This Week in Science

Editor summaries of this week's papers.
Science 23 January 2009: 433.
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Editorial:
Redefining Science Education

Bruce Alberts
Science 23 January 2009: 437.
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Editors' Choice

Highlights of the recent literature.
Science 23 January 2009: 438.
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Science Podcast

Science 23 January 2009: 534.
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NEW PRODUCTS

Science 23 January 2008: 534.
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News of the Week

EUROPE: Acquittals in CJD Trial Divide French Scientists

Barbara Casassus
Science 23 January 2009: 446.
Summary: Three French judges acquitted six doctors and pharmacists last week of charges of involuntary homicide and aggravated fraud after a prolonged investigation centering on the distribution of human growth hormone contaminated with deadly prions in the 1980s. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

ECOLOGY: Western U.S. Forests Suffer Death by Degrees

Elizabeth Pennisi
Science 23 January 2009: 447.
Summary: Mortality rates in seemingly healthy conifer stands have doubled in the past several decades, and often, new trees aren't replacing dying ones, forest ecologists report on page 521 of this issue of Science. Warmer temperatures and subsequent water shortfalls are the likely cause of the trees' increased death rate, they say. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

CONSERVATION BIOLOGY: Debate Continues Over Rainforest Fate--With a Climate Twist

Erik Stokstad
Science 23 January 2009: 448.
Summary: Depending on whom you talk to, the future of tropical rainforest biodiversity is either "truly catastrophic" or not as bad as feared. That's the verdict from two symposia held to evaluate recent evidence on the threat to tropical biodiversity. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

WILDLIFE BIOLOGY: Confused Pelicans May Have Lingered Too Long Up North

Greg Miller
Science 23 January 2009: 449.
Summary: In recent weeks, hundreds of disoriented and emaciated brown pelicans have turned up in strange places along the Pacific coast from the Baja peninsula to Washington state, prompting concern for this once-imperiled bird now on the verge of removal from the endangered species list. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

AWARDS: Two Americans Win Japan Prize

Yudhijit Bhattacharjee
Science 23 January 2009: 449.
Summary: This year's Japan Prize goes to two U.S. academics, one a longtime advocate for sustainability and the other a radiologist who pioneered a standard tool for medical imaging. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

AGRICULTURE: European Pesticide Rules Promote Resistance, Researchers Warn

Sara Coelho
Science 23 January 2009: 450.
Summary: Despite intense opposition from farmer groups and scientists, the European Parliament voted last week to approve new regulations that could ultimately outlaw up to one-quarter of the pesticides on the European market. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Scientists Puzzle Over Ebola-Reston Virus in Pigs

Dennis Normile
Science 23 January 2009: 451.
Summary: An international team of human- and animal-health experts is in the Philippines this month, studying the first known outbreak of Ebola-Reston virus in pigs. Experts are concerned because pigs live in close proximity to humans. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

TEACHING EVOLUTION: Educators Decry New Louisiana Policy

Yudhijit Bhattacharjee
Science 23 January 2009: 451.
Summary: Science teachers in Louisiana have been given permission to use supplementary material in the classroom in a move that many scientists and educators regard as a backdoor attempt to allow creationism and its variants into the classroom. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

THE TRANSITION: Proposed Regulatory Czar Has Long and Perplexing Track Record

Dan Charles
Science 23 January 2009: 452-453.
Summary: President-elect Barack Obama's choice to manage the regulatory policies of his new Administration, law professor Cass Sunstein, has triggered a mixture of consternation and delight among conservatives and liberals. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

BIOTECHNOLOGY: U.S. Appellate Court Weighs 'Obvious' Patents

Eli Kintisch
Science 23 January 2009: 452-453.
Summary: A federal court is mulling a case that could make it harder for researchers to patent scientific discoveries, say biotech lawyers, stymieing innovation and investment. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

PHYSICS: Photon Sieve Lights a Smooth Path to Entangled Quantum Weirdness

Adrian Cho
Science 23 January 2009: 453.
Summary: Physicists report on page 483 of this week's issue of Science that they have found a way to create entangled pairs of light particles, or photons, by simply passing ordinary photons through a novel optical filter. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

Random Samples

Science 23 January 2009: 443.
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Newsmakers

Science 23 January 2009: 445.
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News Focus

SOCIAL SCIENCE: Friendship as a Health Factor

Jennifer Couzin
Science 23 January 2009: 454-457.
Summary: In a string of hot articles, two social scientists report that obesity, smoking, and other behaviors "spread" in networks. As the two friends expand their theory, doubters sharpen their questions. Full Text »|   PDF »|   Podcast Interview »|  

SOCIAL SCIENCE: With Isolation Comes Ill Health

Jennifer Couzin
Science 23 January 2009: 456-457.
Summary: Social isolation, the flip side of social networks, is believed to have dire consequences, increasing the risk of certain diseases and earlier death. But attempts to transform this knowledge into action have had discouraging results. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

FALL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION: Galloping Glaciers of Greenland Have Reined Themselves In

Richard A. Kerr
Science 23 January 2009: 458.
Summary: Ice loss in Greenland has had some climatologists speculating that global warming might have brought on a scary new regime of wildly heightened ice loss and an ever-faster rise in sea level. But glaciologists reported at the American Geophysical Union meeting that Greenland ice's Armageddon has come to an end. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

FALL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION: Tang Hints of a Watery Interior for Enceladus

Richard A. Kerr
Science 23 January 2009: 458-459.
Summary: At the American Geophysical Union meeting, planetary scientists reported that Saturn's E ring, formed from icy particles spewed out of the planet's moon Enceladus, contains the chemicals they would see if a salty ocean lurks beneath the moon's surface. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

FALL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION: The Many Dangers of Greenhouse Acid

Richard A. Kerr
Science 23 January 2009: 459.
Summary: Geochemists reported at the American Geophysical Union meeting that most sorts of calcifying organisms--creatures that grow calcium carbonate skeletons or shells--suffered when pH sank much below the 8.2 of surface ocean seawater, not just the iconic coral reefs. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

FALL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION: Snapshots From the Meeting

Richard A. Kerr
Science 23 January 2009: 459.
Summary: Snapshots from the American Geophysical Union meeting include mostly upbeat news in the search for martian water and an ice core suggesting that changes in the far south of the Southern Ocean helped drive greenhouse warming at the end of the last ice age, 18,000 years ago. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

Letters

 Bailing Out Creatures Great and Small

Jaboury Ghazoul
Science 23 January 2009: 460.
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 Proposed French Reforms Miss the Mark

Didier Job
Science 23 January 2009: 460-461.
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 Ban Impact Factor Manipulation

Christian Wallner
Science 23 January 2009: 461.
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 GOP Must Embrace Science Again

Robert White
Science 23 January 2009: 461.
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 A Word of Caution on the Coca-Cola Way

Graham Satchwell
Science 23 January 2009: 461.
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Books et al.

WATER RESOURCES: Data Drought, Data Flood

Jared Farmer
Science 23 January 2009: 462-463.
Summary: Powell discusses how drought, dams, and climate change threaten to produce a long-term water resources crisis in the American West. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

LINGUISTICS: Pondering Grammar and God

Andreea S. Calude
Science 23 January 2009: 463.
Summary: Everett weaves together discussions of his fieldwork in the Amazonian jungle, the ethnography of the Pirahã people, and his conclusions about the implications of their language for linguistics. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

Books Received

Science 23 January 2009: 463.
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Policy Forum

GLOBAL BIOLOGICAL RESOURCES: Could Access Requirements Stifle Your Research?

Sikina Jinnah and Stefan Jungcurt
Science 23 January 2009: 464-465.
Summary: As the rules for foreign access to biological resources are being negotiated, academic researchers and organizations should make their opinions known. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

Perspectives

IMMUNOLOGY: Ex Uno Plura

Sonia Feau and Stephen P. Schoenberger
Science 23 January 2009: 466-467.
Summary: T cells that respond quickly to infection and later to reinfection arise from a single precursor cell type. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

ANTHROPOLOGY: Where Bacteria and Languages Concur

Colin Renfrew
Science 23 January 2009: 467-468.
Summary: Genetic data from human gastric bacteria provide independent support for a linguistic analysis of Pacific population dispersals. Full Text »|   PDF »|   Podcast Interview »|  

PHYSICS: Teleporting a Quantum State to Distant Matter

M. S. Kim and Jaeyoon Cho
Science 23 January 2009: 469-470.
Summary: A quantum state is teleported between two atoms that are 1 meter apart through their entanglement with photons. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

ATMOSPHERE: Sources of Asian Haze

Sönke Szidat
Science 23 January 2009: 470-471.
Summary: Radiocarbon analysis elucidates the sources of the pollutants responsible for the "brown clouds" over South Asia. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

GEOCHEMISTRY: Life on an Anaerobic Planet

Frances Westall
Science 23 January 2009: 471-472.
Summary: It remains highly challenging to unambiguously identify signatures of small anaerobic life forms on the early Earth. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

CELL BIOLOGY: Protein Filaments Caught in the Act

Grant J. Jensen
Science 23 January 2009: 472-473.
Summary: Advances in electron microscopy have allowed bacterial DNA-segregating protein filaments to be visualized. Full Text »|   PDF »|  

Review

Membrane Fusion: Grappling with SNARE and SM Proteins

Thomas C. Südhof and James E. Rothman
Science 23 January 2009: 474-477.
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Brevia

Earth's Degassing: A Missing Ethane and Propane Source

Giuseppe Etiope and Paolo Ciccioli
Science 23 January 2009: 478.
Natural gas seepage contributes far more methane, ethane, and propane to the atmosphere than formerly realized. Abstract »|   Full Text »|   PDF »|   Supporting Online Material »|  

Research Article

Language Phylogenies Reveal Expansion Pulses and Pauses in Pacific Settlement

R. D. Gray, A. J. Drummond, and S. J. Greenhill
Science 23 January 2009: 479-483.
Geographical distribution of Austronesian languages reveals the rate and direction of migrations from Taiwan 5200 years ago. Abstract »|   Full Text »|   PDF »|   Supporting Online Material »|  

Reports

An Entanglement Filter

Ryo Okamoto, Jeremy L. O'Brien, Holger F. Hofmann, Tomohisa Nagata, Keiji Sasaki, and Shigeki Takeuchi
Science 23 January 2009: 483-485.
A useful tool for quantum information processing transmits entangled photons only when they have the same polarization. Abstract »|   Full Text »|   PDF »|   Supporting Online Material »|  

Quantum Teleportation Between Distant Matter Qubits

S. Olmschenk, D. N. Matsukevich, P. Maunz, D. Hayes, L.-M. Duan, and C. Monroe
Science 23 January 2009: 486-489.
Transporting quantum states between trapped ions one meter apart may enable local storage of information in quantum memories. Abstract »|   Full Text »|   PDF »|  

Femtosecond XANES Study of the Light-Induced Spin Crossover Dynamics in an Iron(II) Complex

Ch. Bressler, C. Milne, V.-T. Pham, A. ElNahhas, R. M. van der Veen, W. Gawelda, S. Johnson, P. Beaud, D. Grolimund, M. Kaiser, C. N. Borca, G. Ingold, R. Abela, and M. Chergui
Science 23 January 2009: 489-492.
Published online 11 December 2008 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1165733] (in Science Express Reports)
X-ray absorption spectroscopy resolves the dynamics of spin-state interconversions, which take place in less than a picosecond, in a well-studied class of iron compounds. Abstract »|   Full Text »|   PDF »|   Supporting Online Material »|  

Complementary Active Sites Cause Size-Selective Reactivity of Aluminum Cluster Anions with Water

Patrick J. Roach, W. Hunter Woodward, A. W. Castleman, Jr., Arthur C. Reber, and Shiv N. Khanna
Science 23 January 2009: 492-495.
Water dissociates at similar active sites on anionic aluminum clusters that have different sizes and electronic structure. Abstract »|   Full Text »|   PDF »|   Supporting Online Material »|  

Brown Clouds over South Asia: Biomass or Fossil Fuel Combustion?

Örjan Gustafsson, Martin Kruså, Zdenek Zencak, Rebecca J. Sheesley, Lennart Granat, Erik Engström, P. S. Praveen, P. S. P. Rao, Caroline Leck, and Henning Rodhe
Science 23 January 2009: 495-498.
Biomass burning accounts for at least one-half of carbon-rich aerosols in the Asian atmospheric brown cloud that forms each winter. Abstract »|   Full Text »|   PDF »|   Supporting Online Material »|  

Genetic Interactions Between Transcription Factors Cause Natural Variation in Yeast

Justin Gerke, Kim Lorenz, and Barak Cohen
Science 23 January 2009: 498-501.
Adaptive differences in yeast sporulation arise from single-nucleotide mutations in transcription factors regulating sex. Abstract »|   Full Text »|   PDF »|   Supporting Online Material »|  

Different T Cell Receptor Signals Determine CD8⁺ Memory Versus Effector Development

Emma Teixeiro, Mark A. Daniels, Sara E. Hamilton, Adam G. Schrum, Rafael Bragado, Stephen C. Jameson, and Ed Palmer
Science 23 January 2009: 502-505.
Point mutations in the T cell receptor decide the fate of killer T cells and the development of immunological memory. Abstract »|   Full Text »|   PDF »|   Supporting Online Material »|  

Secondary Replicative Function of CD8⁺ T Cells That Had Developed an Effector Phenotype

Oliver Bannard, Matthew Kraman, and Douglas T. Fearon
Science 23 January 2009: 505-509.
Killer T cells that developed during a primary antiviral response can become memory T cells in secondary infections. Abstract »|   Full Text »|   PDF »|   Supporting Online Material »|  

Electron Cryomicroscopy of E. coli Reveals Filament Bundles Involved in Plasmid DNA Segregation

Jeanne Salje, Benoît Zuber, and Jan Löwe
Science 23 January 2009: 509-512.
Published online 18 December 2008 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1164346] (in Science Express Reports)
The actin-like filaments that power movement of DNA during bacterial cell division form small bundles of three to five filaments near the nucleoid. Abstract »|   Full Text »|   PDF »|   Supporting Online Material »|  

Alternative Zippering as an On-Off Switch for SNARE-Mediated Fusion

Claudio G. Giraudo, Alejandro Garcia-Diaz, William S. Eng, Yuhang Chen, Wayne A. Hendrickson, Thomas J. Melia, and James E. Rothman
Science 23 January 2009: 512-516.
A structural motif in the protein complexin may act as a switch during membrane fusion. Abstract »|   Full Text »|   PDF »|   Supporting Online Material »|  

Complexin Controls the Force Transfer from SNARE Complexes to Membranes in Fusion

Anton Maximov, Jiong Tang, Xiaofei Yang, Zhiping P. Pang, and Thomas C. Südhof
Science 23 January 2009: 516-521.
The protein complexin may act as a forcetransferring switch during membrane fusion. Abstract »|   Full Text »|   PDF »|   Supporting Online Material »|  

Widespread Increase of Tree Mortality Rates in the Western United States

Phillip J. van Mantgem, Nathan L. Stephenson, John C. Byrne, Lori D. Daniels, Jerry F. Franklin, Peter Z. Fulé, Mark E. Harmon, Andrew J. Larson, Jeremy M. Smith, Alan H. Taylor, and Thomas T. Veblen
Science 23 January 2009: 521-524.
Regional warming is contributing to the recent acceleration of tree deaths seen in undisturbed forests of the western U.S. Abstract »|   Full Text »|   PDF »|   Supporting Online Material »|  Podcast Interview »|  

The Sphingolipid Transporter Spns2 Functions in Migration of Zebrafish Myocardial Precursors

Atsuo Kawahara, Tsuyoshi Nishi, Yu Hisano, Hajime Fukui, Akihito Yamaguchi, and Naoki Mochizuki
Science 23 January 2009: 524-527.
Published online 11 December 2008 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1167449] (in Science Express Reports)
Normal heart development in zebrafish requires the function of a lipid transporter in a membrane surrounding the yolk, a tissue outside of the embryo proper. Abstract »|   Full Text »|   PDF »|   Supporting Online Material »|  

The Peopling of the Pacific from a Bacterial Perspective

Yoshan Moodley, Bodo Linz, Yoshio Yamaoka, Helen M. Windsor, Sebastien Breurec, Jeng-Yih Wu, Ayas Maady, Steffie Bernhöft, Jean-Michel Thiberge, Suparat Phuanukoonnon, Gangolf Jobb, Peter Siba, David Y. Graham, Barry J. Marshall, and Mark Achtman
Science 23 January 2009: 527-530.
The geographical distribution of strains of a specific human pathogen helps to define patterns of colonization out of Taiwan. Abstract »|   Full Text »|   PDF »|   Supporting Online Material »|  

Rapid Membrane Disruption by a Perforin-Like Protein Facilitates Parasite Exit from Host Cells

Björn F. C. Kafsack, Janethe D. O. Pena, Isabelle Coppens, Sandeep Ravindran, John C. Boothroyd, and Vern B. Carruthers
Science 23 January 2009: 530-533.
Published online 18 December 2008 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1165740] (in Science Express Reports)
The human and animal parasite that causes toxoplasmosis escapes from host cells by using a perforin-like protein to make holes in the intracellular vacuole in which it resides. Abstract »|   Full Text »|   PDF »|   Supporting Online Material »|