center for Atmos-
argues that the intensity, if not the frequency, of cane activity and global warming. Since satel- pheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, argues
hurricanes and typhoons will increase as the lite detection started 35 years ago, there has that because the number of hurricanes is rela-
oceans warm. been no detectable trend in hurricane fre- tively small, and fluctuates in cycles of various
The hurricane seasons from 1995 to 2004 quency, points out modeller Kerry Emanuel lengths, proving the existence of a trend from
have been far above the long-term average in of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology weather records is extremely difficult.
terms of the number of storms and accompany- in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has looked instead at how hurricanes
ing rainfall. However, most scientists are still But Trenberth, head of the climate analysis form. “Trends in human-influenced environ-
1008
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NATURE|Vol 435|23 June 2005 NEWS
NEUTRINO RIPPLES V.
SPOTTED IN SPACE UNI
Universal lumpiness RD
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is imprinted in XF
mysterious particles. RI/O
www.nature.com/news OR
HI
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China's chicken MEL
A/
T
OT
farmers under fire TR
for antiviral abuse
TOKYO
The much-feared H5N1 strain of bird flu
has become resistant to one of the most
effective antiviral drugs against it — and it
seems that Chinese farmers’ use of the
compound in chickens is to blame.
This week the accusation was formally
made — and formally denied. But at some
point after 1997 the H5N1 strain became
resistant to the amantadine family of anti-
viral drugs, and Chinese officials have now
pledged to investigate the claim.
On 18 June, The Washington Post reported
that Chinese farmers, encouraged by
government officials, had been routinely
using amantadine drugs in chickens. The
United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) and the World Health
Organization (WHO) then questioned the
Chinese government, which denied the
reports, although officials did not comment
M Positive discrimination: BiDil, a drug to prevent heart failure, will be targeted at black patients. on whether farmers were using the drugs.
O
WSC The FAO’s avian-flu surveillance network
NE costly research and might narrow their target addition to finding out about what works, I coordinator in China, Fusheng Guo, told
RT/ markets? Experts agree that they might not. might be able to find out what causes prob- Naturethat the drugs have been widely used
K
R/ But some point out that further studies could lems, and save myself some liability,” says to combat the H9 family of viruses in
KE
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people to dangerous side-effects. Philadelphia. ■ says that he warned farmers not to use
“If I were a drug company executive, in Meredith Wadman amantadine, because residues in the meat
could make human viruses resistant. But, at
the time, he did not worry about it in
relation to H5N1. “Now I believe it’s a
mental changes are expected to affect hurri- cane behaviour. They point out that even if serious problem,” he says.
cane intensity and rainfall,” he concludes. there were a trend that had been missed in According to Guo, the agriculture ministry
One simulation that Trenberth reviewed sug- weather records, the change would have to be was probably not aware of the use. “The men
gests that warming tropical oceans will stretch quite small relative to the year-to-year vari- selling it knew it was illegal,” he adds.
the upper limit of cyclones’ potential strength. ability that already exists. China’s health ministry told the WHO on
“Most storms may actually not reach the Trenberth counters that sceptics are ignor- 21 June that the problem is “worth following
limit,” says Tom Knutson, a co-author of the ing the evidence. “I am trying to get people to up in the closest way possible”, according to
simulation based at the US National Oceanic think about things in a different fashion,” he Roy Wadia, the WHO spokesman in Beijing.
and Atmospheric Administration in Prince- says. “The point is that all meteorological Surveillance and testing will now be
ton, New Jersey. “But in principle, Trenberth’s events around the world are influenced in required to find out how widespread the use
conclusions are consistent with our studies.” some way by global warming.” has been and how common resistance to
Trenberth also argues that higher sea sur- In any case, everyone is hoping that there amantadine has become.
face temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean and will be fewer severe storms this summer than The first H5N1 strain that infected
increased water vapour in the lower atmos- last — when four strong hurricanes struck humans, in Hong Kong in 1997, was sensitive
phere — caused by global warming — are to Florida, and Japan was hit by a record ten to the amantadines. But resistance to them,
blame for the past decade’s intense storms. typhoons. They also hope that the storm that discovered in 2003, has left another — more
His conclusions will not please some in the came ashore unexpectedly in Brazil on expensive — family of antivirals, including
meteorology community. In an upcoming 28 March 2004 will not be a harbinger of oseltamivir (sold as Tamiflu) and zanamivir
paper in the Bulletin of the American Meteoro- things to come: Catarina, as it was christened, (Relenza), as the only line of defence against
logical Society, Landsea, Emanuel and col- was the first ever recorded hurricane to the virus. This leaves the poor countries of
leagues argue that there is no proven link develop in the southern Atlantic Ocean. ■ southeast Asia without a low-cost option. ■
between greenhouse-gas emissions and hurri- Quirin Schiermeier David Cyranoski
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