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Seven days: 27 January–2 February 2012

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/482010a

The week in science: sequencing stock rebounds after takeover bid for Illumina; drug companies and nations team up against neglected diseases; and turmoil at the Global Fund.

Genomics ace quits Japan

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/482018a

Author: David Cyranoski

Yusuke Nakamura blames government inertia for his move to the United States.

Japan plans to merge major science bodies

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/482019a

Author: Ichiko Fuyuno

Drive to save money could increase bureaucracy.

Marine ecology: Attack of the blobs

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/482020a

Author: Mark Schrope

Jellyfish will bloom as ocean health declines, warn biologists. Are they already taking over?

Vaccine development: Man vs MRSA

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/482023a

Author: Maryn McKenna

For decades, Robert Daum has studied the havoc wreaked by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Now he thinks he can stop it for good.

The low-level nuclear threat

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). doi:10.1038/482005a

Europe is making a good start on learning about the health risks of low-dose radiation with a programme to share cold-war data and set research priorities. But the effort needs to be global.

Poles apart

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). doi:10.1038/482005b

Protecting the Arctic from pollution requires a binding agreement like the Antarctic Treaty.

Damage limitation

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). doi:10.1038/482006a

Spider webs are designed to cope with stress and disruption, favouring repair over rebuilding.

Global health hits crisis point

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/482007a

Author: Laurie Garrett

The Global Fund's drive to ensure sustainability and efficiency means that it may not be able to meet its commitments to combat disease, says Laurie Garrett.

Restoration ecology: New wetlands don't measure up

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). doi:10.1038/482008a

Wetland restoration may be falling short of its goals, with restored or created wetlands lagging behind reference ones in terms of carbon storage and native species richness and abundance.In many parts of the world, humans have destroyed more than half of the wetlands and

Cancer genetics: Genome shatters in brain cancer

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). doi:10.1038/482008b

Cancer is usually attributed to a slow accumulation of genomic changes, but a few cancers result instead from a single catastrophic event that causes massive reshuffling of the genome. Researchers have discovered these major changes, called chromothripsis, in a type of medulloblastoma — a common

Psychology: 'Brightness' fools the eye

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). doi:10.1038/482008c

The pupils of the human eye shrink in response to brightness, even when the glow is merely an optical illusion.Bruno Laeng and Tor Endestad at the University of Oslo used infrared eye trackers to monitor the pupils of participants looking at illusions of lightness

Evolution: Why animals get bigger over time

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). doi:10.1038/482008d

In palaeontology, Cope's rule holds that species evolve larger body sizes over geological time. One possible explanation has been that competition favours bigger bodies. To test this, Pasquale Raia at the University of Naples Federico II in Italy and his colleagues compiled a species tree

Gene therapy: An eye for gene repair

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). doi:10.1038/482008e

Gene therapy in dogs can reverse retinal defects that lead to blindness in humans.William Beltran and Gustavo Aguirre at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and their group targeted a form of retinitis pigmentosa. This is a common cause of blindness in which mutations

Physics: Quantum motion captured

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). doi:10.1038/482009a

Even if cooled to a temperature of absolute zero, all objects will retain a fundamental jitter in their physical positions due to quantum 'zero-point' fluctuations. Oskar Painter and his colleagues at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena have, for the first time, detected this

Genomic medicine: Sequencing diagnoses disease

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). doi:10.1038/482009b

In a study that shows both its promise and limitations in the clinic, researchers have used genomic sequencing to diagnose the genetic cause of disease in individual children — but succeeded in only a small proportion of them.A team led by David Thorburn at

Cancer: Drug drives cancer stem cells

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). doi:10.1038/482009c

Cancer drugs that attack tumour-sustaining blood vessels may spur proliferation of the stem cells that contribute to the disease.One such drug, bevacizumab, fails to prolong the survival of patients with advanced breast cancers, and studies have shown that patients on similar drugs often relapse.

Geology: Explosion in Death Valley

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). doi:10.1038/482009d

The volcanic eruption responsible for the giant Ubehebe Crater in California's Death Valley may have occurred more recently than previously thought. This could mean that the risk of similar explosions happening today is higher than anticipated.When magma encounters groundwater, distinctive explosions, such as those

Animal behaviour: Hair defence against bed bugs

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). doi:10.1038/482009e

Highly read on http://royalsocietypublishing.org in DecemberHirsute individuals are better able to sense blood-sucking bed bugs crawling on their skin than are their less hairy counterparts.Isabelle Dean and Michael Siva-Jothy at the University of Sheffield, UK, tested the ability of 29 volunteers to

Public health: The toxic truth about sugar

Nature 482, 7383 (2012). doi:10.1038/482027a

Authors: Robert H. Lustig, Laura A. Schmidt & Claire D. Brindis

Added sweeteners pose dangers to health that justify controlling them like alcohol, argue Robert H. Lustig, Laura A. Schmidt and Claire D. Brindis.