Nature contents: 13 February 2014

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Volume 506 Number 7487      nature •Visit Nature homepage •Subscribe to Nature •View Table of Contents The science that matters. Every week.             Quickly and Confidently Identify Relevant Variants Find causal variants and identify disease genes, drug targets, and pathways linked to human mutations with BIOBASE's Genome Trax™. Genome Trax™ includes public and proprietary data from HGMD® Professional, TRANSFAC®, and pharmacogenomics variants from PGMD™.  Start a free trial today!       Jump to the content that matters to you View Table of Contents ▶ ▼ News & Comment   ▼ Biological Sciences   ▼ Health Sciences   ▼ Physical Sciences   ▼ Earth & Environmental Sciences   ▼ Careers & Jobs       This week's highlights     Physical Sciences More Physical sciences ▼   Cold dark matter heats up   The standard model of cosmology assumes that the 95% of the mass and energy of the Universe not accounted for is present as dark energy and cold dark matter. Where the model falls down is in its apparent inability to explain the low density 'cores' of dark matter measured at the centres of galaxies. Historically, the effects of normal matter on the dark matter have been ignored. In this review, Andrew Pontzen and Fabio Governato point to recent work that shows how gas and stars can significantly alter the effect of cold dark matter through a coupling based on rapid gravitational potential fluctuations.       Earth & Environmental Sciences More Earth & Environmental sciences ▼   Global conservation outcomes depend on marine protected areas with five key features   Protected areas are an important and increasing component of marine conservation strategy, but their effectiveness is variable and much debated. These authors assemble data from a global sample of fished regions and 87 marine protected areas and demonstrate that the effectiveness of a protected area depends on five key properties: how much fishing is allowed, enforcement levels, how long protection has been in place, area and degree of isolation. Conservation is assured only when all five of these boxes are ticked.       Biological Sciences More Biological sciences ▼   Ancient genome maps Native American ancestry   The Clovis complex is a 13,000-year-old archaeological culture distributed widely in North America, characterized by distinct stone tools including the 'Clovis point' spear blade. Who made these tools has been a subject of much speculation from sparse information but there is now more to go on with the publication of the first genome sequence of an ancient North American individual. The genome is that of a male infant from a Clovis burial site in Montana. The partial skeleton was found with scores of ochre-painted stone tools. Its genome is from a population from which contemporary Native Americans are descended and is more closely related to all indigenous American populations than to any others. These findings suggest that contemporary Native Americans are descendants of the first people to settle successfully in the Americas.           Joint Conference of ICG-9 and the 3rd Shenzhen International Biotechnology Innovation Forum & Expo SEPTEMBER 10-13, 2014, Shenzhen, China BGI will bring these two conferences join together and force to stage one of the world's most influential and fruitful annual conferences for the genomics and life science industry community. View more.           Podcast & Video     In this week's podcast: colour evolution in the natural world, and we take steps towards fusion energy and atomtronics.         News & Comment Read daily news coverage▶ ▲top               THIS WEEK           Editorials                   Suicide watch ▶     Despite a high death toll, public-health efforts to combat suicide lag far behind those focused on preventing accidents and diseases such as cancer. A US initiative aims to redress the balance.             Number crunch ▶     The correct use of statistics is not just good for science — it is essential.             Lone wolves ▶     A declining island wolf population underlines the influence that humans have on nature.             World View                   Science at the sharp end of oppressive politics ▶     Andreas Kreiter describes his frightening and surreal ordeal at the hands of animal-rights extremists and their political allies.             Seven Days                   Seven days: 7–13 February 2014 ▶     The week in science: Italian space head resigns; NIH teams up with big pharma; and US court rules some stem-cell treatments should be regulated as drugs.             NEWS IN FOCUS           UK rolls out terror-attack plan ▶     Front-line services being trained in new approach to dealing with decontamination of victims in direct aftermath of an event.             Iconic island study on its last legs ▶     Ecologists call for genetic rescue of Isle Royale’s inbred wolves.             Ancient genome stirs ethics debate ▶     Sequencing of DNA from Native American ‘Clovis boy’ forces researchers to rethink handling of tribal remains.             NIH makes wary return to India ▶     Some clinical trials funded by US agency resume, but strict regulations have put off others.             Medicine gets up close and personal ▶     Long-term study will monitor healthy people in detail — and encourage them to respond to the results.             Features                   Medication: The smart-pill oversell ▶     Evidence is mounting that medication for ADHD doesn't make a lasting difference to schoolwork or achievement.             Scientific method: Statistical errors ▶     P values, the 'gold standard' of statistical validity, are not as reliable as many scientists assume.             COMMENT           Carbon sequestration: Managing forests in uncertain times ▶     Increasing both forest stocks and timber harvest will buy time while we learn more about how trees absorb carbon, say Valentin Bellassen and Sebastiaan Luyssaert.             Books and Arts                   Environmental sciences: The long goodbye ▶     A study of Earth's declining biodiversity deftly traces patterns and processes, finds Bob Bloomfield.             Books in brief ▶             Q&A: Acoustic archaeologist ▶     Rupert Till at the University of Huddersfield, UK, studies the sonic properties of caves containing prehistoric paintings. As he addresses a conference in Malta on the archaeology of sound, he talks about the hum of Stonehenge, acoustic fingerprinting and simulating primeval concerts in the dark.             Correspondence                   IPBES: Biodiversity panel should play by rules Lars Opgenoorth, Stefan Hotes, Harold Mooney | Sociology: Sexual violence rife on US campuses Stephen Shaffer | Education: Scientists need leadership training Marina Kvaskoff, Stephanie D. McKay | Government funding: Cuts threaten future of R&D in Portugal André Levy | Open access: Online repository for lab notebooks Shannon Bohle                 Apply for EMBO support for young group leaders  EMBO Young Investigator Programme application deadline 1 April 2014         Biological Sciences ▲top             RESEARCH           Latest Online                   Molecular biology: Protein binding cannot subdue a lively RNA ▶     Kathleen B. Hall             Cancer: Persistence of leukaemic ancestors ▶     Nicola E. Potter, Mel Greaves             Ageing: Genetic rejuvenation of old muscle ▶     Mo Li, Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte             Geriatric muscle stem cells switch reversible quiescence into senescence ▶     Pedro Sousa-Victor, Susana Gutarra, Laura García-Prat et al.     This study shows that ageing satellite cells undergo an irreversible transition from a quiescent to a pre-senescent state that results in the loss of muscle regeneration in sarcopenia; furthermore, increased expression of p16INK4a is identified as a common feature of senescent satellite cells.             Identification of pre-leukaemic haematopoietic stem cells in acute leukaemia ▶     Liran I. Shlush, Sasan Zandi, Amanda Mitchell et al.     The authors identify pre-leukaemic haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) in patients with acute myeloid leukaemia; these pre-leukaemic HSCs have the capacity of normal multi-lineage haematopoietic differentiation with a competitive growth advantage over wild-type HSCs, and owing to their persistence may serve as a reservoir for therapeutic resistance and relapse.             Protein-guided RNA dynamics during early ribosome assembly ▶     Hajin Kim, Sanjaya C. Abeysirigunawarden, Ke Chen et al.     Three-colour fluorescence resonance energy transfer and molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the events occurring early in assembly of the 30S ribosome; within a non-native intermediate S4 ribosomal protein–16S RNA structure, S4 is capable of altering the RNA helix dynamics to facilitate conformation changes that enable subsequent protein binding.             L-Myc expression by dendritic cells is required for optimal T-cell priming ▶     Wumesh KC, Ansuman T. Satpathy, Aaron S. Rapaport et al.     L-Myc, a paralogue of the proto-oncogene c-Myc, is shown to regulate dendritic cell homeostasis and functionality; unlike c-Myc, L-Myc is not repressed by interferons and its expression allows for optimal dendritic cell proliferation and T-cell priming in the presence of inflammation.             Melanosome evolution indicates a key physiological shift within feathered dinosaurs ▶     Quanguo Li, Julia A. Clarke, Ke-Qin Gao et al.     Sampling of extant and fossil amniotes reveals that the diversity of melanosome morphologies increased sharply around the time of the origin of pinnate feathers in maniraptoran dinosaurs (the lineage leading to birds) and independently in mammals; lizard, turtle and crocodilian skin as well as archosaur filamentous body covering shows a limited diversity of melanosome forms, a pattern consistent with convergent changes in the melanocortin system of endothermic animals.             Geographical limits to species-range shifts are suggested by climate velocity ▶     Michael T. Burrows, David S. Schoeman, Anthony J. Richardson et al.     Global maps constructed using climate-change velocities to derive spatial trajectories for climatic niches between 1960 and 2100 show past and future shifts in ecological climate niches; properties of these trajectories are used to infer changes in species distributions, and thus identify areas that will act as climate sources and sinks, and geographical barriers to species migrations.             A primitive placoderm sheds light on the origin of the jawed vertebrate face ▶     Vincent Dupret, Sophie Sanchez, Daniel Goujet et al.     Studies of the head of the very primitive jawed vertebrate Romundina show that it combines jawed vertebrate architecture with cranial and cerebral proportions resembling those of extant jawless vertebrates such as lampreys.             Mitoflash frequency in early adulthood predicts lifespan in Caenorhabditis elegans  ▶     En-Zhi Shen, Chun-Qing Song, Yuan Lin et al.     In Caenorhabditis elegans, mitochondrial activity as measured by the frequency of the mitochondrial flash in young adult animals is a powerful predictor of lifespan across genetic, environmental and stochastic factors.             A committed precursor to innate lymphoid cells ▶     Michael G. Constantinides, Benjamin D. McDonald, Philip A. Verhoef et al.     A committed precursor to innate lymphoid cell lineages, but not classical natural killer and lymphoid tissue inducer cells, is derived from common lymphoid precursors and distinguished by high levels of expression of the transcription factor PLZF.             Articles and Letters                   De novo mutations in schizophrenia implicate synaptic networks ▶     Menachem Fromer, Andrew J. Pocklington, David H. Kavanagh et al.     The authors report the largest family-trio exome sequencing study of schizophrenia to date; mutations are overrepresented in genes for glutamatergic synaptic proteins and also genes mutated in autism and intellectual disability, providing insights into aetiological mechanisms and pathopshyisology shared with other neurodevelopmental disorders.             A polygenic burden of rare disruptive mutations in schizophrenia ▶     Shaun M. Purcell, Jennifer L. Moran, Menachem Fromer et al.     Exome sequence analysis of more than 5,000 schizophrenia cases and controls identifies a polygenic burden primarily arising from rare, disruptive mutations distributed across many genes, among which are those encoding voltage-gated calcium ion channels and the signalling complex formed by the ARC protein of the postsynaptic density; as in autism, mutations were also found in homologues of known targets of the fragile X mental retardation protein.             Molecular control of δ-opioid receptor signalling ▶     Gustavo Fenalti, Patrick M. Giguere, Vsevolod Katritch et al.     The 1.8 Å high-resolution X-ray crystal structure of the human δ-opioid receptor is presented, with site-directed mutagenesis and functional studies revealing a crucial role for a sodium ion in mediating allosteric control in this receptor.             Global conservation outcomes depend on marine protected areas with five key features ▶     Graham J. Edgar, Rick D. Stuart-Smith, Trevor J. Willis et al.     Marine protected areas (MPAs) are an important and increasing component of marine conservation strategy, but their effectiveness is variable and debated; now a study has assembled data from a global sample of MPAs and demonstrates that effectiveness depends on five key properties: whether any fishing is allowed, enforcement levels, age, size and degree of isolation.             Amazon forests maintain consistent canopy structure and greenness during the dry season ▶     Douglas C. Morton, Jyoteshwar Nagol, Claudia C. Carabajal et al.     Lidar and optical satellite observations of Amazon forests indicate consistent canopy structure and reflectance during the dry season, challenging the paradigm of light-limited tropical forest productivity.             The genome of a Late Pleistocene human from a Clovis burial site in western Montana ▶     Morten Rasmussen, Sarah L. Anzick, Michael R. Waters et al.     The first individual genome from the Clovis culture is presented; the origins and genetic legacy of the people who made Clovis tools have been under debate, and evidence here suggests that the individual is more closely related to all Native American populations than to any others, refuting the hypothesis that the Clovis people arrived via European (Solutrean) migration to the Americas.             Intranasal epidermal growth factor treatment rescues neonatal brain injury ▶     Joseph Scafidi, Timothy R. Hammond, Susanna Scafidi et al.     Diffuse white matter injury is common in very preterm infants; here, enhanced epidermal growth factor receptor signalling in oligodendrocyte precursor cells in a mouse model of such injury is shown to increase cellular and functional recovery.             C/EBPα poises B cells for rapid reprogramming into induced pluripotent stem cells ▶     Bruno Di Stefano, Jose Luis Sardina, Chris van Oevelen et al.     A pulse of C/EBPα followed by overexpression of the transcription factors Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and Myc leads to fast and very efficient reprogramming of B cell precursors to induced pluripotent stem cells; C/EBPα facilitates transient chromatin accessibility and accelerates expression of pluripotency genes through a mechanism that involves activation of the Tet2 enzyme.             Leukaemogenesis induced by an activating β-catenin mutation in osteoblasts ▶     Aruna Kode, John S. Manavalan, Ioanna Mosialou et al.     A mouse model shows that osteoblast activating β-catenin mutations alone are sufficient to initiate the development of acute myeloid leukaemia acting through increased Notch signalling.             RNA viruses can hijack vertebrate microRNAs to suppress innate immunity ▶     Derek W. Trobaugh, Christina L. Gardner, Chengqun Sun et al.     Here it is proposed that RNA viruses can adapt to use the antiviral properties of microRNAs to limit viral replication and suppress innate immunity in particular cell types, and this restriction can lead to exacerbation of disease severity.             RecA bundles mediate homology pairing between distant sisters during DNA break repair ▶     Christian Lesterlin, Graeme Ball, Lothar Schermelleh et al.     RecA bundles are shown to be important for the pairing of homologous loci that have segregated to opposite ends of the cell during DNA double-strand break repair in vivo in Escherichia coli.             News & Views                   Palaeogenomics: Genetic roots of the first Americans ▶     Jennifer A. Raff, Deborah A. Bolnick             50 & 100 Years Ago ▶             Remote sensing: A green illusion ▶     Kamel Soudani, Christophe François             Conservation: Making marine protected areas work ▶     Benjamin S. Halpern             Molecular biology: Protein binding cannot subdue a lively RNA ▶     Kathleen B. Hall             Cancer: Persistence of leukaemic ancestors ▶     Nicola E. Potter, Mel Greaves             Ageing: Genetic rejuvenation of old muscle ▶     Mo Li, Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte             Corrigenda                   Corrigendum: IGFBP-4 is an inhibitor of canonical Wnt signalling required for cardiogenesis ▶     Weidong Zhu, Ichiro Shiojima, Yuzuru Ito et al.             Corrigendum: The architecture of Tetrahymena telomerase holoenzyme ▶     Jiansen Jiang, Edward J. Miracco, Kyungah Hong et al.             Erratum                   Erratum: Commensal microbe-derived butyrate induces the differentiation of colonic regulatory T cells ▶     Yukihiro Furusawa, Yuuki Obata, Shinji Fukuda et al.             Research Highlights                   Zoology: Fish have it easy in schools | Structural biology: Enzyme shifts shape to edit DNA | Ecology: Pesticides drag bumblebees down | Microbiology: Glowing probe reveals infection | Neuroscience: How marijuana boosts eating | Microbiology: CRISPR takes out bacterial species | Mental health: Greener spaces mean better living         NEWS & COMMENT           Suicide watch | Science at the sharp end of oppressive politics | UK rolls out terror-attack plan | Ancient genome stirs ethics debate | Medication: The smart-pill oversell | Scientific method: Statistical errors | Carbon sequestration: Managing forests in uncertain times | Environmental sciences: The long goodbye | IPBES: Biodiversity panel should play by rules | Lone wolves | Iconic island study on its last legs | NIH makes wary return to India | Medicine gets up close and personal             More Biological Sciences ▶                 Nature Reviews Neuroscience  FREE POSTER - BDNF function in health and disease    This Poster summarizes the molecular functions of BDNF in the CNS and highlights its therapeutic potential for conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, stroke and spinal cord injury.   This poster is freely available thanks to support from EVER Neuro Pharma          Health Sciences ▲top             RESEARCH           Latest Online                   Cancer: Persistence of leukaemic ancestors ▶     Nicola E. Potter, Mel Greaves             Identification of pre-leukaemic haematopoietic stem cells in acute leukaemia ▶     Liran I. Shlush, Sasan Zandi, Amanda Mitchell et al.     The authors identify pre-leukaemic haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) in patients with acute myeloid leukaemia; these pre-leukaemic HSCs have the capacity of normal multi-lineage haematopoietic differentiation with a competitive growth advantage over wild-type HSCs, and owing to their persistence may serve as a reservoir for therapeutic resistance and relapse.             Articles and Letters                   De novo mutations in schizophrenia implicate synaptic networks ▶     Menachem Fromer, Andrew J. Pocklington, David H. Kavanagh et al.     The authors report the largest family-trio exome sequencing study of schizophrenia to date; mutations are overrepresented in genes for glutamatergic synaptic proteins and also genes mutated in autism and intellectual disability, providing insights into aetiological mechanisms and pathopshyisology shared with other neurodevelopmental disorders.             A polygenic burden of rare disruptive mutations in schizophrenia ▶     Shaun M. Purcell, Jennifer L. Moran, Menachem Fromer et al.     Exome sequence analysis of more than 5,000 schizophrenia cases and controls identifies a polygenic burden primarily arising from rare, disruptive mutations distributed across many genes, among which are those encoding voltage-gated calcium ion channels and the signalling complex formed by the ARC protein of the postsynaptic density; as in autism, mutations were also found in homologues of known targets of the fragile X mental retardation protein.             Leukaemogenesis induced by an activating β-catenin mutation in osteoblasts ▶     Aruna Kode, John S. Manavalan, Ioanna Mosialou et al.     A mouse model shows that osteoblast activating β-catenin mutations alone are sufficient to initiate the development of acute myeloid leukaemia acting through increased Notch signalling.             News & Views                   50 & 100 Years Ago ▶             Cancer: Persistence of leukaemic ancestors ▶     Nicola E. Potter, Mel Greaves           NEWS & COMMENT           Suicide watch | Science at the sharp end of oppressive politics | UK rolls out terror-attack plan | Medication: The smart-pill oversell | Scientific method: Statistical errors | NIH makes wary return to India | Medicine gets up close and personal             More Health Sciences ▶               Physical Sciences ▲top             RESEARCH           Latest Online                   Plasma physics: A promising advance in nuclear fusion ▶     Mark Herrmann             A single low-energy, iron-poor supernova as the source of metals in the star SMSS J031300.36−670839.3 ▶     S. C. Keller, M. S. Bessell, A. Frebel et al.     The optical spectrum of the star SMSS J031300.36−670839.3 shows no evidence of iron; this, together with comparisons of the star’s observed element abundance pattern with those of models, means that SMSS J031300.36−670839.3 must have been seeded with material from a single supernova with an original mass about 60 times that of the Sun.             Change in the chemical composition of infalling gas forming a disk around a protostar ▶     Nami Sakai, Takeshi Sakai, Tomoya Hirota et al.     Observations of a protostellar envelope and disk (from which planets should form) in the relatively close star-forming region of the Taurus molecular cloud reveal unexpected chemistry in the gas between the envelope and the disk: the unsaturated hydrocarbon molecule cyclic-C3H2 and sulphur monoxide.             Fuel gain exceeding unity in an inertially confined fusion implosion ▶     O. A. Hurricane, D. A. Callahan, D. T. Casey et al.     Fusion fuel gains greater than unity — which are crucial to the generation of fusion energy — are achieved on the US National Ignition Facility using the ‘high-foot’ implosion method, which reduces instability in the implosion of the fuel.             Articles and Letters                   The observable signature of late heating of the Universe during cosmic reionization ▶     Anastasia Fialkov, Rennan Barkana, Eli Visbal     The hard spectra of X-ray binaries make them ineffective at heating primordial gas, which must have resulted in a delayed and spatially uniform heating during the epoch of reionization; this means that the signature of reionization in spectra of the 21-cm transition of atomic hydrogen will produce a more complex signal than has been predicted, including a distinct minimum at less than a millikelvin.             Hysteresis in a quantized superfluid ‘atomtronic’ circuit ▶     Stephen Eckel, Jeffrey G. Lee, Fred Jendrzejewski et al.     Hysteresis is observed between circulation states in an ‘atomtronic’ circuit formed from a ring of superfluid Bose–Einstein condensate obstructed by a rotating weak link (a region of low atomic density), and may prove as crucial in future atomtronic devices as it has done in electronic devices.             Quantum error correction in a solid-state hybrid spin register ▶     G. Waldherr, Y. Wang, S. Zaiser et al.     Error correction is central to fault-tolerant quantum computation, but although various schemes have been developed in theory, there are few experimental realizations; a quantum error correction process is now reported for a single system of electron and nuclear spins residing in a diamond crystal.             Mosaic two-lengthscale quasicrystals ▶     T. Dotera, T. Oshiro, P. Ziherl     The unusual structures of quasicrystals, such as the 18-fold symmetry observed in polymer micelles, lack the repeating cell pattern of conventional hard crystals; here their origin is shown to be an extension of Penrose tiling with a simple, generic interparticle interaction.             Reviews and Perspectives                   Cold dark matter heats up ▶     Andrew Pontzen, Fabio Governato     In the ΛCDM paradigm, 95% of the Universe consists of dark energy and cold dark matter, but the low-density cores of dark matter measured at the centre of galaxies are hard to explain using this model; here a review of recent work shows that the action of stars and gas can significantly alter the distribution of cold dark matter through a coupling based on rapid gravitational potential fluctuations.             News & Views                   Cosmology: Cool start to hydrogen ionization ▶     Judd D. Bowman             Condensed-matter physics: History matters for a stirred superfluid ▶     Matthew J. Davis, Kristian Helmerson             Plasma physics: A promising advance in nuclear fusion ▶     Mark Herrmann             Research Highlights                   Materials: Asteroids prove hard to weld         NEWS & COMMENT           Number crunch | UK rolls out terror-attack plan | Scientific method: Statistical errors             More Physical Sciences ▶               Earth & Environmental Sciences ▲top             RESEARCH           Latest Online                   Geographical limits to species-range shifts are suggested by climate velocity ▶     Michael T. Burrows, David S. Schoeman, Anthony J. Richardson et al.     Global maps constructed using climate-change velocities to derive spatial trajectories for climatic niches between 1960 and 2100 show past and future shifts in ecological climate niches; properties of these trajectories are used to infer changes in species distributions, and thus identify areas that will act as climate sources and sinks, and geographical barriers to species migrations.             Articles and Letters                   A two-fold increase of carbon cycle sensitivity to tropical temperature variations ▶     Xuhui Wang, Shilong Piao, Philippe Ciais et al.     The long-term record of atmospheric carbon dioxide growth rate shows that the sensitivity of this growth rate to tropical temperature variability has increased by a factor of about two in the past five decades, and was greater when tropical land regions experienced drier conditions, implying that moisture regulates this sensitivity.             Global conservation outcomes depend on marine protected areas with five key features ▶     Graham J. Edgar, Rick D. Stuart-Smith, Trevor J. Willis et al.     Marine protected areas (MPAs) are an important and increasing component of marine conservation strategy, but their effectiveness is variable and debated; now a study has assembled data from a global sample of MPAs and demonstrates that effectiveness depends on five key properties: whether any fishing is allowed, enforcement levels, age, size and degree of isolation.             Amazon forests maintain consistent canopy structure and greenness during the dry season ▶     Douglas C. Morton, Jyoteshwar Nagol, Claudia C. Carabajal et al.     Lidar and optical satellite observations of Amazon forests indicate consistent canopy structure and reflectance during the dry season, challenging the paradigm of light-limited tropical forest productivity.             News & Views                   Remote sensing: A green illusion ▶     Kamel Soudani, Christophe François             Conservation: Making marine protected areas work ▶     Benjamin S. Halpern             Ocean science: Eddy effects on biogeochemistry ▶     Amala Mahadevan             Brief Communications Arising                   Uncertainties in transpiration estimates ▶     A. M. J. Coenders-Gerrits, R. J. van der Ent, T. A. Bogaard et al.             Jasechko et al. reply ▶     Scott Jasechko, Zachary D. Sharp, John J. Gibson et al.             Research Highlights                   Cryosphere: Glacier reaches record speed | Climate change: Pacific winds slow warming | Mental health: Greener spaces mean better living         NEWS & COMMENT           Carbon sequestration: Managing forests in uncertain times             More Earth & Environmental Sciences ▶                 Valproate reopens critical-period learning of absolute pitch  Absolute pitch, the ability to identify or produce the pitch of a sound without a reference point, has a critical period, i.e., it can only be acquired early in life. However, in this article, Allan H. Young and colleagues show that histone-deacetylase inhibitors (HDAC inhibitors) enable adult mice to establish perceptual preferences that are otherwise impossible to acquire after youth.   Read more articles from Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience         Careers & Jobs ▲top               Web design: Webcraft 101 ▶     An eye-pleasing website can boost the appeal of a laboratory, and creating one has never been easier.                   Self-taught soft skills ▶     Junior researchers can learn career-boosting skills by forming their own groups, says Alexandra Lucs.             Careers related news & comment                   Number crunch | Science at the sharp end of oppressive politics | Seven days: 7–13 February 2014 | Sociology: Sexual violence rife on US campuses Stephen Shaffer | Education: Scientists need leadership training Marina Kvaskoff, Stephanie D. 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