News & Views in 2015

Neurons in the brain's visual cortex receive inputs from thousands of other neurons. But it now emerges that each is strongly connected to only a few others: those most similar to itself. See Letter p.399

The success of antibodies as pharmaceuticals has triggered interest in crafting much smaller mimics. A crucial step forward has been taken with the chemical synthesis of small molecules that recruit immune cells to attack cancer cells.

Can three-dimensional printing enable the mass customization of electronic devices? A study that exploits this method to create light-emitting diodes based on 'quantum dots' provides a step towards this goal.

High-resolution imaging of the base of the Pacific plate as it descends beneath New Zealand discloses a 10-kilometre-thick channel that decouples the plate from underlying upper mantle. See Letter p.85

Comparison of climate records from the Pliocene and Pleistocene geological epochs of the past five million years suggests that positive climate feedbacks are not strengthened during warm climate intervals. See Article p.49

The faithful propagation of species requires a complex balance of DNA-repair pathways to maintain genome integrity. New work sheds light on one such poorly understood pathway and its role in certain cancers. See Letters p.254 & p.258

Signal sequences on messenger RNA that initiate protein synthesis are not thought to be interchangeable between life's domains. The finding that a signal from an arthropod virus can function in bacteria questions this idea. See Letter p.110

Influenza virus severely damages the epithelial tissue that lines the lung. Findings suggest that, in mice, activation of a back-up population of stem cells mediates effective repair of the injured lung. See Letters p.616 & p.621

The repurposing of a bacterial defence system known as CRISPR into a potent activator of gene expression in human cells enables powerful studies of gene function, as exemplified in cancer cells. See Article p.583

A link between rotation and age for Sun-like stars has long been known, but a stringent test of it for older stars has been lacking. The Kepler mission helps to fill this gap with observations of an old star cluster. See Letter p.589

A combination of simulations and data shows that short-term climate trends are dominated by natural internal variations, providing a basis for climate forecasting, but not for assessing sensitivity to forced changes. See Article p.565

Splitting and recombining an electron wave packet has been used to test relativity at a record sensitivity. The result heralds an era of precision measurements of relativity using quantum-information methods. See Letter p.592

The discovery that the estimated number of stem-cell divisions in a tissue correlates with cancer incidence suggests that the varying probability of developing cancer in different tissues is mostly down to random mutations.

An analysis of dying cells reveals that they play an active part in modifying tissue shape by pulling on neighbouring cells. This induces neighbouring cells to contract at their apices, which results in tissue folding. See Letter p.245

Gold in the +3 oxidation state is scarcely used in catalysis, because the oxidants employed to generate it can damage reactants. An oxidant-free route to gold(III) catalysts reveals their potential. See Article p.449

The most powerful oxidant found in nature is compound Q, an enzymatic intermediate that oxidizes methane. New spectroscopic data have resolved the long-running controversy about Q's chemical structure. See Letter p.431

It emerges that most of the elements heavier than helium are not found in galaxies, where they can be mixed into future stars and planets. Instead, these elements largely reside far from galaxies in ionized gas and dust particles.

A simplified global climate model that keeps track of water as it moves through Earth's water cycle throws fresh light on how the Asian summer monsoon has varied during the past 150,000 years.

Mass coral bleaching events can drive reefs from being the domains of corals to becoming dominated by seaweed. But longitudinal data show that more than half of the reefs studied rebound to their former glory. See Letter p.94