Nature contents: 17 January 2013

Can't view this email? Click here to view in your browser.     Volume 493 Number 7432      nature •Visit Nature homepage •Subscribe to Nature •View Table of Contents The science that matters. Every week.                       Ajinomoto Innovation Alliance Program (AIAP) Looking for a grant to help improve the lives of people around the globe? AIAP is an open innovation grant program looking for innovative research proposals from a wide variety of fields. Click to learn more about our grant program and the requirements for our 2013 application.             Jump to the content that matters to you View Table of Contents ▶ ▼ News & Comment   ▼ Biological Sciences   ▼ Chemical Sciences   ▼ Physical Sciences   ▼ Earth & Environmental Sciences   ▼ Careers & Jobs       This week's highlights     Specials - Insight: Frontiers in biology     This series of five reviews covers recent significant advances in biology, ranging from the subcellular to the organismal level and including molecular mechanisms and biomedicine. Highlights include an account of research into the role of mTOR signalling in ageing-related disease, and an appraisal of the hypothesis that disruption of activity-dependent neural signalling pathways may be a cause of autism spectrum disorders. ▼ more       Physical Sciences More Physical sciences ▼   Ultrahard nanotwinned cubic boron nitride   Superhard polycrystalline cubic boron nitride, second only to diamond in hardness, is superior to diamond in terms of thermal and chemical stability and is used widely as an abrasive. A new technique for making cubic boron nitride harder still — based on the fact that smaller grain size makes for increased hardness — has been used to develop a material that can compete with the best that diamond can offer.       Earth & Environmental Sciences More Earth & Environmental sciences ▼   Multidecadal variability in East African hydroclimate controlled by the Indian Ocean   The recent drought in East Africa was severe in part because it was superimposed on a persistent, decadal-scale decline in spring rainfall. Attempts to understand the mechanisms responsible for hydroclimate variations — and thus food security — in the region have been compromised by the lack of an instrumental record spanning multidecadal timescales. Now Jessica Tierney et al. present a palaeoclimate synthesis and model simulations for the past millennia showing that sea-temperature variations in the eastern Indian Ocean — rather than the Pacific — are the dominant long-term influence on East African rainfall.                   Nature Reviews Immunology POSTER-THE IMMUNE RESPONSE TO HIV Authors: Nina Bhardwaj, Florian Hladik and Susan Moir www.nature.com/nri/posters/hiv Produced with support from STEMCELL Technologies                 Biological Sciences More Biological sciences ▼   Mammalian heart renewal by pre-existing cardiomyocytes   There is controversy in the cardiovascular field as to the extent of existing cardiomyocyte turnover versus progenitor cell contributions during mammalian cardiac homeostasis throughout adult life. This study shows that cardiac progenitor cells, a possible source of new cells, have only a minor role in maintaining the cellular makeup of the heart. Instead, preexisting cardiomyocytes are the dominant source of cardiomyocyte replacement, a process that is increased fivefold during recovery from myocardial infarction.       Podcast & Video     In this week's podcast: This week, why some archaeologists are rebuilding the past, the man that fathered a scientific dynasty and the genes that determine what house a mouse builds. Plus, the best science from outside Nature.         News & Comment Read daily news coverage▶ ▲top             THIS WEEK           Editorials                   Troubling thoughts ▶     A sustained commitment to mental-health treatment for Fukushima evacuees could also help survivors of future disasters.             Knowledge trades ▶     Institutions must carefully evaluate their researchers' relationships with Wall Street.             Natural history ▶     Age-old field methods can tell us more about animal behaviour than can laboratory models.             World View                   China has the capacity to lead in carbon trading ▶     Pilot schemes launched this year could be the start of a world-class system — if the country can solve its data-gathering problems, says Qiang Wang.             Seven Days                   Seven days: 11–17 January 2013 ▶     The week in science: European Food Safety Authority releases data on GM maize risk assessments; Japanese scientists benefit from stimulus bill; and Beijing suffers under record-breaking smog.           NEWS IN FOCUS           HIV trial under scrutiny ▶     Critics say that antibody therapy is too expensive for its African target population.             Insider trading sparks concerns ▶     Universities indulge researchers' ties to finance industry.             Court lifts cloud over embryonic stem cells ▶     But research on induced stem cells may be the real winner.             Quantum dots go on display ▶     Adoption by TV makers could expand the market for light-emitting nanocrystals.             Behaviour genes unearthed ▶     Speedy sequencing underpins genetic analysis of burrowing in wild oldfield mice.             Vaccine switch urged for polio endgame ▶     Inactivated virus vaccine could deliver the final blow.             Features                   Scientific families: Dynasty ▶     Bob Paine fathered an idea — and an academic family — that changed ecology.             Fukushima: Fallout of fear ▶     After the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan kept people safe from the physical effects of radiation — but not from the psychological impacts.           COMMENT           Ecosystems: Time to model all life on Earth ▶     To help transform our understanding of the biosphere, ecologists — like climate scientists — should simulate whole ecosystems, argue Drew Purves and colleagues.             Transparency: Two years of blogging the NIH ▶     Sally Rockey, deputy director for extramural research at the US National Institutes of Health, reflects on the second anniversary of her precedent-setting blog.             Books and Arts                   Conservation: The commonness of rarity ▶     Stuart Pimm enjoys an exploration of what we can learn from rare species, if we care enough to keep them.             Statistics: Number-crunching in the raw ▶     David Vaux welcomes a primer on how statistics mesh with life, from salesmen's spin to political polls.             Film: Walking the edge at Sundance ▶     Society and technology collide at this year's leading independent film festival, finds Jascha Hoffman.             Correspondence                   GM food: Rat reality show blurs quality control Jerome R. Ravetz, Peter Healey & Steve Rayner | Cancer goal: Deadline will not erode trust Frances Visco | Cancer goal: Vaccine is cause for optimism Stephen Albert Johnston | Climate negotiations: Tie carbon emissions to consumers Zhu Liu, Fengming Xi & Dabo Guan | Sexism: Measure journal objectivity Boyan K. Garvalov | Sexism: Control experimental bias Letitia Meynell | Sexism: Conferences should seek a balance Jennifer L. Martin | Insomnia: More trials needed to assess sleeping pills Maximilian Moser & Daniel F. Kripke | Population declines: Toe-clipping vital to amphibian research Décio T. Corrêa | Data deposition: Missing data mean holes in tree of life Bryan T. Drew           Obituary                   Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909–2012) ▶     Nobel prizewinning neurobiologist and eminent advocate for science.             Correction                   Correction ▶             Correction ▶               Specials - Insight: Frontiers in biology ▲top               Frontiers in biology ▶     Francesca Cesari, I-han Chou, Angela K. Eggleston, Marie-Thérèse Heemels, Barbara Marte et al.             Cytosystems dynamics in self-organization of tissue architecture ▶     Yoshiki Sasai             Activity-dependent neuronal signalling and autism spectrum disorder ▶     Daniel H. Ebert & Michael E. Greenberg             mTOR is a key modulator of ageing and age-related disease ▶     Simon C. Johnson, Peter S. Rabinovitch & Matt Kaeberlein             Metabolism of inflammation limited by AMPK and pseudo-starvation ▶     Luke A. J. O'Neill & D. Grahame Hardie             Fanconi anaemia and the repair of Watson and Crick DNA crosslinks ▶     Molly C. Kottemann & Agata Smogorzewska                       Biological Sciences ▲top             RESEARCH           Latest Online                   Bioenergy: Biofuel production on the margins ▶     Klaus Butterbach-Bahl & Ralf Kiese             Genetics: A social rearrangement ▶     Andrew F. G. Bourke & Judith E. Mank             Sustainable bioenergy production from marginal lands in the US Midwest ▶     Ilya Gelfand, Ritvik Sahajpal, Xuesong Zhang, R. César Izaurralde, Katherine L. Gross et al.     A comparative assessment of six alternative cropping systems over 20 years shows that, once well established, successional herbaceous vegetation grown on marginal lands has a direct greenhouse gas emissions mitigation capacity that rivals that of purpose-grown crops.             A T-bet gradient controls the fate and function of CCR6−RORγt+ innate lymphoid cells ▶     Christoph S. N. Klose, Elina A. Kiss, Vera Schwierzeck, Karolina Ebert, Thomas Hoyler et al.     The graded expression of the transcription factor T-bet in CCR6−RORγt+ innate lymphoid cells is found to be involved in the control of interferon-γ expression, a cytokine that is required to protect the epithelial barrier against Salmonella infections.             A direct and melanopsin-dependent fetal light response regulates mouse eye development ▶     Sujata Rao, Christina Chun, Jieqing Fan, J. Matthew Kofron, Michael B. Yang et al.     During retinal vascular development there is simultaneous regression of the hyaloid vasculature and formation of the retinal vasculature; here it is demonstrated that regression of developing vasculature is light dependent and acts via the photoreceptor melanopsin.             A Y-like social chromosome causes alternative colony organization in fire ants ▶     John Wang, Yannick Wurm, Mingkwan Nipitwattanaphon, Oksana Riba-Grognuz, Yu-Ching Huang et al.     Fire ants (Solenopsis invicta) are socially polymorphic, with some workers tolerating several queens in their colony and others tolerating just one; this study shows that a non-recombining supergene is responsible for this social polymorphism, and the operation of this genomic region is remarkably similar to that of sex chromosomes.             Structural basis for viral 5′-PPP-RNA recognition by human IFIT proteins ▶     Yazan M. Abbas, Andreas Pichlmair, Maria W. Górna, Giulio Superti-Furga & Bhushan Nagar     Crystal structures reveal insight into how interferon-induced proteins with tetratricopeptide repeats (IFITs) selectively recognize viral RNA.             Reciprocal regulation of p53 and malic enzymes modulates metabolism and senescence ▶     Peng Jiang, Wenjing Du, Anthony Mancuso, Kathryn E. Wellen & Xiaolu Yang     Evidence for a link between cellular senescence and metabolic regulation is provided, through the observation that p53 represses the expression of malic enzymes, thereby regulating NADPH, lipid and glutamine metabolism; in turn, this repression further activates p53, promoting cellular senescence.             Rotation mechanism of Enterococcus hirae V1-ATPase based on asymmetric crystal structures ▶     Satoshi Arai, Shinya Saijo, Kano Suzuki, Kenji Mizutani, Yoshimi Kakinuma et al.     Several crystal structures of the rotary motor of bacterial V-ATPase are solved at high resolution, representing different asymmetric structures and enabling the prediction of a model for the rotational mechanism of V1-ATPase.             Mitotic cell rounding accelerates epithelial invagination ▶     Takefumi Kondo & Shigeo Hayashi     Drosophila epithelial tracheal placode invagination is shown to be driven by mitotic cell rounding along with epithelial growth factor receptor signalling and myosin contractility in neighbouring cells, revealing a new cell-division-independent role for mitotic events in morphogenesis.             Microbiota restricts trafficking of bacteria to mesenteric lymph nodes by CX3CR1hi cells ▶     Gretchen E. Diehl, Randy S. Longman, Jing-Xin Zhang, Beatrice Breart, Carolina Galan et al.     In mice, commensal bacteria are shown to provide critical signals that limit bacterial trafficking to the mesenteric lymph nodes by immune cells, thus preventing the induction of mucosal immune responses.             Vertebral architecture in the earliest stem tetrapods ▶     Stephanie E. Pierce, Per E. Ahlberg, John R. Hutchinson, Julia L. Molnar, Sophie Sanchez et al.     X-ray synchrotron microtomography has revealed the three-dimensional vertebral architecture of Ichthyostega, and other crucial and celebrated early tetrapods; a surprising feature is the relationship between the vertebral elements, with the pleurocentra unexpectedly attached to the succeeding intercentrum, suggesting a ‘reverse’ rhachitomous design.             Articles and Letters                   Autism-related deficits via dysregulated eIF4E-dependent translational control ▶     Christos G. Gkogkas, Arkady Khoutorsky, Israeli Ran, Emmanouil Rampakakis, Tatiana Nevarko et al.     Mice lacking 4E-BP2, an eIF4E repressor, display increased translation of neuroligins; the mice also show autism-related behaviours and alterations in hippocampal synaptic activity, and these are reversed by normalization of eIF4E activity or neuroligin 1 levels.             Oceanographic controls on the diversity and extinction of planktonic foraminifera ▶     Shanan E. Peters, Daniel C. Kelly & Andrew J. Fraass     Plate tectonics and climate change are shown to have driven the diversity and extinction of planktonic foraminifera throughout their evolutionary history.             Discrete genetic modules are responsible for complex burrow evolution in Peromyscus mice ▶     Jesse N. Weber, Brant K. Peterson & Hopi E. Hoekstra     The complex burrows created by oldfield mice are shown to be governed by genetic modules that each control an aspect of burrow size or shape.             Mosaic PPM1D mutations are associated with predisposition to breast and ovarian cancer ▶     Elise Ruark, Katie Snape, Peter Humburg, Chey Loveday, Ilirjana Bajrami et al.     Rare truncating mutations in the p53-inducible protein phosphatase PPM1D are shown to be associated with predisposition to breast cancer and ovarian cancer; notably, all of the mutations are mosaic in white blood cells but are not present in tumours, and probably have a gain-of-function effect.             Exaggerated translation causes synaptic and behavioural aberrations associated with autism ▶     Emanuela Santini, Thu N. Huynh, Andrew F. MacAskill, Adam G. Carter, Philippe Pierre et al.     Mice overexpressing eIF4E show autism-related behaviours and altered synaptic activity in the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and striatum, and these phenotypes can be rescued with the cap-dependent translation inhibitor 4EGI-1.             Prkcz null mice show normal learning and memory ▶     Anna M. Lee, Benjamin R. Kanter, Dan Wang, Jana P. Lim, Mimi E. Zou et al.     Genetically removing PKM-ζ in mice has no effect on memory, and despite absence of this kinase, the original peptide inhibitor of PKM-ζ still disrupts memory in these mutant mice; these data re-open the exploration for key molecules regulating maintenance of long-term plasticity processes.             PKM-ζ is not required for hippocampal synaptic plasticity, learning and memory ▶     Lenora J. Volk, Julia L. Bachman, Richard Johnson, Yilin Yu & Richard L. Huganir     It was proposed that protein kinase M-ζ (PKM-ζ) is a key factor in long-term potentiation (LTP) and memory maintenance on the basis of the disruption of LTP and memory by inhibitors of PKM-ζ; however, here mice that do not express PKM-ζ are shown to have normal LTP and memory, thus casting doubts on a critical role for PKM-ζ in these processes.             Asymmetric neurotransmitter release enables rapid odour lateralization in Drosophila ▶     Quentin Gaudry, Elizabeth J. Hong, Jamey Kain, Benjamin L. de Bivort & Rachel I. Wilson     When an odour activates a fly′s antennae asymmetrically, more neurotransmitter is released from olfactory receptor neuron axon branches ipsilateral to the antenna than from contralateral branches. This causes ipsilateral central olfactory neurons to begin spiking earlier and at a higher rate than contralateral neurons, thereby enabling a walking fly to turn towards the odour.             Bacteriophage genes that inactivate the CRISPR/Cas bacterial immune system ▶     Joe Bondy-Denomy, April Pawluk, Karen L. Maxwell & Alan R. Davidson     Five classes of phage genes are identified that protect phages from CRISPR-mediated bacterial immunity.             Mammalian heart renewal by pre-existing cardiomyocytes ▶     Samuel E. Senyo, Matthew L. Steinhauser, Christie L. Pizzimenti, Vicky K. Yang, Lei Cai et al.     During normal ageing a low rate of division of pre-existing cardiomyocytes, rather than progenitor cells, is responsible for cardiomyocyte genesis; this process is increased fourfold during myocardial infarction.             Structure and function of the initially transcribing RNA polymerase II–TFIIB complex ▶     Sarah Sainsbury, Jürgen Niesser & Patrick Cramer     Crystal structures of the Pol II–TFIIB complex in free form and bound by the DNA template and a short RNA product are reported; the latter complex represents an initially transcribing complex, a critical transient state in the pathway from transcription initiation to elongation.             News & Views                   Evolution: A history of give and take ▶     Steven M. Holland             Stem cells: Surf the waves of reprogramming ▶     Ignacio Sancho-Martinez & Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte             Evolutionary genetics: Genes for home-building ▶     Patrick Goymer             Neuroscience: Memory and the single molecule ▶     Paul W. Frankland & Sheena A. Josselyn             Bioenergy: Biofuel production on the margins ▶     Klaus Butterbach-Bahl & Ralf Kiese             Genetics: A social rearrangement ▶     Andrew F. G. Bourke & Judith E. Mank             Research Highlights                   Ecology: Cicadas emerge when predators decline | Biochemistry: Machine mimics ribosome | Human evolution: Migration from India to Australia | Neuroscience: Hearing restored with new hair cells | Animal behaviour: Mothers call for parenting help | Cell fate: Impede a protein to reprogram | Animal behaviour: Wasp parasites keep hosts clean         NEWS & COMMENT           Troubling thoughts | Knowledge trades | Natural history | HIV trial under scrutiny | Insider trading sparks concerns | Court lifts cloud over embryonic stem cells | Behaviour genes unearthed | Vaccine switch urged for polio endgame | Fukushima: Fallout of fear | Transparency: Two years of blogging the NIH | Conservation: The commonness of rarity | GM food: Rat reality show blurs quality control Jerome R. Ravetz, Peter Healey & Steve Rayner | Cancer goal: Deadline will not erode trust Frances Visco | Cancer goal: Vaccine is cause for optimism Stephen Albert Johnston | Sexism: Measure journal objectivity Boyan K. Garvalov | Sexism: Control experimental bias Letitia Meynell | Insomnia: More trials needed to assess sleeping pills Maximilian Moser & Daniel F. Kripke | Population declines: Toe-clipping vital to amphibian research Décio T. Corrêa | Data deposition: Missing data mean holes in tree of life Bryan T. Drew | Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909–2012)             More Biological Sciences ▶                         Nature Reprint Collection on Epigenetics www.nature.com/reprintcollections/epigenetics This collection of articles focuses on histone methylation, its links to human disease and the development of chemical modulators of histone methylation states as leads for chromatin-targeted drug discovery. Produced exclusively with support from:               Chemical Sciences ▲top             RESEARCH           Latest Online                   Sustainable bioenergy production from marginal lands in the US Midwest ▶     Ilya Gelfand, Ritvik Sahajpal, Xuesong Zhang, R. César Izaurralde, Katherine L. Gross et al.     A comparative assessment of six alternative cropping systems over 20 years shows that, once well established, successional herbaceous vegetation grown on marginal lands has a direct greenhouse gas emissions mitigation capacity that rivals that of purpose-grown crops.             Structural basis for viral 5′-PPP-RNA recognition by human IFIT proteins ▶     Yazan M. Abbas, Andreas Pichlmair, Maria W. Górna, Giulio Superti-Furga & Bhushan Nagar     Crystal structures reveal insight into how interferon-induced proteins with tetratricopeptide repeats (IFITs) selectively recognize viral RNA.             Rotation mechanism of Enterococcus hirae V1-ATPase based on asymmetric crystal structures ▶     Satoshi Arai, Shinya Saijo, Kano Suzuki, Kenji Mizutani, Yoshimi Kakinuma et al.     Several crystal structures of the rotary motor of bacterial V-ATPase are solved at high resolution, representing different asymmetric structures and enabling the prediction of a model for the rotational mechanism of V1-ATPase.             Articles and Letters                   Towards an exact description of electronic wavefunctions in real solids ▶     George H. Booth, Andreas Grüneis, Georg Kresse & Ali Alavi     Recent developments that reduce the computational cost and scaling of wavefunction-based quantum-chemical techniques open the way to the successful application of such techniques to a variety of real-world solids.             Autism-related deficits via dysregulated eIF4E-dependent translational control ▶     Christos G. Gkogkas, Arkady Khoutorsky, Israeli Ran, Emmanouil Rampakakis, Tatiana Nevarko et al.     Mice lacking 4E-BP2, an eIF4E repressor, display increased translation of neuroligins; the mice also show autism-related behaviours and alterations in hippocampal synaptic activity, and these are reversed by normalization of eIF4E activity or neuroligin 1 levels.             Mammalian heart renewal by pre-existing cardiomyocytes ▶     Samuel E. Senyo, Matthew L. Steinhauser, Christie L. Pizzimenti, Vicky K. Yang, Lei Cai et al.     During normal ageing a low rate of division of pre-existing cardiomyocytes, rather than progenitor cells, is responsible for cardiomyocyte genesis; this process is increased fourfold during myocardial infarction.             Structure and function of the initially transcribing RNA polymerase II–TFIIB complex ▶     Sarah Sainsbury, Jürgen Niesser & Patrick Cramer     Crystal structures of the Pol II–TFIIB complex in free form and bound by the DNA template and a short RNA product are reported; the latter complex represents an initially transcribing complex, a critical transient state in the pathway from transcription initiation to elongation.             News & Views                   Analytical chemistry: Defects visualized in porous solids ▶     Christian Serre             Computational materials science: Trustworthy predictions ▶     Paul R. C. Kent             Research Highlights                   Biochemistry: Machine mimics ribosome         NEWS & COMMENT           Quantum dots go on display             More Chemical Sciences ▶               Physical Sciences ▲top             RESEARCH           Latest Online                   Sustainable bioenergy production from marginal lands in the US Midwest ▶     Ilya Gelfand, Ritvik Sahajpal, Xuesong Zhang, R. César Izaurralde, Katherine L. Gross et al.     A comparative assessment of six alternative cropping systems over 20 years shows that, once well established, successional herbaceous vegetation grown on marginal lands has a direct greenhouse gas emissions mitigation capacity that rivals that of purpose-grown crops.             Structural basis for viral 5′-PPP-RNA recognition by human IFIT proteins ▶     Yazan M. Abbas, Andreas Pichlmair, Maria W. Górna, Giulio Superti-Furga & Bhushan Nagar     Crystal structures reveal insight into how interferon-induced proteins with tetratricopeptide repeats (IFITs) selectively recognize viral RNA.             Rotation mechanism of Enterococcus hirae V1-ATPase based on asymmetric crystal structures ▶     Satoshi Arai, Shinya Saijo, Kano Suzuki, Kenji Mizutani, Yoshimi Kakinuma et al.     Several crystal structures of the rotary motor of bacterial V-ATPase are solved at high resolution, representing different asymmetric structures and enabling the prediction of a model for the rotational mechanism of V1-ATPase.             Articles and Letters                   Towards an exact description of electronic wavefunctions in real solids ▶     George H. Booth, Andreas Grüneis, Georg Kresse & Ali Alavi     Recent developments that reduce the computational cost and scaling of wavefunction-based quantum-chemical techniques open the way to the successful application of such techniques to a variety of real-world solids.             Pulsed accretion in a variable protostar ▶     James Muzerolle, Elise Furlan, Kevin Flaherty, Zoltan Balog & Robert Gutermuth     The infrared luminosity of a young protostar (about 105 years old) is found to increase by a factor of ten in roughly one week every 25.34 days; this is attributed to pulsed accretion associated with an unseen binary companion.             Planetary system disruption by Galactic perturbations to wide binary stars ▶     Nathan A. Kaib, Sean N. Raymond & Martin Duncan     Numerical simulations of a widely separated binary star system demonstrate that planetary systems around one star may often be strongly perturbed by the other star, triggering planetary ejections and increasing the orbital eccentricities of surviving planets.             Ultrahard nanotwinned cubic boron nitride ▶     Yongjun Tian, Bo Xu, Dongli Yu, Yanming Ma, Yanbin Wang et al.     The hardness, toughness and chemical stability of the well-known superhard material cubic boron nitride have been improved by using a synthesis technique based on specially prepared ‘onion-like’ precursor materials.             Mammalian heart renewal by pre-existing cardiomyocytes ▶     Samuel E. Senyo, Matthew L. Steinhauser, Christie L. Pizzimenti, Vicky K. Yang, Lei Cai et al.     During normal ageing a low rate of division of pre-existing cardiomyocytes, rather than progenitor cells, is responsible for cardiomyocyte genesis; this process is increased fourfold during myocardial infarction.             Structure and function of the initially transcribing RNA polymerase II–TFIIB complex ▶     Sarah Sainsbury, Jürgen Niesser & Patrick Cramer     Crystal structures of the Pol II–TFIIB complex in free form and bound by the DNA template and a short RNA product are reported; the latter complex represents an initially transcribing complex, a critical transient state in the pathway from transcription initiation to elongation.             News & Views                   Analytical chemistry: Defects visualized in porous solids ▶     Christian Serre             Computational materials science: Trustworthy predictions ▶     Paul R. C. Kent             Research Highlights                   Biochemistry: Machine mimics ribosome | Materials: Spinning strong, conductive carbon         NEWS & COMMENT           Quantum dots go on display | Ecosystems: Time to model all life on Earth | Statistics: Number-crunching in the raw             More Physical Sciences ▶               Earth & Environmental Sciences ▲top             RESEARCH           Latest Online                   Bioenergy: Biofuel production on the margins ▶     Klaus Butterbach-Bahl & Ralf Kiese             Sustainable bioenergy production from marginal lands in the US Midwest ▶     Ilya Gelfand, Ritvik Sahajpal, Xuesong Zhang, R. César Izaurralde, Katherine L. Gross et al.     A comparative assessment of six alternative cropping systems over 20 years shows that, once well established, successional herbaceous vegetation grown on marginal lands has a direct greenhouse gas emissions mitigation capacity that rivals that of purpose-grown crops.             Vertebral architecture in the earliest stem tetrapods ▶     Stephanie E. Pierce, Per E. Ahlberg, John R. Hutchinson, Julia L. Molnar, Sophie Sanchez et al.     X-ray synchrotron microtomography has revealed the three-dimensional vertebral architecture of Ichthyostega, and other crucial and celebrated early tetrapods; a surprising feature is the relationship between the vertebral elements, with the pleurocentra unexpectedly attached to the succeeding intercentrum, suggesting a ‘reverse’ rhachitomous design.             Articles and Letters                   Planetary system disruption by Galactic perturbations to wide binary stars ▶     Nathan A. Kaib, Sean N. Raymond & Martin Duncan     Numerical simulations of a widely separated binary star system demonstrate that planetary systems around one star may often be strongly perturbed by the other star, triggering planetary ejections and increasing the orbital eccentricities of surviving planets.             Multidecadal variability in East African hydroclimate controlled by the Indian Ocean ▶     Jessica E. Tierney, Jason E. Smerdon, Kevin J. Anchukaitis & Richard Seager     Proxy indicators of relative moisture balance, in combination with long control simulations from coupled climate models, show that the Indian Ocean drives multidecadal hydroclimate variability by altering the local Walker circulation, whereas the influence of the Pacific Ocean is minimal on these timescales.             Nickel and helium evidence for melt above the core–mantle boundary ▶     Claude Herzberg, Paul D. Asimow, Dmitri A. Ionov, Chris Vidito, Matthew G. Jackson et al.     Several nickel-rich and helium-rich lava samples from ocean islands and large igneous provinces suggest that mantle plume material formed by core–mantle interaction during the crystallization of a melt-rich layer or basal magma ocean.             Oceanographic controls on the diversity and extinction of planktonic foraminifera ▶     Shanan E. Peters, Daniel C. Kelly & Andrew J. Fraass     Plate tectonics and climate change are shown to have driven the diversity and extinction of planktonic foraminifera throughout their evolutionary history.             News & Views                   Evolution: A history of give and take ▶     Steven M. Holland             Earth science: Plumbing nickel from the core ▶     Michael J. Walter             50 & 100 Years Ago ▶                 Bioenergy: Biofuel production on the margins ▶     Klaus Butterbach-Bahl & Ralf Kiese             Erratum                   Erratum: Making sense of palaeoclimate sensitivity ▶     PALAEOSENS Project Members             Research Highlights                   Ecology: Cicadas emerge when predators decline | Climate science: Warming matches predictions         NEWS & COMMENT           Scientific families: Dynasty | Ecosystems: Time to model all life on Earth | Conservation: The commonness of rarity | Climate negotiations: Tie carbon emissions to consumers Zhu Liu, Fengming Xi & Dabo Guan             More Earth & Environmental Sciences ▶                         New Year! New journal for your research! Celebrate with 50% off the article processing charge Submit your research to Blood Cancer Journal between January and March 2013 and receive 50% off the article processing charge. This offer is for a limited time only. Spread the word. Indexed by PubMed and Thomson Reuters. Submit your research today and quote discount code BCJ_50APC13 (Offer expires 31st March 2013)               Careers & Jobs ▲top               Education: Free-range learning ▶     The budding field of informal science education offers varied research paths but uncertain funding.                   Francis Collins: Changes at the NIH ▶     Director lays out workforce initiatives geared towards early-career scientists.                   Careers related news & comment                   Knowledge trades | Insider trading sparks concerns | GM food: Rat reality show blurs quality control Jerome R. Ravetz, Peter Healey & Steve Rayner | Sexism: Conferences should seek a balance Jennifer L. 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