[1] Artificial Intelligence: Robot scientist as good as human researchers? (pp247-252)
A robot scientist that can formulate theories, devise experiments and interpret results is described in this week's Nature. The system is both remarkably effective and substantially cheaper than its human counterpart.
Many aspects of science are now automated, but this has always been limited to 'production line' operations. Ross King and colleagues claim this is the first system that can both reason scientifically and carry out experiments. To test its abilities the robot was challenged to work out the function of specific genes within yeast. Its performance was not significantly different from that of a group of graduate scientists.
Oliver stresses that there was no human input into the robot's design of experiments or its interpretation of data. He now plans to set it the trickier problem of designing new drugs.
[2] Sports science: Anyone for statistics? (pp244-247)
Tennis players may be more than mere sportsmen (or women) and media icons: they may also be talented mathematicians, albeit unbeknownst to them. A study in this week's Nature reveals how tennis players may use Bayesian probability theory to make the best of their swing.
Hitting a fast-moving tennis ball is a complex task as every shot is different. So is a player's response to it. A good player combines information from many sources when judging how to return the ball. Such a player will also incorporate prior information about variation in the speed and trajectory of the tennis ball — this is the basis of Bayesian probability — say Konrad P. Körding and Daniel M. Wolpert. As the game becomes more unpredictable, when played at dusk or in foggy conditions, players rely increasingly on their prior experience. Professionals spend many hours studying their opponent before playing an important match, perhaps subliminally brushing up on their Bayesian statistics as well as trying to identify weaknesses in their opponent's game.
[3] Physics: 'Supersolid' unveiled (pp225-227; N&V)
A new form of matter may have been created. The 'supersolid', unveiled in this week's Nature, can flow like the most slippery liquid imaginable — despite the fact that it is a crystalline solid.
Scientists have already created superfluids with bizarre properties. When liquid helium is cooled close to absolute zero (minus 273 degrees Celsius), the coldest temperature possible, it can flow without any friction at all.
E. Kim and M. H. W. Chan now claim to have turned helium into a solid version of a superfluid. They filled the holes of a porous form of glass with helium, cooled it to about 175 thousandths of a degree above absolute zero, and squeezed it to over 60 times atmospheric pressure. As the glass disk was rotated, a sudden drop in its inertia signalled that the helium had become a supersolid.
In an accompanying News and Views article, John Beamish described this as "a remarkable result. There are enough questions to be answered about the nature and properties of supersolid helium to keep both experimentalists and theorists busy for a long time."
[4] Evolution: Worm embryos yield ancient secrets (pp237-240; N&V)
Palaeontologists in China have peered 500 million years into the past to unravel the embryonic development of a tiny worm. Fossils found in Hunan, south China, show that the creature, called Markuelia, hatched directly into its adult form, unlike many of its modern ancestors that pass through a larval stage.
Markuelia is an early member of a group called the Scalidophora, report Xi-ping Dong and colleagues in this week's Nature. This previously obscure group of marine worms is related to insects and nematodes. The roughly spherical fossils range in diameter from 236 to 411 micrometres, and the embryos — which would measure 3 millimetres if uncurled — are folded into an S-shaped loop.
The Hunan fossils offer a rare insight into embryonic development, says Graham Budd in an accompanying News and Views article. The small size and uncertain identity of fossil embryos usually make it difficult to test theories about the life histories of prehistoric species. But Dong and colleagues now provide evidence that early scalidophorans developed directly into adult forms, and that complex development involving larvae probably evolved later.
[5] Molecular biology: How mosquitoes target human sweat (pp212-213)
A mosquito protein may help blood-feeding insects to home in on humans via the whiff of sweat. Blocking or activating the molecule may lead to new insect repellents or trapping systems, potentially aiding the fight against malaria.
John R. Carlson and colleagues engineered nerve cells from the fruitfly Drosophila to express the protein, called AgOr1, but not other odorant-receptor proteins. They found that the cells are activated almost exclusively by 4-methylphenol, one of the smelly components of human sweat.
Only female mosquitoes carry AgOr1, the team report in a Brief Communication in this week's Nature. Female mosquitoes are the world's most important carrier of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, and as a result are responsible for more than a million human deaths every year.
[6] Health and Medicine: Cut-and-paste proteins (pp252-256; N&V)
Some human cells operate a cut-and-paste process to produce new protein variants. The finding, reported in this week's Nature, suggests that the human body may be able to produce a greater range of proteins than was previously thought.
Ken-ichi Hanada and colleagues report that a human protein, called FGF-5, can be precisely chopped into pieces, which are then 'spliced' or stitched back together to form new proteins. This unexpected finding was made through studying cells from the immune system that target and destroy cancer cells — in this case from a renal cell carcinoma in which the cells overexpress a short FGF-5 peptide.
The process is similar to RNA splicing, where RNA — the precursor of protein — is re-arranged. The difference here is that proteins can be altered after they have been made. "Similar processes of protein surgery have been observed before, in single-celled organisms and some plants," says Hans-Georg Rammensee in an accompanying News and Views article.
[7] Space: Neutron star jet set (pp222-224)
A neutron star has been spotted spewing out jets of matter at very close to the speed of light. The discovery, reported in this week's Nature, challenges the assumption that ultra-relativistic jets form in environments unique to black holes, such as an event horizon.
Circinus X-1 is an X-ray binary system that contains two stars — one similar to our Sun and a neutron star. Gravity from the neutron star pulls matter from its companion to form an accretion disk. Now Rob Fender and colleagues have discovered jets of extremely high-speed material flowing from the neutron star. The jets' velocity is similar to the fastest-moving jets observed from active galactic nuclei, and their strength is controlled by the rate of accretion of material onto the neutron star.
Relativistic jets are amongst the most energetic phenomena in the Universe. They are thought to be responsible for gamma-ray bursts and the fastest have previously been associated with various types of black hole, such as the supermassive objects that reside at the heart of active galactic nuclei.
[8] Climate: Polluted clouds cool (pp231-234)
Small particles polluting the atmosphere lead to clouds with many small water droplets rather than fewer large ones, an effect termed the indirect aerosol effect. Research reported in this week's Nature shows that this effect cools the Earth by increasing cloud brightness and thus increasing the reflection of solar radiation back into space.
The indirect aerosol effect has long been discussed, but whether (and by how much) it influences climate has been one of the large uncertainties in our understanding of climate change. Joyce Penner and colleagues now present observations of cloud properties and aerosols at two North American sites that span polluted and pristine conditions.
At both sites, the observed radiation at the surface and simulations of the expected indirect aerosol effect agree, indicating a real and significant impact on climate.
Policy: Special investigation (pp190-195)
Immigration controls introduced under the 'war on terror' are restricting the flow of foreign researchers into the United States. As other countries exploit this pool of talented labour, will the balance of scientific power shift? In this week's News Features section, Nature's worldwide team of reporters explores the consequences of current US policies for the international scientific labour market.
[9] And finally: Mummified lion found in Egypt (pp211-212)
A lion skeleton unearthed in an Egyptian tomb confirms the animal's sacred status in ancient Egypt. The lion, which was mummified and buried during the final centuries BC, was found at Saqqara in the tomb of King Tutankhamun's wet-nurse, Maïa.
This is the first complete lion skeleton found in an Egyptian tomb, report Alain Zivie and colleagues in a Brief Communication in this week's Nature. The skeleton's size and good condition indicate that the lion was a male and that it was probably kept in captivity and died of old age.
Although the tomb dates from 1430 BC, the catacombs in which the lion was found were probably created by a later Egyptian dynasty and dedicated to the cat goddess Bastet. The lion itself may have been considered to be an incarnation of Bastet's son, Mahes, the authors speculate.
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE"¦
[10] Substrate twinning activates the signal recognition particle and its receptor (pp215-221)
[11] Partial order in the non-Fermi-liquid phase of MnSi (pp227-231)
[12] Tungsten isotope evidence that mantle plumes contain no contribution from the Earth's core (pp234-237; N&V)
[13] Whole-lake carbon-13 additions reveal terrestrial support of aquatic food webs (pp240-243)
[14] Ras regulates assembly of mitogenic signalling complexes through the effector protein IMP (pp256-260)
GEOGRAPHICAL LISTING OF AUTHORS"¦
The following list of places refers to the whereabouts of authors on the papers numbered in this release. For example, London: 4 - this means that on paper number four, there will be at least one author affiliated to an institute or company in London. The listing may be for an author's main affiliation, or for a place where they are working temporarily. Please see the PDF of the paper for full details.
AUSTRALIACanberra: 7Epping: 7Sydney: 7
CHINABeijing: 4
EGYPTSaqqara: 9
FRANCEGif-sur-Yvette: 11Nanterre: 9Paris: 9
GERMANYKarlsruhe: 11
THE NETHERLANDSAmsterdam: 7
SWEDENLindköping: 13Lund: 13
UNITED KINGDOMBristol: 4, 12Cambridge: 7Holmbury St. Mary: 7London: 2Macclesfield: 7Manchester: 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICACalifornia Pasadena: 5 San Francisco: 10Connecticut New Haven: 5Maryland Bethesda: 6Michigan Ann Arbor: 8Nebraska Omaha: 14New York Millbrook: 13North Dakota Grand Forks: 8Pennsylvania University Park: 3Tennessee Nashville: 5Texas Dallas: 14Wisconsin De Pere: 13 Madison: 13
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