Nature 2007 №7123 (Vol. 445, 4 January)

Avoiding a chimaera quagmire
Researchers need to take the initiative in addressing a controversial and urgent ethical issue: under what circumstances should the fusion of cells of animals and humans be permitted?
Libya and human values
Death sentences issued by a Libyan court highlight more than one type of injustice.
Enter Nature Photonics
Research highlights
Europe condemns Libyan trial verdict
Death sentence for medics sparks outrage.
Declan Butler
The dark side of E. coli
How can we prevent more food poisoning outbreaks?
Helen Pearson
European funding targets big biology
Metagenomics and variomics benefit from round of grants.
Nora Eichinger
Open-access journal will publish first, judge later
PLoS One aims to challenge academia's obsession with journal status.
Jim Giles
Special Report: Alien Earth
With improved techniques, growing data sets and a new space mission, 2007 is the first year in which we might discover another planet like our own. Katharine Sanderson reports.
News in brief
When the party's over
A drug-trial failure leaves Pfizer in search of a new corporate strategy to deal with the post-blockbuster age, as Meredith Wadman reports.
Energy: That's oil, folks.
Optimists see oil gushing for decades; pessimists see the planet's energy future already drying up. Alexandra Witze reports.
Social sciences: Life's a game
Manipulating society has traditionally been the preserve of politicians and the gods. Does the current boom in virtual worlds give social scientists and economists an opportunity to join them? Jim Giles investigates.
RIKEN aids international structural genomics efforts
Shigeyuki Yokoyama, Thomas C. Terwilliger, Seiki Kuramitsu, Dino Moras & Joel L. Sussman
Advances in biology reveal truth about prokaryotes
Michael F. Dolan & Lynn Margulis
Pollution analysis flawed by statistical model
Suresh Moolgavkar
The making of Britain
Who are the "amphibious ill-born mob" who gave rise to the British nation?
Clive Gamble
Treasure islands
A physics travelogue
David Lindley
Joseph Mazur reviews The Best of All Possible Worlds: Mathematics and Destiny by Ivar Ekeland
Constructive memory: The ghosts of past and future
A memory that works by piecing together bits of the past may be better suited to simulating future events than one that is a store of perfect records.
Daniel L. Schacter & Donna Rose Addis
Planetary science: Titan's lost seas found
When the Cassini spacecraft found no methane ocean swathing Saturn's moon Titan, it was a blow to proponents of an Earth-like world. The discovery of northern lakes on Titan gives them reason for cheer.
Christophe Sotin
Neurobiology: Scent secrets of insects
The perception of carbon dioxide provides insects with sensory data on their environment, and informs many insect behaviours. It seems that this sense relies on two dedicated neural receptors.
Rachel I. Wilson
Bioorganic chemistry: A sweet synthesis
Peptides and proteins with sugars attached have many desirable biological properties, but their chemical synthesis is a technical challenge. An ingenious take on an old idea might simplify things considerably.
Linda C. Hsieh-Wilson
50 & 100 Years Ago
Developmental biology: This worm is not for turning
Molecular investigations of the origin of the dorso-ventral axis in an obscure marine invertebrate illuminate one of the longest-running debates in evolutionary biology — that over the origin of vertebrates.
Henry Gee
Materials science: Alloys go with the grain
How do metallic alloys solidify from their original liquid state? A study of the deformation of cooling alloys confirms what had been suspected for some time: solidifying alloys bear exciting similarities to granular materials.
Christophe L. Martin
Evolutionary biology: Oxygen at life's boundaries
Proteins are made of amino acids. But amino acids are made of atoms. Exploration of this self-evident principle opens up fresh perspectives on the evolution of biological membranes and multicellular life.
Peggy Baudouin-Cornu & Dominique Thomas
Neurobiology: Hit and miss
Helen Dell
Cosmology: Ripples of early starlight
After all known sources are accounted for, puffy blobs of infrared light persist on deep-field telescope images. Evidence is mounting that these could be the signatures of stars in early 'protogalaxies'.
Craig J. Hogan
Light in tiny holes
C. Genet & T. W. Ebbesen
Oxygen content of transmembrane proteins over macroevolutionary time scales p47
Claudia Acquisti, Jürgen Kleffe & Sinéad Collins
Crystal structure of a protein phosphatase 2A heterotrimeric holoenzyme
Uhn Soo Cho & Wenqing Xu
Letters
Pulsar spins from an instability in the accretion shock of supernovae
John M. Blondin & Anthony Mezzacappa
The lakes of Titan
E. R. Stofan, C. Elachi, J. I. Lunine, R. D. Lorenz, B. Stiles, K. L. Mitchell, S. Ostro, L. Soderblom, C. Wood, H. Zebker, S. Wall, M. Janssen, R. Kirk, R. Lopes, F. Paganelli, J. Radebaugh, L. Wye, Y. Anderson, M. Allison, R. Boehmer, P. Callahan, P. Encrenaz, E. Flamini, G. Francescetti, Y. Gim, G. Hamilton, S. Hensley, W. T. K. Johnson, K. Kelleher, D. Muhleman, P. Paillou, G. Picardi, F. Posa, L. Roth, R. Seu, S. Shaffer, S. Vetrella & R. West
High-speed linear optics quantum computing using active feed-forward
Robert Prevedel, Philip Walther, Felix Tiefenbacher, Pascal Böhi, Rainer Kaltenbaek, Thomas Jennewein & Anton Zeilinger
Dilatant shear bands in solidifying metals
C. M. Gourlay & A. K. Dahle
Influence of the intertropical convergence zone on the East Asian monsoon
Gergana Yancheva, Norbert R. Nowaczyk, Jens Mingram, Peter Dulski, Georg Schettler, Jörg F. W. Negendank, Jiaqi Liu, Daniel M. Sigman, Larry C. Peterson & Gerald H. Haug
High-level similarity of dentitions in carnivorans and rodents
Alistair R. Evans, Gregory P. Wilson, Mikael Fortelius & Jukka Jernvall
Direct estimation of per nucleotide and genomic deleterious mutation rates in Drosophila
Cathy Haag-Liautard, Mark Dorris, Xulio Maside, Steven Macaskill, Daniel L. Halligan, Brian Charlesworth & Peter D. Keightley
Two chemosensory receptors together mediate carbon dioxide detection in Drosophila
Walton D. Jones, Pelin Cayirlioglu, Ilona Grunwald Kadow & Leslie B. Vosshall
The cellular machinery of Ferroplasma acidiphilum is iron-protein-dominated
Manuel Ferrer, Olga V. Golyshina, Ana Beloqui, Peter N. Golyshin & Kenneth N. Timmis
A systems biology analysis of the Drosophila phagosome
L. M. Stuart, J. Boulais, G. M. Charriere, E. J. Hennessy, S. Brunet, I. Jutras, G. Goyette, C. Rondeau, S. Letarte, H. Huang, P. Ye, F. Morales, C. Kocks, J. S. Bader, M. Desjardins & R. A. B. Ezekowitz
Hsp70 regulates erythropoiesis by preventing caspase-3-mediated cleavage of GATA-1 p102
Jean-Antoine Ribeil, Yael Zermati, Julie Vandekerckhove, Severine Cathelin, Joelle Kersual, Michaël Dussiot, Séverine Coulon, Ivan Cruz Moura, Ann Zeuner, Thomas Kirkegaard-Sørensen, Bruno Varet, Eric Solary, Carmen Garrido & Olivier Hermine
A human colon cancer cell capable of initiating tumour growth in immunodeficient mice
Catherine A. O'Brien, Aaron Pollett, Steven Gallinger & John E. Dick
See also: Editor's summary
Identification and expansion of human colon-cancer-initiating cells
Lucia Ricci-Vitiani, Dario G. Lombardi, Emanuela Pilozzi, Mauro Biffoni, Matilde Todaro, Cesare Peschle & Ruggero De Maria
See also: Editor's summary
A prokaryotic proton-gated ion channel from the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor family
Nicolas Bocquet, Lia Prado de Carvalho, Jean Cartaud, Jacques Neyton, Chantal Le Poupon, Antoine Taly, Thomas Grutter, Jean-Pierre Changeux & Pierre-Jean Corringer
Brief Communications
Brief Communications Arising
Neurophysiology: Hodgkin and Huxley model — still standing?
David A. McCormick, Yousheng Shu & Yuguo Yu
Neurophysiology: Hodgkin and Huxley model — still standing? (Reply)
Björn Naundorf, Fred Wolf & Maxim Volgushev
Naturejobs
Prospect
Demand for PhDs is uncertain in a changing market
Paul Smaglik
Career Views
A question of supply and demand
Michael Alvarez
The next step