Volume 520 Issue 7546, 9 April 2015

The European Union faces a fresh battle over next-generation plant-breeding techniques.

A study in Nature adds a dramatic twist to the backstory of a neighbour we thought we knew.

To judge the safety of flying during an eruption, the airline industry cannot just rely on advances in volcanic monitoring and prediction, says Matthew Watson.

Simplified synopses of research papers could help to bridge the gap between scientists and the public.

The week in science: Iran strikes deal on nuclear plans; Hong Kong academics decry government meddling; and souped-up LHC starts second run.

Killer disease that is scourge of world’s poorest ruminant farmers is ripe for elimination.

Climate scientists highlight cloud mysteries in a bid to compete with astronomy and cosmology.

Common language and methods are needed to fulfil biofactory dream.

Fledgling alliance will manage international grants and develop science strategy.

There is a growing number of postdocs and few places in academia for them to go. But change could be on the way.

Swiss-cheese-like materials called metal–organic frameworks have long promised to improve gas storage, separation and catalysis. Now they are coming of age.

Biological data will continue to pile up unless those who analyse it are recognized as creative collaborators in need of career paths, says Jeffrey Chang.

Jennifer Rampling assesses a study of the Renaissance women who dared to tackle alchemy's secrets.

Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week's best science picks.

Philip Ball examines two studies on how optical instruments taught science to see.

Discoverer of early mammals.

Transplantation experiments in mice reveal that the increased risk of congenital heart disease in the pups of older mothers is not conferred by ageing eggs, but by the mothers' age, and can be mitigated by exercise. See Letter p.230

Organic compounds called nitriles have been detected in material surrounding a young star. The finding hints at a vast reservoir of ice and volatile species that can seed the surfaces of young rocky planets or moons. See Letter p.198

The Paf1 protein complex in fission yeast has been found to protect protein-coding genes from inhibition by RNA-mediated silencing of transcription, by stimulating the release of nascent transcripts from DNA. See Letter p.248

Spontaneously generated, random wrinkles of coatings on microscale particles have been found to be analogous to fingerprints — unique patterns with a wavy topography that can serve as unclonable tags for anti-counterfeiting purposes.

Analysis of endothelial cells, which are involved in blood-vessel formation, unexpectedly reveals that proliferation in this cell type depends on fatty-acid oxidation to support DNA synthesis. See Article p.192

The heavy element lawrencium is available in only tiny quantities. Measurement of one of its atomic properties was thus an experimental challenge, but indispensably validates theoretical models of heavy elements. See Letter p.209

The discovery that interactions between two stress-associated neuropeptide hormones regulate binge drinking in mice provides insight into the biological mechanisms that underpin the bingeing cycle.

Earth and the Moon share many puzzling chemical similarities. New analyses show that the last planet-sized body to hit Earth could have been similar enough to Earth to yield a Moon with an Earth-like composition. See Letter p.212

A large amount of organic carbon stored in frozen Arctic soils (permafrost) could be released as carbon dioxide and methane in a warming climate, which would accelerate the pace of climate change; this review suggests that release of greenhouse gas emissions will be gradual but prolonged.

Ca²⁺ spikes are generated on different dendritic branches in the primary motor cortex of mice performing different motor learning tasks, causing long-lasting potentiation of postsynaptic dendritic spines; inactivation of a population of interneurons disrupts the spatial separation of Ca²⁺ spikes and persistent dendritic spine potentiation, suggesting that the generation of Ca²⁺ spikes on different dendritic branches is crucial for storing information in individual neurons.

The physical size of the commonly used Cas9 from Streptococcus pyogenes poses challenges for CRISPR-Cas genome editing systems that use the adeno-associated virus as a delivery vehicle; here, smaller Cas9 orthologues are characterized, and Cas9 from Staphylococcus aureus allowed targeting of the cholesterol regulatory gene Pcsk9 in the mouse liver.

This study identifies a crucial role for fatty acid oxidation (FAO) in endothelial cells during angiogenesis, and reveals that fatty-acid-derived carbons are used for the de novo synthesis of nucleotides, and hence FAO stimulates vessel sprouting by increasing endothelial cell proliferation.

The detection of complex cyanides in the protoplanetary disk around the young star MWC 480, and the similarity of their abundance ratios to those found in comets, implies that the rich organic chemistry of our solar nebula was not unique.

Saturn’s rotation period is difficult to determine directly; here an optimization approach using its gravitational field yields a value of 10 h 32 min 45 s ± 46 s.

Four-wave mixing processes are achieved at suboptical wavelengths by using a free-electron laser as a source to generate extreme ultraviolet pulses that produce transient gratings.

Lawrencium, with atomic number 103, has an isotope with a half-life of 27 seconds; even so, its first ionization potential has now been measured on an atom-at-a-time scale and agrees well with state-of-the-art theoretical calculations that include relativistic effects.

The Moon is thought to have formed mainly from a giant impactor striking the Earth but it has seemed odd that the Earth and its impactor (and hence the Moon) had such similar compositions; here simulations of planetary accretion show that although the different planets have distinct compositions, the composition of each giant impactor is indeed often very similar to that of the planet it strikes.

A partial skull from northern Israel dated to be from around 55,000 years ago sheds light on a crucial but little-known period of prehistory: the spread of anatomically modern humans from Africa.

A method to measure the precise relationship between neuronal firing rates and the representation of accumulated evidence is described; results in the parietal and prefrontal cortex of rats, together with transient optogenetic inactivation of the prefrontal cortex, challenge the prevailing view that the prefrontal cortex is part of the neural circuit for accumulating evidence, and suggest that neurons in parietal and prefrontal areas have distinct relationships to evidence accumulation in decision-making.

Genome-wide association studies are used to identify common genetic variants that affect the structure of selected subcortical regions of the human brain; their identification provides insight into the causes of variability in brain development and may help to determine mechanisms of neuropsychiatric dysfunction.

Increased maternal age is known to increase the risk of congenital heart disease in offspring; here, this link is investigated by transplanting ovaries between young and old mice, revealing that the maternal-age-associated risk is independent of the age of the ovaries but depends on the age of the mother, and that this risk can be mitigated by maternal genetic background or exercise.

Repeated contacts between the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and a subset of endosomes called late endosomes (LEs) is shown to promote microtubule-dependent translocation of LEs to the cell periphery and their subsequent fusion with the plasma membrane to induce outgrowth of neuronal protrusions.

A subset of lung cancer cells with EGFR or BRG1 mutations shows selective sensitivity to a combination of EZH2 inhibitors with topoisomerase II inhibitors such as the commonly used chemotherapeutic drug etoposide.

Genome-wide localization and activity analysis of the de novo DNA methyltransferases DNMT3A and DNMT3B in mouse embryonic stem cells identifies overlapping and individual targeting preferences to the genome, including a role for DNMT3B in gene body methylation.

The fission yeast is shown to have a mechanism to prevent small RNAs from inducing heterochromatin and epigenetic gene silencing; this protective model involves the highly conserved Paf1 complex, which is known to promote transcription and processing of pre-mRNA, and protects protein-coding genes from unwanted silencing by spurious transcripts.

PhD holders with quantitative skills are landing posts at technology companies.

Charities create grant programme for early-career researchers.

Research-specialist awards aim to establish non-faculty academic careers.

Completing a grant application takes 116 hours on average.

Home truths.