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Reports on European leaders' approval of the policy document on competitiveness, growth and unemployment prepared by Jacques Delors. Creation of 15 million jobs in the European Union as the paper's aim; Importance of research and development (R&D) to economic recovery; Target of increasing spending on R&D; Setting up of a `Task Force on European Information Infrastructure.'

Describes a letter signed by European university libraries which asked science-journal publishers how they plan to keep prices affordable. Details about the letter; Response from publishers; Views of Derk Haank of Elsevier Science; Lack of market forces in the research publications industry; View that scientists need to change their attitudes towards publishing.

The article discusses the results of a poll made by the journal "Nature" on what and how metrics are used in academic institutions. It says that 150 readers responded to the survey and provosts, department heads, and other administrators were also surveyed at nearly 30 research institutions throughout the world. It states that three-quarters of the researchers surveyed said that metrics are used in promotion and hiring decisions, and about 70% mentioned that metrics are applied in performance review and tenure decisions. Moreover, most administrators asserted that they ignore the metrics in promotion, hiring, and tenure decisions. It discusses how metrics are used in North America, Europe, and Asia.

The author reflects on European political impasse regarding the use of genetically modified (GM) crops, known also as transgenic crops, and the loss of alternatives for the European Commission. Topics include the authors thoughts on the involvement of the European Union's council of environment ministers who are voting on insect-resistant maize, the potential for a regulatory deadlock, and why countries opposed to GM crops should opt out of legislation.

The article discusses the scientific publishing contributions of North and West Europe to the Nature Index database in 2014. Topics mentioned include the role of investment and talent recruitment in the region's output in the Index, the region's article and weighted fractional count, the pattern of top five universities' relative subject area distribution and collaborativeness and top three country collaborations, and dominance of British universities in research.

The article discusses the science research done by North and Western Europe. Topics include the research and finance of Germany, the research and development initiative of the European Union, and the researcher strength of various European countries. Great Britain leading in researches in life sciences, and those conducted by universities across Europe are also mentioned. Several charts listing the research detains of the European nations are also given.

The article discusses a research paper on daily temperatures in Europe from climate observation stations across the continent, which references a study by Martin Beniston et al., published in a 2015 issue of the "Climatic Change."

Focuses on the networking exercise known as the European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research, or COST. Coordination of fundamental research in fields of science including chemistry; Finance and organization of the initiative; Research networks in meta-computing and metal catalysis which are being considered. INSET: Who's who in Europe.

The article focuses on gender inequality in the field of science in European countries. In 2007, women scientists in 27 countries of European Union accounted for 38% of active researchers and only 19% of full professors. It is said that the number of women PhD graduates is also increasing, however it does not suggest any self-correction in gender imbalance. It is said that Europe has still not reached its target of having 40% women in decision-making positions in science and research by 2001.

Ceratopsians (horned dinosaurs) represent a highly diverse and abundant radiation of non-avian dinosaurs known primarily from the Cretaceous period (65–145 million years ago). This radiation has been considered to be geographically limited to Asia and western North America, with only controversial remains reported from other continents. Here we describe new ceratopsian cranial material from the Late Cretaceous of Iharkút, Hungary, from a coronosaurian ceratopsian, Ajkaceratops kozmai. Ajkaceratops is most similar to ‘bagaceratopsids’ such as Bagaceratops and Magnirostris, previously known only from Late Cretaceous east Asia. The new material unambiguously demonstrates that ceratopsians occupied Late Cretaceous Europe and, when considered with the recent discovery of possible leptoceratopsid teeth from Sweden, indicates that the clade may have reached Europe on at least two independent occasions. European Late Cretaceous dinosaur faunas have been characterized as consisting of a mix of endemic ‘relictual’ taxa and ‘Gondwanan’ taxa, with typical Asian and North American groups largely absent. Ajkaceratops demonstrates that this prevailing biogeographical hypothesis is overly simplified and requires reassessment. Iharkút was part of the western Tethyan archipelago, a tectonically complex series of island chains between Africa and Europe, and the occurrence of a coronosaurian ceratopsian in this locality may represent an early Late Cretaceous ‘island-hopping’ dispersal across the Tethys Ocean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article cites a U.S. report that states that Asian nations are catching up with Europe and the United States in terms of scientific output. According to the report, in 2004, countries from the Asia Pacific region including China, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and India produced 25 percent of the world's research papers. By comparison, Europe produced 38 percent of the world's scientific papers, and the United States produced 33 percent. Within Asia, China, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan grew the most. In China, some institutions even pay researchers extra for publications in indexed journals, especially ones that carry widely cited articles.

Discusses historical discoveries concerning crystals. French crystallographer Rene-Just Hauy's belief that the smallest units of crystals were molecules integrantes; German chemist Eilhardt Mitscherlich's discovery of the phenomenon of isomorphism; Mitscherlich's education; Papers that he published on polymorphism and dimorphism; Discovery by Francois Beudant and William Wollaston that isomophous species can form solid solutions, called Mischkristalle.

The article discusses the contributions of Central and East Europe to the scientific publishing database Nature Index in 2014. Topics cited include the challenges in social change and economic stagnation facing the region, article and weighted fractional count of the region, and the pattern of top five institutions' relative subject area distribution and collaborativeness.

The article discusses the significance of four year doctorate programme in universities of Europe , Great Britain and United States. In the united Kingdom, the trend is up from three years to three and a half or four. With financial commitments from the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Wellcome Trust, the number of four-year programmes is rising. Ironically, the new European ideas are modelled on the US system, where four or five-year programmes often stretch much longer. According to a professor, students need to consider where their aspirations lie. If academia is not the ultimate objective, doing a doctorate should not be given.

The Bronze Age of Eurasia (around 3000-1000 BC) was a period of major cultural changes. However, there is debate about whether these changes resulted from the circulation of ideas or from human migrations, potentially also facilitating the spread of languages and certain phenotypic traits. We investigated this by using new, improved methods to sequence low-coverage genomes from 101 ancient humans from across Eurasia. We show that the Bronze Age was a highly dynamic period involving large-scale population migrations and replacements, responsible for shaping major parts of present-day demographic structure in both Europe and Asia. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesized spread of Indo-European languages during the Early Bronze Age. We also demonstrate that light skin pigmentation in Europeans was already present at high frequency in the Bronze Age, but not lactose tolerance, indicating a more recent onset of positive selection on lactose tolerance than previously thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study related to legislation on research involving the destruction of human embryos in Europe in response to a petition by the Europe's 'One of Us' Pro-Life group campaign in the periodical "Nature" in 2014.

We sequenced the genomes of a ∼7,000-year-old farmer from Germany and eight ∼8,000-year-old hunter-gatherers from Luxembourg and Sweden. We analysed these and other ancient genomes with 2,345 contemporary humans to show that most present-day Europeans derive from at least three highly differentiated populations: west European hunter-gatherers, who contributed ancestry to all Europeans but not to Near Easterners; ancient north Eurasians related to Upper Palaeolithic Siberians, who contributed to both Europeans and Near Easterners; and early European farmers, who were mainly of Near Eastern origin but also harboured west European hunter-gatherer related ancestry. We model these populations' deep relationships and show that early European farmers had ∼44% ancestry from a 'basal Eurasian' population that split before the diversification of other non-African lineages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ancient genomic sequences have started to reveal the origin and the demographic impact of farmers from the Neolithic period spreading into Europe. The adoption of farming, stock breeding and sedentary societies during the Neolithic may have resulted in adaptive changes in genes associated with immunity and diet. However, the limited data available from earlier hunter-gatherers preclude an understanding of the selective processes associated with this crucial transition to agriculture in recent human evolution. Here we sequence an approximately 7,000-year-old Mesolithic skeleton discovered at the La Braña-Arintero site in León, Spain, to retrieve a complete pre-agricultural European human genome. Analysis of this genome in the context of other ancient samples suggests the existence of a common ancient genomic signature across western and central Eurasia from the Upper Paleolithic to the Mesolithic. The La Braña individual carries ancestral alleles in several skin pigmentation genes, suggesting that the light skin of modern Europeans was not yet ubiquitous in Mesolithic times. Moreover, we provide evidence that a significant number of derived, putatively adaptive variants associated with pathogen resistance in modern Europeans were already present in this hunter-gatherer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author reflects on the need for cooperation and a clear set of aims for Europe to be a leader in making research freely available. He states that financiers should help in establishing new, non-commercial academic publication models, which could be hosted by universities, research organizations and learned societies.

The introduction of dairying was a critical step in early agriculture, with milk products being rapidly adopted as a major component of the diets of prehistoric farmers and pottery-using late hunter-gatherers. The processing of milk, particularly the production of cheese, would have been a critical development because it not only allowed the preservation of milk products in a non-perishable and transportable form, but also it made milk a more digestible commodity for early prehistoric farmers. The finding of abundant milk residues in pottery vessels from seventh millennium sites from north-western Anatolia provided the earliest evidence of milk processing, although the exact practice could not be explicitly defined. Notably, the discovery of potsherds pierced with small holes appear at early Neolithic sites in temperate Europe in the sixth millennium bc and have been interpreted typologically as 'cheese-strainers', although a direct association with milk processing has not yet been demonstrated. Organic residues preserved in pottery vessels have provided direct evidence for early milk use in the Neolithic period in the Near East and south-eastern Europe, north Africa, Denmark and the British Isles, based on the ?13C and ?13C values of the major fatty acids in milk. Here we apply the same approach to investigate the function of sieves/strainer vessels, providing direct chemical evidence for their use in milk processing. The presence of abundant milk fat in these specialized vessels, comparable in form to modern cheese strainers, provides compelling evidence for the vessels having being used to separate fat-rich milk curds from the lactose-containing whey. This new evidence emphasizes the importance of pottery vessels in processing dairy products, particularly in the manufacture of reduced-lactose milk products among lactose-intolerant prehistoric farming communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented regarding the launch of the new European science-policy body ScienceEurope in October 2011.

The article discusses a European Union (EU) framework for research funding in relation to a League of European Research Universities (LERU) report.

The author reflects on the importance of the European Commission's proposal for Europe 2020, a ten-year economic strategy to the scientists in Europe. The author states that the strategy aims to survive the financial crisis and to emerge stronger. The author infers that the strategy allows the European Union (EU) to raise research expenditure to 3% of its gross domestic product (GDP).

In the prehistoric green Sahara of Holocene North Africa-in contrast to the Neolithic of Europe and Eurasia-a reliance on cattle, sheep and goats emerged as a stable and widespread way of life, long before the first evidence for domesticated plants or settled village farming communities. The remarkable rock art found widely across the region depicts cattle herding among early Saharan pastoral groups, and includes rare scenes of milking; however, these images can rarely be reliably dated. Although the faunal evidence provides further confirmation of the importance of cattle and other domesticates, the scarcity of cattle bones makes it impossible to ascertain herd structures via kill-off patterns, thereby precluding interpretations of whether dairying was practiced. Because pottery production begins early in northern Africa the potential exists to investigate diet and subsistence practices using molecular and isotopic analyses of absorbed food residues. This approach has been successful in determining the chronology of dairying beginning in the 'Fertile Crescent' of the Near East and its spread across Europe. Here we report the first unequivocal chemical evidence, based on the ?13C and ?13C values of the major alkanoic acids of milk fat, for the adoption of dairying practices by prehistoric Saharan African people in the fifth millennium bc. Interpretations are supported by a new database of modern ruminant animal fats collected from Africa. These findings confirm the importance of 'lifetime products', such as milk, in early Saharan pastoralism, and provide an evolutionary context for the emergence of lactase persistence in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the Gran Sasso National Laboratory of the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) in Italy. It states the transition and changes in the scientific priorities of Grand Sasso at its 30 years, with the laboratory's collaboration with CERN in Europe nearing into end. Furthermore, Stanley Wojcicki of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California adds that Grand Sasso has been the first true underground laboratory purposely established for science.

Free fatty acids provide an important energy source as nutrients, and act as signalling molecules in various cellular processes. Several G-protein-coupled receptors have been identified as free-fatty-acid receptors important in physiology as well as in several diseases. GPR120 (also known as O3FAR1) functions as a receptor for unsaturated long-chain free fatty acids and has a critical role in various physiological homeostasis mechanisms such as adipogenesis, regulation of appetite and food preference. Here we show that GPR120-deficient mice fed a high-fat diet develop obesity, glucose intolerance and fatty liver with decreased adipocyte differentiation and lipogenesis and enhanced hepatic lipogenesis. Insulin resistance in such mice is associated with reduced insulin signalling and enhanced inflammation in adipose tissue. In human, we show that GPR120 expression in adipose tissue is significantly higher in obese individuals than in lean controls. GPR120 exon sequencing in obese subjects reveals a deleterious non-synonymous mutation (p.R270H) that inhibits GPR120 signalling activity. Furthermore, the p.R270H variant increases the risk of obesity in European populations. Overall, this study demonstrates that the lipid sensor GPR120 has a key role in sensing dietary fat and, therefore, in the control of energy balance in both humans and rodents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Species diversity can be lost through two different but potentially interacting extinction processes: demographic decline and speciation reversal through introgressive hybridization. To investigate the relative contribution of these processes, we analysed historical and contemporary data of replicate whitefish radiations from 17 pre-alpine European lakes and reconstructed changes in genetic species differentiation through time using historical samples. Here we provide evidence that species diversity evolved in response to ecological opportunity, and that eutrophication, by diminishing this opportunity, has driven extinctions through speciation reversal and demographic decline. Across the radiations, the magnitude of eutrophication explains the pattern of species loss and levels of genetic and functional distinctiveness among remaining species. We argue that extinction by speciation reversal may be more widespread than currently appreciated. Preventing such extinctions will require that conservation efforts not only target existing species but identify and protect the ecological and evolutionary processes that generate and maintain species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the relationship between climate change and Neanderthal extinction in Europe. It mentions the findings of archaeologists in the recent excavations in southern Iberia which have bolstered the debate on Neanderthal survival. It also states the effort of paleoecologist Chronis Tzedakis and his colleagues in developing a technique to put radiocarbon dates in a climatic context using sediments from off the coast of Venezuela to evaluate the link between climate and Neanderthal extinction.

The appearance of anatomically modern humans in Europe and the nature of the transition from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic are matters of intense debate. Most researchers accept that before the arrival of anatomically modern humans, Neanderthals had adopted several 'transitional' technocomplexes. Two of these, the Uluzzian of southern Europe and the Châtelperronian of western Europe, are key to current interpretations regarding the timing of arrival of anatomically modern humans in the region and their potential interaction with Neanderthal populations. They are also central to current debates regarding the cognitive abilities of Neanderthals and the reasons behind their extinction. However, the actual fossil evidence associated with these assemblages is scant and fragmentary, and recent work has questioned the attribution of the Châtelperronian to Neanderthals on the basis of taphonomic mixing and lithic analysis. Here we reanalyse the deciduous molars from the Grotta del Cavallo (southern Italy), associated with the Uluzzian and originally classified as Neanderthal. Using two independent morphometric methods based on microtomographic data, we show that the Cavallo specimens can be attributed to anatomically modern humans. The secure context of the teeth provides crucial evidence that the makers of the Uluzzian technocomplex were therefore not Neanderthals. In addition, new chronometric data for the Uluzzian layers of Grotta del Cavallo obtained from associated shell beads and included within a Bayesian age model show that the teeth must date to ?45,000-43,000 calendar years before present. The Cavallo human remains are therefore the oldest known European anatomically modern humans, confirming a rapid dispersal of modern humans across the continent before the Aurignacian and the disappearance of Neanderthals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The earliest anatomically modern humans in Europe are thought to have appeared around 43,000-42,000 calendar years before present (43-42?kyr cal bp), by association with Aurignacian sites and lithic assemblages assumed to have been made by modern humans rather than by Neanderthals. However, the actual physical evidence for modern humans is extremely rare, and direct dates reach no farther back than about 41-39?kyr cal bp, leaving a gap. Here we show, using stratigraphic, chronological and archaeological data, that a fragment of human maxilla from the Kent's Cavern site, UK, dates to the earlier period. The maxilla (KC4), which was excavated in 1927, was initially diagnosed as Upper Palaeolithic modern human. In 1989, it was directly radiocarbon dated by accelerator mass spectrometry to 36.4-34.7?kyr cal bp. Using a Bayesian analysis of new ultrafiltered bone collagen dates in an ordered stratigraphic sequence at the site, we show that this date is a considerable underestimate. Instead, KC4 dates to 44.2-41.5?kyr cal bp. This makes it older than any other equivalently dated modern human specimen and directly contemporary with the latest European Neanderthals, thus making its taxonomic attribution crucial. We also show that in 13 dental traits KC4 possesses modern human rather than Neanderthal characteristics; three other traits show Neanderthal affinities and a further seven are ambiguous. KC4 therefore represents the oldest known anatomically modern human fossil in northwestern Europe, fills a key gap between the earliest dated Aurignacian remains and the earliest human skeletal remains, and demonstrates the wide and rapid dispersal of early modern humans across Europe more than 40?kyr ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many species are projected to become vulnerable to twenty-first-century climate changes, with consequent effects on the tree of life. If losses were not randomly distributed across the tree of life, climate change could lead to a disproportionate loss of evolutionary history. Here we estimate the consequences of climate change on the phylogenetic diversities of plant, bird and mammal assemblages across Europe. Using a consensus across ensembles of forecasts for 2020, 2050 and 2080 and high-resolution phylogenetic trees, we show that species vulnerability to climate change clusters weakly across phylogenies. Such phylogenetic signal in species vulnerabilities does not lead to higher loss of evolutionary history than expected with a model of random extinctions. This is because vulnerable species have neither fewer nor closer relatives than the remaining clades. Reductions in phylogenetic diversity will be greater in southern Europe, and gains are expected in regions of high latitude or altitude. However, losses will not be offset by gains and the tree of life faces a trend towards homogenization across the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are a group of conditions characterized by impairments in reciprocal social interaction and communication, and the presence of restricted and repetitive behaviours. Individuals with an ASD vary greatly in cognitive development, which can range from above average to intellectual disability. Although ASDs are known to be highly heritable (∼90%), the underlying genetic determinants are still largely unknown. Here we analysed the genome-wide characteristics of rare (<1% frequency) copy number variation in ASD using dense genotyping arrays. When comparing 996 ASD individuals of European ancestry to 1,287 matched controls, cases were found to carry a higher global burden of rare, genic copy number variants (CNVs) (1.19 fold, P = 0.012), especially so for loci previously implicated in either ASD and/or intellectual disability (1.69 fold, P = 3.4 × 10-4). Among the CNVs there were numerous de novo and inherited events, sometimes in combination in a given family, implicating many novel ASD genes such as SHANK2, SYNGAP1, DLGAP2 and the X-linked DDX53–PTCHD1 locus. We also discovered an enrichment of CNVs disrupting functional gene sets involved in cellular proliferation, projection and motility, and GTPase/Ras signalling. Our results reveal many new genetic and functional targets in ASD that may lead to final connected pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stone tools are durable reminders of the activities, skills and customs of early humans, and have distinctive morphologies that reflect the development of technological skills during the Pleistocene epoch. In Africa, large cutting tools (hand-axes and bifacial chopping tools) became part of Palaeolithic technology during the Early Pleistocene (∼1.5 Myr ago). However, in Europe this change had not been documented until the Middle Pleistocene (<0.5 Myr ago). Here we report dates for two western Mediterranean hand-axe sites that are nearly twice the age of the supposed earliest Acheulian in western Europe. Palaeomagnetic analysis of these two sites in southeastern Spain found reverse polarity magnetozones, showing that hand-axes were already in Europe as early as 0.9 Myr ago. This expanded antiquity for European hand-axe culture supports a wide geographic distribution of Palaeolithic bifacial technology outside of Africa during the Early Pleistocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When government can't afford to match the research grants paid to rich labs in North America, Europe and Japan, it must be especially galling to have to pay more than one's wealthy competitors for standard lab equipment and materials. The extent of the problem is revealed by "Nature" survey of researchers in Germany, Poland, the U.S. and Brazil. On both sides of the Atlantic, the larger and more competitive market of the established scientific powers ensures that prices are driven down. But elsewhere, the poor get poorer. What can researchers do to combat these harsh economics of scale? Sometimes it helps to negotiate just a little harder. One Polish group leader told "Nature" that he got a 35 percent discount on centrifuges after confronting his local retailer with cheaper prices across the nearby German border.

The climate of the North Atlantic region exhibits fluctuations on decadal timescales that have large societal consequences. Prominent examples include hurricane activity in the Atlantic, and surface-temperature and rainfall variations over North America, Europe and northern Africa. Although these multidecadal variations are potentially predictable if the current state of the ocean is known, the lack of subsurface ocean observations that constrain this state has been a limiting factor for realizing the full skill potential of such predictions. Here we apply a simple approach—that uses only sea surface temperature (SST) observations—to partly overcome this difficulty and perform retrospective decadal predictions with a climate model. Skill is improved significantly relative to predictions made with incomplete knowledge of the ocean state, particularly in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific oceans. Thus these results point towards the possibility of routine decadal climate predictions. Using this method, and by considering both internal natural climate variations and projected future anthropogenic forcing, we make the following forecast: over the next decade, the current Atlantic meridional overturning circulation will weaken to its long-term mean; moreover, North Atlantic SST and European and North American surface temperatures will cool slightly, whereas tropical Pacific SST will remain almost unchanged. Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic warming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The earliest hominin occupation of Europe is one of the most debated topics in palaeoanthropology. However, the purportedly oldest of the Early Pleistocene sites in Eurasia lack precise age control and contain stone tools rather than human fossil remains. Here we report the discovery of a human mandible associated with an assemblage of Mode 1 lithic tools and faunal remains bearing traces of hominin processing, in stratigraphic level TE9 at the site of the Sima del Elefante, Atapuerca, Spain. Level TE9 has been dated to the Early Pleistocene (approximately 1.2–1.1 Myr), based on a combination of palaeomagnetism, cosmogenic nuclides and biostratigraphy. The Sima del Elefante site thus emerges as the oldest, most accurately dated record of human occupation in Europe, to our knowledge. The study of the human mandible suggests that the first settlement of Western Europe could be related to an early demographic expansion out of Africa. The new evidence, with previous findings in other Atapuerca sites (level TD6 from Gran Dolina), also suggests that a speciation event occurred in this extreme area of the Eurasian continent during the Early Pleistocene, initiating the hominin lineage represented by the TE9 and TD6 hominins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantifying the number of deleterious mutations per diploid human genome is of crucial concern to both evolutionary and medical geneticists. Here we combine genome-wide polymorphism data from PCR-based exon resequencing, comparative genomic data across mammalian species, and protein structure predictions to estimate the number of functionally consequential single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) carried by each of 15 African American (AA) and 20 European American (EA) individuals. We find that AAs show significantly higher levels of nucleotide heterozygosity than do EAs for all categories of functional SNPs considered, including synonymous, non-synonymous, predicted ‘benign’, predicted ‘possibly damaging’ and predicted ‘probably damaging’ SNPs. This result is wholly consistent with previous work showing higher overall levels of nucleotide variation in African populations than in Europeans. EA individuals, in contrast, have significantly more genotypes homozygous for the derived allele at synonymous and non-synonymous SNPs and for the damaging allele at ‘probably damaging’ SNPs than AAs do. For SNPs segregating only in one population or the other, the proportion of non-synonymous SNPs is significantly higher in the EA sample (55.4%) than in the AA sample (47.0%; P < 2.3 × 10-37). We observe a similar proportional excess of SNPs that are inferred to be ‘probably damaging’ (15.9% in EA; 12.1% in AA; P < 3.3 × 10-11). Using extensive simulations, we show that this excess proportion of segregating damaging alleles in Europeans is probably a consequence of a bottleneck that Europeans experienced at about the time of the migration out of Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of continental break-up provides a large-scale experiment that can be used to test causal relations between plate tectonics and the dynamics of the Earth’s deep mantle. Detailed diagnostic information on the timing and dynamics of such events, which are not resolved by plate kinematic reconstructions, can be obtained from the response of the interior of adjacent continental plates to stress changes generated by plate boundary processes. Here we demonstrate a causal relationship between North Atlantic continental rifting at ∼62 Myr ago and an abrupt change of the intra-plate deformation style in the adjacent European continent. The rifting involved a left-lateral displacement between the North American-Greenland plate and Eurasia, which initiated the observed pause in the relative convergence of Europe and Africa. The associated stress change in the European continent was significant and explains the sudden termination of a ∼20-Myr-long contractional intra-plate deformation within Europe, during the late Cretaceous period to the earliest Palaeocene epoch, which was replaced by low-amplitude intra-plate stress-relaxation features. The pre-rupture tectonic stress was large enough to have been responsible for precipitating continental break-up, so there is no need to invoke a thermal mantle plume as a driving mechanism. The model explains the simultaneous timing of several diverse geological events, and shows how the intra-continental stratigraphic record can reveal the timing and dynamics of stress changes, which cannot be resolved by reconstructions based only on plate kinematics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copy number variation (CNV) of DNA sequences is functionally significant but has yet to be fully ascertained. We have constructed a first-generation CNV map of the human genome through the study of 270 individuals from four populations with ancestry in Europe, Africa or Asia (the HapMap collection). DNA from these individuals was screened for CNV using two complementary technologies: single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping arrays, and clone-based comparative genomic hybridization. A total of 1,447 copy number variable regions (CNVRs), which can encompass overlapping or adjacent gains or losses, covering 360 megabases (12% of the genome) were identified in these populations. These CNVRs contained hundreds of genes, disease loci, functional elements and segmental duplications. Notably, the CNVRs encompassed more nucleotide content per genome than SNPs, underscoring the importance of CNV in genetic diversity and evolution. The data obtained delineate linkage disequilibrium patterns for many CNVs, and reveal marked variation in copy number among populations. We also demonstrate the utility of this resource for genetic disease studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radiocarbon dating has been fundamental to the study of human cultural and biological development over the past 50,000 yr. Two recent developments in the methodology of radiocarbon dating show that the speed of colonization of Europe by modern human populations was more rapid than previously believed, and that their period of coexistence with the preceding Neanderthal was shorter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents solutions on how Europe can meet the challenge of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad-cow disease. Top priority of developing a reliable diagnostic test to identify animals and humans which are incubating the disease; Comparisons between BSE and AIDS; Description of the European Commission's anti-BSE program.

The colonization of Eurasia by early humans is a key event after their spread out of Africa, but the nature, timing and ecological context of the earliest human occupation of northwest Europe is uncertain and has been the subject of intense debate. The southern Caucasus was occupied about 1.8 million years (Myr) ago, whereas human remains from Atapuerca-TD6, Spain (more than 780 kyr ago) and Ceprano, Italy (about 800 kyr ago) show that early Homo had dispersed to the Mediterranean hinterland before the Brunhes–Matuyama magnetic polarity reversal (780 kyr ago). Until now, the earliest uncontested artefacts from northern Europe were much younger, suggesting that humans were unable to colonize northern latitudes until about 500 kyr ago. Here we report flint artefacts from the Cromer Forest-bed Formation at Pakefield (52° N), Suffolk, UK, from an interglacial sequence yielding a diverse range of plant and animal fossils. Event and lithostratigraphy, palaeomagnetism, amino acid geochronology and biostratigraphy indicate that the artefacts date to the early part of the Brunhes Chron (about 700 kyr ago) and thus represent the earliest unequivocal evidence for human presence north of the Alps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Future climate warming is expected to enhance plant growth in temperate ecosystems and to increase carbon sequestration. But although severe regional heatwaves may become more frequent in a changing climate, their impact on terrestrial carbon cycling is unclear. Here we report measurements of ecosystem carbon dioxide fluxes, remotely sensed radiation absorbed by plants, and country-level crop yields taken during the European heatwave in 2003. We use a terrestrial biosphere simulation model to assess continental-scale changes in primary productivity during 2003, and their consequences for the net carbon balance. We estimate a 30 per cent reduction in gross primary productivity over Europe, which resulted in a strong anomalous net source of carbon dioxide (0.5 Pg C yr-1) to the atmosphere and reversed the effect of four years of net ecosystem carbon sequestration. Our results suggest that productivity reduction in eastern and western Europe can be explained by rainfall deficit and extreme summer heat, respectively. We also find that ecosystem respiration decreased together with gross primary productivity, rather than accelerating with the temperature rise. Model results, corroborated by historical records of crop yields, suggest that such a reduction in Europe's primary productivity is unprecedented during the last century. An increase in future drought events could turn temperate ecosystems into carbon sources, contributing to positive carbon-climate feedbacks already anticipated in the tropics and at high latitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the formation of a European Research Area. European research commissioner Philippe Busquin and his work in reforming European scientific research; Political structure of Europe which puts its research community at a disadvantage; Necessity of support from the member states; Calls of science members for European Union member states to open their national research programs to non-national research projects.

The spread of culture and language in human populations is explained by two alternative models: the demic diffusion model, which involves mass movement of people; and the cultural diffusion model, which refers to cultural impact between populations and involves limited genetic exchange between them. The mechanism of the peopling of Europe has long been debated, a key issue being whether the diffusion of agriculture and language from the Near East was concomitant with a large movement of farmers. Here we show, by systematically analysing Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA variation in Han populations, that the pattern of the southward expansion of Han culture is consistent with the demic diffusion model, and that males played a larger role than females in this expansion. The Han people, who all share the same culture and language, exceed 1.16 billion (2000 census), and are by far the largest ethnic group in the world. The expansion process of Han culture is thus of great interest to researchers in many fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extreme river floods have been a substantial natural hazard in Europe over the past centuries, and radiative effects of recent anthropogenic changes in atmospheric composition are expected to cause climate changes, especially enhancement of the hydrological cycle, leading to an increased flood risk. For the past few decades, however, observations from Europe do not show a clear increase in flood occurrence rate. Here we present longer-term records of winter and summer floods in two of the largest rivers in central Europe, the Elbe and Oder rivers. For the past 80 to 150?yr, we find a decrease in winter flood occurrence in both rivers, while summer floods show no trend, consistent with trends in extreme precipitation occurrence. The reduction in winter flood occurrence can partly be attributed to fewer events of strong freezing-following such events, breaking river ice at the end of the winter may function as a water barrier and enhance floods severely. Additionally, we detect significant long-term changes in flood occurrence rates in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, and conclude that reductions in river length, construction of reservoirs and deforestation have had minor effects on flood frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Pacific plate converges with northeastern Eurasia at a rate of 8-9 m per century along the Kamchatka, Kuril and Japan trenches[SUP1]. Along the southern Kuril trench, which faces the Japanese island of Hokkaido, this fast subduction has recurrently generated earthquakes with magnitudes of up to ∼8 over the past two centuries[SUP2-6]. These historical events, on rupture segments 100-200 km long, have been considered characteristic of Hokkai-do's plate-boundary earthquakes[SUP7,8]. But here we use deposits of prehistoric tsunamis to infer the infrequent occurrence of larger earthquakes generated from longer ruptures. Many of these tsunami deposits form sheets of sand that extend kilometres inland from the deposits of historical tsunamis. Stratigraphic series of extensive sand sheets, intercalated with dated volcanic-ash layers, show that such unusually large tsunamis occurred about every 500 years on average over the past 2,000-7,000 years, most recently ∼350 years ago. Numerical simulations of these tsunamis are best explained by earthquakes that individually rupture multiple segments along the southern Kuril trench. We infer that such multi-segment earthquakes persistently recur among a larger number of single-segment events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The signature of Dansgaard–Oeschger events—millennial-scale abrupt climate oscillations during the last glacial period—is well established in ice cores and marine records. But the effects of such events in continental settings are not as clear, and their absolute chronology is uncertain beyond the limit of 14C dating and annual layer counting for marine records and ice cores, respectively. Here we present carbon and oxygen isotope records from a stalagmite collected in southwest France which have been precisely dated using 234U/230Th ratios. We find rapid climate oscillations coincident with the established Dansgaard–Oeschger events between 83,000 and 32,000 years ago in both isotope records. The oxygen isotope signature is similar to a record from Soreq cave, Israel, and deep-sea records, indicating the large spatial scale of the climate oscillations. The signal in the carbon isotopes gives evidence of drastic and rapid vegetation changes in western Europe, an important site in human cultural evolution. We also find evidence for a long phase of extremely cold climate in southwest France between 61.2 ± 0.6 and 67.4 ± 0.9 kyr ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reveals that respiration is the main determinant of carbon balance in Europe's forests. Use of data of net ecosystem carbon exchange collected between 1996 and 1998; Range of annual carbon balances; Increase of carbon uptake with decreasing latitude.