Nature (Vol. 435, No. 7046, 30 June 2005)

147 Pages·2005·10.059 MB·English

Volume 435 Number 7046 pp1137-1286
In this issue (30 June 2005) • Essay
• News and Views
• Editorials • Brief Communications
• Research Highlights • Feature
• News • Progress
• News Features • Articles
• Business • Letters
• Correspondence • Naturejobs
• Books and Arts • Futures

Editorials
Sustainable outcomes from Gleneagles p1137
African nations will be more likely to support development projects whose outcomes are indispensable to
them. Participants at next week's G8 summit should focus aid in this direction.

Bringing neuroscience to the classroom p1138
Is the US National Science Foundation jumping the gun with its plans for education?

Crystal clear p1138
Clarifying the Nature journals' policy on data deposition for chemical structures.

Research Highlights
Research highlights p1140

News
Japan consoled with contracts as France snares fusion project p1142
International partners finally agree that next-generation reactor will be built in Europe.
Declan Butler

Clear skies raise global-warming estimates p1142
Cleaner air could remove a vital brake on climate change.
Quirin Schiermeier

Sidelines p1144

Japan's university shake-up wins faint praise after first year p1144
Despite some benefits, few are convinced that research standards will rise.
Ichiko Fuyuno

Shrinking budget grounds German space research p1145
Scientists fear specialized labs will founder if budget cuts continue.
Alison Abbott

Science & Africa: A message to the G8 summit p1146
Africa's scientists tell industrialized nations what they need to hear.

News in brief p1150

News Features
Energy: China's burning ambition p1152
The economic miracle that is transforming the world's most populous nation is threatened by energy
shortages and rising pollution. It also risks plunging the planet's climate into chaos. Peter Aldhous
reports.

Educational research: Big plans for little brains p1156
Experts in neuroscience, computing and education are coming together in a massive effort to put the way
in which children are taught on a sounder scientific footing. Trisha Gura profiles this ambitious — some
might say foolhardy — initiative.

Business
Array of possibilities opens up in genotyping p1159
Technology is no longer limiting the search for genetic diseases.
Virginia Gewin

In brief p1159

I
Correspondence
Promoting dialogue is the best way to combat ID in classrooms p1160
Herman L. Mays, Jr

Science and religion can strengthen each other p1160
Philip C. Farese

Thoughtful peer review is worth the time it takes p1160
Xavier Michalet

Despite some flaws, online submission is the future p1160
Ying-Hen Hsieh

Books and Arts
Expanding the Universe p1161
Just how many dimensions are there?
Paul Davies reviews Warped Passages: Unravelling the Universe's Hidden Dimensions by Lisa Randall

Making small talk p1162
Fran Balkwill reviews The Language of Life: How Cells Communicate in Health and Disease by Debra Niehoff

Exhibition: Colour vision p1162

Hitching a lift p1163
Gabor Lövei reviews Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion by Alan Burdick
Essay
Concept
Now you see it, now you don't p1165
Cell doctrine: modern biology and medicine see the cell as the fundamental building block of living
organisms, but this concept breaks down at different perspectives and scales.
Neil D. Theise

News and Views
Evolutionary biology: Males from Mars p1167
In an ant species — or is it two species? — females are produced only by females and males only by males.
Explanations of this revelation have to invoke some decidedly offbeat patterns of natural selection.
David Queller

Fluid dynamics: Impact on Everest p1168
When a drop of liquid plummets onto a surface, the result is a splash — but not it seems if the process
occurs at reduced atmospheric pressure. Here, perhaps, is a way to tune splash behaviour for practical
ends.
David Quéré

Cancer biology: Summing up cancer stem cells p1169
Are current cancer drugs targeted at the wrong kinds of cells? A pioneering approach to the development
of treatments uses a mathematical model to follow how different types of tumour cells respond to therapy.
Brian J. P. Huntly and D. Gary Gilliland

Geophysics: Hot fluids and cold crusts p1171
Conventional wisdom says that changes to crustal rocks pushed down deep when continents collide develop
over millions of years. But it seems that some metamorphism may be caused by tectonic events lasting only
a decade.
Simon Kelley

Biophysics: Fashionable cells p1172
How can cells deform yet maintain optimal function? Probing the similarities in the properties of a cell's
network of structural filaments, and those of soft glassy materials, may help in tackling this question.
Chun Y. Seow

Cancer: A changing global view p1172
Barbara Marte

Imaging techniques: Particular magnetic insights p1173
Over the past 30 years magnetic resonance imaging has been refined into a widely used technique. A method
known as magnetic particle imaging has now been devised which offers an inner view from a different angle.
Andreas Trabesinger

50 & 100 years ago p1174

Gene regulation: Expression and silencing coupled p1174
The RNA interference pathway can inhibit the expression of specific genes. It now seems that an essential
component of the silencing process is the gene-expression machinery itself.
Stephen Buratowski and Danesh Moazed

Obituary: Keiiti Aki (1930−2005) p1176
Seismologist extraordinaire.
II
Paul G. Richards

Brief Communications
Animal behaviour: Continuous activity in cetaceans after birth p1177
The exceptional wakefulness of newborn whales and dolphins has no ill-effect on their development.
Oleg Lyamin, Julia Pryaslova, Valentine Lance and Jerome Siegel

Feature
China's environment in a globalizing world p1179
How China and the rest of the world affect each other.
Jianguo Liu and Jared Diamond

Progress
Strong present-day aerosol cooling implies a hot future p1187
Meinrat O. Andreae, Chris D. Jones and Peter M. Cox

Articles
Short-lived orogenic cycles and the eclogitization of cold crust by spasmodic hot fluids
p1191
Alfredo Camacho, James K. W. Lee, Bastiaan J. Hensen and Jean Braun

Structure of a Na+/H+ antiporter and insights into mechanism of action and regulation by
pH p1197
Carola Hunte, Emanuela Screpanti, Miro Venturi, Abraham Rimon, Etana Padan and Hartmut Michel

Letters
The U/Th production ratio and the age of the Milky Way from meteorites and Galactic halo
stars p1203
Nicolas Dauphas

Neutron and X-ray diffraction study of the broken symmetry phase transition in solid
deuterium p1206
Igor Goncharenko and Paul Loubeyre

Soft X-ray microscopy at a spatial resolution better than 15 nm p1210
Weilun Chao, Bruce D. Harteneck, J. Alexander Liddle, Erik H. Anderson and David T. Attwood

Tomographic imaging using the nonlinear response of magnetic particles p1214
Bernhard Gleich and Jürgen Weizenecker

Remobilization of southern African desert dune systems by twenty-first century global
warming p1218
David S. G. Thomas, Melanie Knight and Giles F. S. Wiggs

Imaging the Indian subcontinent beneath the Himalaya p1222
Vera Schulte-Pelkum, Gaspar Monsalve, Anne Sheehan, M. R. Pandey, Som Sapkota, Roger Bilham and Francis
Wu

Experimental demonstration of chaos in a microbial food web p1226
Lutz Becks, Frank M. Hilker, Horst Malchow, Klaus Jürgens and Hartmut Arndt

Clonal reproduction by males and females in the little fire ant p1230
Denis Fournier, Arnaud Estoup, Jérôme Orivel, Julien Foucaud, Hervé Jourdan, Julien Le Breton and Laurent
Keller

Orofacial somatomotor responses in the macaque monkey homologue of Broca's area
p1235
Michael Petrides, Geneviève Cadoret and Scott Mackey

Phosphoinositide phosphatase activity coupled to an intrinsic voltage sensor p1239
Yoshimichi Murata, Hirohide Iwasaki, Mari Sasaki, Kazuo Inaba and Yasushi Okamura

Ephrin signalling controls brain size by regulating apoptosis of neural progenitors p1244
Vanessa Depaepe, Nathalie Suarez-Gonzalez, Audrey Dufour, Lara Passante, Jessica A Gorski, Kevin R. Jones,
Catherine Ledent and Pierre Vanderhaeghen

Auxin inhibits endocytosis and promotes its own efflux from cells p1251
Tomasz Paciorek, Eva Za ímalová, Nadia Ruthardt, Jan Petrá ek, York-Dieter Stierhof, Jürgen Kleine-Vehn,
David A. Morris, Neil Emans, Gerd Jürgens, Niko Geldner and Ji í Friml

The conserved protein DCN-1/Dcn1p is required for cullin neddylation in C. elegans and S.
cerevisiae p1257
Thimo Kurz, Nurhan Özlü, Fabian Rudolf, Sean M. O'Rourke, Brian Luke, Kay Hofmann, Anthony A. Hyman, Bruce
Bowerman and Matthias Peter

Global histone modification patterns predict risk of prostate cancer recurrence p1262
David B. Seligson, Steve Horvath, Tao Shi, Hong Yu, Sheila Tze, Michael Grunstein and Siavash K. Kurdistani
III
Dynamics of chronic myeloid leukaemia p1267
Franziska Michor, Timothy P. Hughes, Yoh Iwasa, Susan Branford, Neil P. Shah, Charles L. Sawyers and Martin
A. Nowak

Escherichia coli swim on the right-hand side p1271
Willow R. DiLuzio, Linda Turner, Michael Mayer, Piotr Garstecki, Douglas B. Weibel, Howard C. Berg
and George M. Whitesides

RNA-interference-directed chromatin modification coupled to RNA polymerase II
transcription p1275
Vera Schramke, Daniel M. Sheedy, Ahmet M. Denli, Carolina Bonila, Karl Ekwall, Gregory J. Hannon and Robin
C. Allshire

Erratum: Large Cretaceous sphenodontian from Patagonia provides insight into
lepidosaur evolution in Gondwana p1280
Sebastián Apesteguía and Fernando E. Novas

Corrigendum: Mg isotope evidence for contemporaneous formation of chondrules and
refractory inclusions p1280
Martin Bizzarro, Joel A. Baker and Henning Haack

Naturejobs
Prospect
Take your partner by the hand... p1281
Analysing company partners is key to succeeding in shifting biotech landscape
Paul Smaglik

Careers and Recruitment
Immunology goes global p1282
Scientists seeking immunology posts are looking beyond the United States and scattering all over the globe.
They are re-evaluating both the focus of their work and where they choose to pursue it, says Myrna Watanabe.
Myrna Watanabe

Futures
Are we not men? p1286
Meet the family...
Henry Gee
IV
30.6 Editorial 1137-8 MH 28/6/05 1:47 PM Page 1137
www.nature.com/nature Vol 435 |Issue no. 7046|30 June 2005
Sustainable outcomes from Gleneagles
African nations will be more likely to support development projects whose outcomes are indispensable
to them. Participants at next week’s G8 summit should focus aid in this direction.
A
t a summit meeting in Scotland next week, leaders of the lengthy process, and the other problems facing African governments
Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations are set to sign — such as security, drought, malnutrition, poverty — are immedi-
a deal on debt and aid that could see billions of dollars in ate. So malaria research is seldom seen as indispensable. Better
fresh money flow into African development projects. Some of these malaria treatments are important to the future of Africa, but fund-
projects will have a sizeable research component, as science and ing for their development is most likely to come from abroad.
technology have been climbing up the development agenda (see the Activity in other branches of science, such as meteorology, can
Special Report on page 1146). be tied more convincingly to immediate needs. The impoverished
The G8 leaders won’t meet directly with African leaders, however: desert nation of Chad, for example, has scant physical infrastructure
South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki, attending as a guest, will be and no research budget. But Samuel Mbainayel, a meteorologist in
the continent’s sole representative. This disconnect unintentionally the city of N’Djamena, broadcasts his forecasts to rural farmers by
reflects the historic divide between aid donors and recipients: the radio every week. African specialists believe that his efforts could be
former frequently fail to consult adequately with the latter. Huge broadened to provide valuable long-term weather forecasts, helping
sums have been wasted because the solutions previously offered to the government to plan — and the farmers to plant.
African communities were not integrated into their everyday needs. To get these forecasts up and running, money is needed to
As a result, the continent is strewn with the debris of unsuitable improve the capability of African meteorology services (see Nature
donated plant and equipment. 435,863; 2005). Researchers have to be trained and university labs
upgraded. These are things that donors are relatively good at. Once
Local support the improved forecasts are in place, and they start saving lives, aiding
The stated priority of donors for many years now has been to focus farmers and boosting yields, African governments are more likely to
on projects that will be sustainable when foreign support runs out. fund the system themselves. In the words of one British aid official,
Some progress has been made in the design of such projects in the meteorology services “will pay their own way”.
sectors such as education and health. One challenge for the scientific
community is to apply the same logic to development-oriented sci- Success on the ground
ence and technology projects. Planners need to make sure that these This philosophy has already borne fruit in agricultural research.
projects are indispensable, so that local people and politicians will Africa has had some home-grown successes in this field, such as the
support them when the aid money has gone. New Rice for Africa. Developed at the Africa Rice Center in Benin
The approach has already been tested in some instances. In rural with the help of donor money, this new strain of high-yielding,
Kenya, for example, poor farmers in remote areas can now call on the drought-resistant rice is now being planted in several west African
services of paravets — local people given basic training in veterinary countries. Such successes have helped persuade African leaders to
practice. Foreign non-govern- found an agricultural research centre in Kenya under the auspices of
“Planners need to make
mental organizations taught and a continent-wide, self-supporting strategy called the New Partner-
sure projects are
equipped interested rural people ship for Africa’s Development.
indispensable, so African a decade ago, and the paravets Britain’s prime minister, Tony Blair, as host of the summit, has
politicians will support now earn a living by charging selected Africa and climate change as the two main strands for dis-
them when the aid farmers for their services. cussion. On the latter, he can expect little progress. The United States
Donor organizations say that has rebuffed all of his efforts to restart international negotiations
money has gone.”
this service has been welcomed over greenhouse-gas emissions targets, and the summit commu-
locally, as professional vets are in such short supply. The inclusion of niqué, if leaks of the draft are correct, may fail even to acknowledge
traditional remedies has made farmers more willing to accept the the scientific reality of anthropogenic climate change, as described
paravets, project planners say. After the scheme became established, by the world’s scientific academies on 7 June.
donors were able to take a back seat, leaving the paravets and the The summit’s slim chances of success, therefore, ride on its agree-
national veterinary service to carry the scheme forward. The project ing a convincing package of additional aid and debt write-offs for
is well placed to survive without additional aid. Africa. Of course, if the participants really wanted to help Africa,
This kind of approach is easier in some science-related areas than they’d be talking about implementing their unfulfilled promises to
others. It is hard to apply it, for example, in biomedical research. Rich reduce the massive agricultural subsidies that keep African farmers’
nations currently support malaria research efforts in African labs, produce out of rich country’s markets. But debt relief and additional
and would like to deepen the involvement of African government aid, carefully spent on sustainable projects, could still make some
agencies in them. But the development of drugs or vaccines is a long-term difference to Africa’s prospects. ■
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EDITORIALS NATURE|Vol 435|30 June 2005
Bringing neuroscience neuroscience. Researchers are planning to use magnetic resonance
imaging to ‘look under the hood’ at the development of skills such as
to the classroom numeracy and reading. It’s fascinating stuff, but how the results will
inform educational practice remains, for now, largely a matter of
speculation. Making meaningful connections between brain activity
Is the US National Science Foundation jumping the and behaviour is difficult, even under controlled lab settings.
Brain imaging is seductive, and has an unfortunate tendency to
gun with its plans for education?
spawn breathless, overreaching media coverage. Care will be needed
B
asic neuroscience and educational theory have, until now, to ensure that these projects don’t encourage ill-informed ‘experts’
ploughed largely separate academic furrows. But that hasn’t to design yet more pseudoscientific educational tools.
stopped overenthusiastic individuals from designing ‘brain- That’s not to say that scientific
“How ‘looking under the
based’ learning aids — often making healthy profits in the process. advances can’t already help to
Many of these tools have been built on gross misrepresentations inform educational policy. For hood’ at the development
of the science. Take the industry spawned by the idea that there is a instance, there is now a solid body of numeracy and reading
‘critical period’ for learning in early childhood, when the brain has of evidence that sleep patterns
will inform educational
the highest density of synapses. This ignores evidence that ‘pruning’ change significantly with age —
practice remains,
of synaptic connections is a necessary part of brain development. and that, as a result, it makes
for now, largely a matter
Now the US National Science Foundation (NSF) is getting serious little sense to wake teenagers up
about the science of learning and its application in the classroom. early to go to school, when their of speculation.”
Cognitive neuroscientists, psychologists, computer scientists and attention will be low as a natural
educationalists are being melded into huge collaborative teams consequence of their daily rhythms. Education authorities and
(see page 1156). schools are starting to hear this message, and some are adjusting
Hopes are deservedly high. But questions need to be asked about their schedules accordingly.
whether the time is ripe for some of the links between basic science There’s also a strong case for putting the educational tools derived
and educational practice that are now being proposed. from research in neuroscience to more rigorous empirical tests.
The computer-based ‘cognitive tutors’ being developed at Carnegie For instance, researchers who have evidence that dyslexics have
Mellon University in Pittsburgh are among the most solidly problems with auditory processing have developed a program called
grounded aspects of the NSF initiative. The first tutor, for algebra, Fast ForWord to help them learn to read. But the scientists’ company
has already proved a boon for overstretched teachers. What’s more, is now marketing the software as a learning aid for children with no
the Pittsburgh team’s strategy for involving teachers in its ongoing specific reading deficits, before they have gathered evidence that it
research is both innovative and practical. helps anyone other than dyslexics. For now, providing this sort of
However, things get a little less convincing when it comes to basic evidence is where the emphasis should remain. ■
Crystal clear required that crystallographers deposit the atomic coordinates of
their structures in public data banks at the time of publication. In
2000 the International Union of Crystallography weighed the issues
Clarifying the Nature journals’ policy on data and decided that both coordinates and structure-factor files should
deposition for chemical structures. be released upon publication, and this is now standard practice.
There is less of a consensus over how to balance the interests
E
veryone agrees that data that form the basis of a scientific paper of authors and the needs of referees in the peer-review process:
need to be available to readers at the time of publication. But should we also require structure-factor files upon submission? After
just how raw should such data be? And how much should be gathering the opinions and
“Structure-factor files
released ahead of publication to peer reviewers? These questions can insights of a slice of the structure
are not required upon
get troublesome when releasing certain data can allow competitors community, Natureand its sib-
an easy route to results for which the originating researchers have ling journals have adopted the the submission of a
sweated blood. And nowhere is this dilemma more acute than in the following policy. manuscript, but editors
data underlying the structures of biological macromolecules and of To help authors maintain con- may request them to aid
the complexes that they form. trol of their data before publi-
the review process.”
To labs that solve the structures of proteins and other biological cation, structure-factor files are
molecules, ‘structure factor’ files are like the reagents of other fields not required upon submission of a manuscript. However, editors
— material that can be used to enable a variety of experiments. may request them to aid in the review process. Referees who find
Structure factors are the raw data from which atomic coordinates that evaluation is dependent on factor files should contact the
are derived. As such, they are a key aid for reviewers and readers in editor, who will obtain the necessary data set.
verifying a structure. We believe that this policy balances appropriate control of data
For many years, Nature and its sibling research journals have access before publication and the need for rigorous review. ■
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30.6 Res Highlights MH NEW 27/6/05 10:01 AM Page 1140
Vol 435|30 June 2005
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
AL.
First breath N ET
A
M
R
PLoS Geneticsdoi:10.1371/ KE
C
journal.pgen.0010010 (2005) K. A
A class of birth defects that affect the OS/
diaphragm has been linked to a faulty PL
gene by Kate Ackerman of Harvard
Medical School and her colleagues.
The gene seems essential to lung
development.
One in 3,000 babies are born with
diaphragm defects, which often prove
fatal because of associated lung
problems. In mice, Ackerman’s team
found that mutations in the Fog2gene
caused diaphragmatic defects and
disrupted the development of lungs
grownin vitro (pictured). They also
identified a Fog2mutation in a human
baby with defects in both organs.
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY with a stocky rice variety, to produce a plant SOLID-STATE PHYSICS
DNA unpacked (pictured below) that is heavy with seeds, but Spin under strain
not so tall that it falls over in storms.
Cell121,873–885 (2005) Phys. Rev. Lett. 94,236601 (2005)
DNA is normally packed into a dense MICROBIAL GENETICS Future electronic devices could rely on the
structure called chromatin, which is Saints and sinners control of electronic spin, rather than charge,
stabilized by histone proteins. When a which means the discovery that mechanical
particular gene needs to be activated, nearby Nature Biotechnol. doi:10.1038/nbt1110 (2005) forces can change a spin’s orientation may
histones are chemically modified; this allows Many bacteria of the genus Pseudomonasare have practical use. Scott Crooker and Darryl
the DNA to be transcribed. Such changes can pathogens, including P. aeruginosa,which Smith of the Los Alamos National Laboratory
include the addition of acetyl and methyl infects cystic fibrosis patients, and the fruit in New Mexico used a standard optical
groups by enzymes. canker agent P. syringae. By contrast, the technique called Kerr microscopy to picture
A team led by Robert Roeder of The soil-dwelling P. fluorescensprotects plants spin flow in a semiconductor. The researchers
Rockefeller University, New York, provides from pathogens and frost. measured the spins’ response to electric,
evidence that these modifications do not To find out how the saint differs from the magnetic and mechanical forces, and found
occur independently, but in coordinated sinners, researchers led by Joyce Loper from that a mechanical strain changed the spin
combinations. They isolated a stable the Agricultural Research Service in Oregon independently of the electric field applied.
complex of molecules, which included both and Ian Paulsen of The Institute for Genomic
methyltransferase and acetyltransferase Research in Rockville, Maryland, sequenced NEUROBIOLOGY
enzymes. The complex acts as a molecular the complete P. fluorescensgenome. At 7.1 Clearing the mind
machine to control gene transcription. million bases, it is larger than the genomes of
its less benign cousins and stuffed with gene Nature Genet. doi:10.1038/ng1591 (2005)
BIOTECHNOLOGY clusters for chemicals harmful to pathogens, Brain cells use motor proteins called dyneins
Stocky in stature a third of which were previously unknown. to ferry harmful proteins to their doom, report
researchers led by David Rubinsztein of the
A
Sciencedoi: 10.1126/science.1113373 (2005) Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, OK
U
The key to high-yield rice is an enzyme UK. Thisexplains why protein clumps ATS
involved in the plant’s reproduction, find characteristic of certain kinds of motor- M
M.
researchers led by Makoto Matsuoka of neuron disease form when mutations impair D
N
Nagoya University in Japan. the dynein machinery. RI A
Although regions of the rice genome The group studied the effect of such KA
HI
associated with enhanced seed production mutations in a mouse model of Huntington’s AS
were identified after the genome was first disease. Mice with impaired dynein function OF M.
sequenced, how such sequences work was not developed the disease more quickly than Y
understood. By studying transgenic plants, mice with the Huntington mutation alone. RTES
U
Matsuoka’s team has discovered that one such The researchers suggest that this is because CO
region suppresses levels of the enzyme dynein propels packages of the harmful GE
A
M
cytokinin oxidase, which regulates levels of protein — in this case, mutant huntingtin I
a hormone involved in seed production. The — along the intracellular skeleton towards
team cross-bred plants with this genetic trait lysosomes, where they are destroyed.
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© 2005 Nature PublishingGroup
30.6 Res Highlights MH NEW 27/6/05 10:01 AM Page 1141
NATURE|Vol 435|30 June 2005 RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR
The buzzword
Curr. Biol.15,447–448 (2005)
Bumblebees take cues from each other when
faced with unfamiliar flowers, report Ellouise
Leadbeater and Lars Chittka from Queen
Mary, University of London.
They released bees (Bombus terrestris;
pictured) into a box containing two
unfamiliar types of flower, and noted which
type each bee selected. In subsequent trials,
the bees were most likely to forage on flowers
of the type they first chose, and usually only
tried a flower of the unfamiliar variety if it
was already being fed on by another bee.
Because bees forage in unpredictable
habitats, taking a lead from a fellow bee
might maximize their nectar haul, the
researchers suggest.
M
identified constrained regions that varied FLUID DYNAMICS CO
A.
GENOMICS from 3 to 1,000 base pairs in length. Slip and slide DE
R
Islands of stability N/A
CHEMISTRY Phys. Rev. Lett.94,244501 (2005) OPKI
Genome Res.doi:10.1101/gr.3577405 (2005) Cleaning up When a liquid flows over a surface, the H
S.
Comparing the sequences of different traditional model says that the molecules of
mammalian genomes can illuminate the Anal. Chem. doi:10.1021/ac050460g (2005) the liquid that are closest to the surface stay
regions that have functional importance, Chemists are being offered a new and still, rather than sliding past. But experiments
because such elements tend to be conserved improved version of the detergent they use to have suggested that surfaces are more slippery
from one species to the next. wash proteins from cell membranes for study. than this, particularly if the forces between the
Arend Sidow of Stanford University in The new detergent molecule collapses to surface and liquid are weak.
California and his colleagues demonstrate prevent it interfering with mass spectrometry The lingering confusion has been cleared
a powerful approach to performing such a measurements. up by Liliane Leger and colleagues at the
comparison. They lined up sequences taken Researchers led by Richard Caprioli of Physics of Organized Fluids Laboratory,
from the genomes of 29 different mammals Vanderbilt University in Nashville designed Paris. They used an optical technique to
and counted the number of substitutions of the detergent to fall apart after an acid measure the velocity of two organic liquids,
single bases that appeared along their length. treatment. A fragment is left behind that binds squalane and hexadecane, flowing over
Segments which carried fewer substitutions the membrane protein into a solid matrix different surfaces. Not only do the liquids
than expected by chance were considered to ready for analysis. When the technique was ‘slip’ even when the solid–liquid interactions
be ‘constrained’ and deemed likely to have applied to the entire contents of a cell, it are strong, but the amount of slip is also
some vital function. The team’s technique, revealed many more proteins than were found to depend on molecular shape:
dubbed ‘genomic evolutionary rate profiling’, recovered with a commercial detergent. branched molecules slip less.
JOURNAL CLUB
Dian J. Seidel once content to think that the research in the tropopause. the National Center for
National Oceanic and tropopause had little more We expect the troposphere to Atmospheric Research in Boulder,
Atmospheric Administration, geophysical importance than warm and the stratosphere to cool in Colorado, I am using data from
Silver Spring, Maryland political borders on land. Not response to increases in greenhouse weather balloons called
any more. gases. And simple thermodynamic radiosondes to study the structure
Follow the ups and downs of
A recent series of path-breaking principles predict that the and variability of the tropopause,
a boundary in the atmosphere
papers propose that the global tropopause will rise. In support, Ben particularly in extratropical regions.
with a climate scientist.
tropopause is a sensitive indicator Santer and his colleagues detected In winter, near the jet streams, for
In introductory meteorology of human-induced climate change. an upward trend in the height of the example, there can be multiple
courses, we learn that the From its first airing in the Journal of tropopause in model-generated tropopause levels. Before we
tropopause is the boundary Geophysical Research(B. Santer et al. ‘reanalyses’ of atmospheric confidently rely on the tropopause
between two layers of the 108,4002–4024; 2003), this observations spanning the past to tell us about the climate, we need
atmosphere: the troposphere, tantalizing idea sparked the interest few decades. to understand its complexity and
where weather occurs, and of the broader climate-science Motivated by Santer's work, and behaviour. Fortunately, we’re
the stratosphere above. I was community, and rekindled my own in collaboration with Bill Randel of making progress on this front.
1141
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30.6 News 1142 MH 28/6/05 2:42 PM Page 1142
Vol 435|30 June 2005
NEWS
Japan consoled with contracts
as France snares fusion project
PARIS output of 16 megawatts. At more than 12 metres now be built in Japan, and three likely candi-
France has been chosen to host a billion-dollar across, the plasma ring in ITER will be about dates are a supercomputing centre, an upgrade
international thermonuclear experiment. twice as big as JET’s, and will hopefully gener- of the JT-60 and a materials testing facility.
After an 18-month stalemate over whether ate 400–700 megawatts of power. Such centres would carry out research in
Japan or France should host the project ITER, Negotiations over ITER’s home have been parallel with ITER, so that if it is successful,
the Japanese finally bowed out on 28 June — in deadlocked since December 2003. The work can start straight away on the next step —
return for a hefty compensation package. United States and South Korea backed a a prototype fusion reactor called DEMO. For
Scientists hope that, now the experiment’s Japanese site at Rokkasho, while China and example, the testing facility would use acceler-
location has been decided, it could be up and Russia supported the European Union’s bid ators to find building materials that will stand
running by 2015 (see ‘Securing the funds’). If for Cadarache in southern France. But at the extreme conditions of a fusion power plant.
all goes well, it will be the first fusion experi- Tuesday’s meeting of ITER’s six international Some even say that DEMO could be opera-
ment that generates more energy than it uses. partners in Moscow, ministers finally agreed. tional by 2030.
The promise of fusion is well known. Using The Europeans are, of course, ecstatic.
the same reactions that power the stars, hydro- It’s a deal “There is no equivalent to this site anywhere
gen nuclei can be fused to produce helium, The European Union will now pay half of in the world,” says Jean Jacquinot, a plasma
releasing huge amounts of energy — and no ITER’s US$5.5-billion construction costs, physicist who played a leading role in the
high-level radioactive waste. But the line that much of it coming from France. The other five Cadarache bid.
usable fusion power is 40 years away, and partners will contribute 10% each, mostly in Cadarache is already home to more than
always will be, is sadly just as familiar. the form of equipment and components. Japan 2,000 nuclear engineers and scientists, he
Recent progress has been promising, how- will win 20% of the manufacturing orders points out. Most of them work on fission
ever, especially for tokamak reactors, in which despite its 10% share. The European Union has energy, but Jacquinot says ITER could still
hot plasma is confined in a floating doughnut also agreed to support a Japanese candidate for use their expertise. The site’s use as a nuclear
shape by superconducting magnets. Both ITER’s director-general, and Japan will provide research facility means the project will have the
Europe’s JET and Japan’s JT-60 tokamaks have 20% of the project’s scientists, instead of the necessary access to large amounts of electricity
achieved short periods in which the energy 10% to which it is entitled. and water-cooling facilities, Jacquinot adds.
released approaches the energy put in: JET Up to 8% of the ITER construction budget Meanwhile, Japan’s researchers are looking
holds the record, with a maximum power will go towards partner facilities. These will for someone to blame. “Japanese scientists
Clear skies raise global-warming estimates
MUNICH how global temperatures will respond depends
For more than a century, dust and aerosols in on how big the masking effect was in the first
the atmosphere have been blocking some of place — and that is the wild card in the cli-
the Sun’s radiation, shielding us from the worst mate game.
effects of global warming. The question has The problem is that different methods of
always been: how much? Now, as cuts in pollu- estimating the cooling effect arrive at vastly
tion allow the skies to clear, an attempt to different values. Trying to work it out from our
quantify the effect on future temperatures has understanding of how aerosol particles behave
produced an alarming conclusion. in the atmosphere suggests that the amount
Even under relatively cautious assumptions of solar energy reaching the ground will be
about past and present aerosol cooling, the reduced by anything from 0 to 4.5 watts per
study suggests that global warming could eas- How much has pollution shielded us from the Sun? square metre. Working it out from a best guess
ily exceed the upper extreme predicted by the of how sensitive the atmosphere is to green-
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change turbations than has been thought. If our model house gases and how much warming we have
(IPCC), as clean-air measures take effect. is right, things could become totally uncontrol- seen so far gives 2 watts per square metre.
“Things could get really uncomfortable,” lable in the second half of the century.” Such uncertainty has deterred researchers
says lead author Meinrat Andreae, an atmos- That is quite a big ‘if’, however. As cars, from estimating the effect of losing our aerosol
pheric researcher at the Max Planck Institute of industries and power plants worldwide become shield. But as the skies are already starting to
Chemistry in Mainz, Germany. “The climate cleaner, atmospheric concentrations of emitted brighten (see Nature435,135; 2005), the ques-
system is much more sensitive to human per- aerosols are expected to drop substantially. But tion has become critical.
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30.6 News 1142 MH 28/6/05 2:42 PM Page 1143
NATURE|Vol 435|30 June 2005 NEWS
HYDROGEN CARS
WILL SAVE LIVES
Cleaner vehicles would
be better for people,
as well as the planet.
www.nature.com/news
Securing the funds TER
I
The international fusion experiment ITER finally
has a home. But don't assume there’s a smooth
ride ahead. Before a formal agreement is signed
and construction can begin, ITER members
must win the money that they have pledged
from their respective governments.
Scientists hope this will happen by the end
of the year, but several obstacles must be
overcome. “Just because a site has been
selected doesn't mean we're finished,” says
Gerald Navratil of the US ITER team.
The European Commission has committed
money for 2006, for example, but it will need to
double that in the budgets for 2007–13. There’s
no doubt that the commission sees ITER as a
priority, but as budget negotiations for Europe’s
Framework 7 research programme have stalled,
the way ahead is less than clear.
The situation is more hopeful in Japan, where
officials say they can easily come up with the
Victorious: Cadarache, in southern France, has been selected to host the ITER fusion project.
desired funds. But in the United States
legislation could delay participation in ITER by
think it very regrettable,” says one senior out one sentence: ‘We really want to get ITER’.”
almost a year: the House of Representatives
fusion scientist, who asked not to be named. Representatives from China and South
passed an amendment to that effect that could
He says one theory about why France won is Korea are said to be irked by the fact that Japan
become law. And in Russia, reports say the
that the choice of Rokkasho, which is fairly is getting so many perks despite their equal
trade ministry has proposed that no new money
isolated, gave the impression that Japan was contributions. But the Americans just seem
go towards the fusion project in 2006.
not serious about the project. happy to have a decision. “I think the response
After 20 years of fraught negotiations, it is
Others blame Prime Minister Junichiro from the community is one of relief,” says
crucial that governments agree on funding fast
Koizumi for being unable to match his French Gerald Navratil, a plasma physicist from New in order to keep political momentum behind the
counterpart’s charm. “Jacques Chirac could get York’s Columbia University. ■ project, says David Baldwin, director of fusion
up and talk for 30 minutes about the value of Declan Butler programmes at General Atomics in San Diego.
ITER and its significance for the future,” Additional reporting by David Cyranoski in Tokyo “Otherwise, the negotiators will die of old age.”
Naturewas told. “Koizumi would just throw and Geoff Brumfiel in Washington DC. G.B.
Andreae, along with German and British plausible than had been thought,” he says. Prediction and Research in Exeter, UK. “But
colleagues, used a climate model specifically Other experts are more cautious. “Climate this is still an alarming hint at the upper bound
designed to simulate aerosol effects. After modellers like playing around with values,” of what can happen.”
calibrating it against a series of more complex says Theodore Anderson, an atmospheric sci- All agree that precise observations about the
global models, they plugged in a range of entist and aerosol researcher at the University vertical distribution of aerosols are required.
values for aerosol cooling, and ran the model of Washington in Seattle. “It is legitimate to Calypso, a satellite funded by the United States
to simulate future tempera- engage in speculative reason- and France, will provide such data after its
tures as the skies clear (see “Pessimistic climate ing. But I object to conclusions launch in August, although scientists warn
pages 1187–1190). scenarios are now based on the assumption that that it could take 20 years to get a clear picture.
For a present-day cooling our knowledge is better than it In the meantime, Andreae says he hopes his
much more plausible.”
of 1.5 watts per square metre, actually is.” results will rouse political debate, especially as
which most climatologists Anderson points out that, the G8 summit looms. “Mankind must fight
agree is a relatively conservative value, the for high values of aerosol cooling, Andreae’s CO emissions more aggressively,” he says.
2
model implies that temperatures could rise model breaks down, predicting unrealistically The uncertainty surrounding the effects of
between 6 and 10 °C by 2100. That is well in high or infinite temperature rises. He says this global warming has been widely used to imply
excess of the current IPCC predictions, which could mean that our understanding of what is that things might not be as bad as projected,
suggest a temperature rise of between 1.4 and driving the climate system is wrong. Or, he says Michael Grubb, an expert on policy
5.8 °C over the same time period. suggests, natural climate variability might be responses to climate change at Imperial Col-
Andreae acknowledges that there are much larger than most scientists assume. lege, London. “This study is a timely reminder
many uncertainties about his study. But he “The predictions may look more dramatic that uncertaintyalso means things could be a
points out that it is the best estimate we than what we actually expect,” agrees Olivier lot worse,” he points out. “Politically, this is a
have so far. “This forces us to accept that Boucher, head of climate chemistry and hugely important message.” ■
pessimistic climate scenarios are much more ecosystems at the Hadley Centre for Climate Quirin Schiermeier
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© 2005 Nature PublishingGroup