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Volume 521 Issue 7553, 28 May 2015

A robot with a broken front-right leg. To keep walking despite that damage, it executes an ‘Intelligent Trial and Error� algorithm that conducts experiments based on previous (simulated) experience to find a behaviour that still works. Autonomous mobile robots would be extremely useful in remote or hostile environments such as space, deep oceans or disaster areas. An outstanding challenge is to make such robots able to recover after damage. Jean-Baptiste Mouret and colleagues have developed a machine learning algorithm that enables damaged robots to quickly regain their ability to perform tasks. When they sustain damage � such as broken or even missing legs � the robots adopt an intelligent trial-and-error approach, trying out possible behaviours that they calculate to be potentially high-performing. After a handful of such experiments they discover, in less than two minutes, a compensatory behaviour that works in spite of the damage. Cover Antoine Cully/ Pierre & Marie Curie University. Inset: Alexander Vail

Editorial

  • Scientists have a valuable part to play in clarifying the impacts of a proposed trade treaty between the United States and Europe.

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  • Sleeping-beauty papers offer hope that authors of uncited works are in good company.

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  • A package of articles in Nature assesses the state of artificial-intelligence research.

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World View

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Research Highlights

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Social Selection

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Seven Days

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News & Views

  • An evolutionary algorithm has been developed that allows robots to adapt to unforeseen change. The robots learn behaviours quickly and instinctively by mining the memory of their past achievements. See Letter p.503

    • Christoph Adami
    News & Views
  • Proteins can be transported in either direction across a cellular organelle called the Golgi apparatus. It emerges that CDC42, a molecule that confers cell polarity, acts to control the directionality of transport in the Golgi. See Letter p.529

    • Akihiko Nakano
    News & Views
  • An index of water-circulation strength in the North Atlantic Ocean has been derived from sea-level measurements. This provides fresh evidence of the ocean's leading role in multidecadal climate variability. See Letter p.508

    • Sergey K. Gulev
    • Mojib Latif
    News & Views
  • Many people with cancer die from a wasting disorder called cancer-associated cachexia. Two studies in fruit flies show that inhibition of insulin signalling causes cachexia-like organ wasting.

    • Erwin F. Wagner
    • Michele Petruzzelli
    News & Views
  • Modelling of the interactions between antibiotic production and antibiotic degradation reveals that these opposing activities are key to maintaining diversity in microbial communities. See Letter p.516

    • Carl T. Bergstrom
    • Benjamin Kerr
    News & Views
  • New hominin fossils discovered in Ethiopia, dated to between 3.5 million and 3.3 million years ago, suggest that species diversity may have been as high during early human evolution as in later periods. See Article p.483

    • Fred Spoor

    Collection:

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Introduction

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Review Article

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Article

  • A new hominin species, Australopithecus deyiremeda, which lived between 3.5 and 3.3 million years ago, at around the same time as species such as Au. afarensis (‘Lucy’), is discovered in Ethiopia; its morphology suggests that some dental features traditionally associated with later genera such as Paranthropus and Homo emerged earlier than previously thought.

    • Yohannes Haile-Selassie
    • Luis Gibert
    • Beverly Z. Saylor

    Collection:

    Article
  • Whole-genome sequencing of tumour and germline DNA samples from 92 patients with high-grade serous ovarian cancer identifies frequent gene breakages that inactivate the tumour suppressors RB1, NF1, RAD51B and PTEN, and contribute to chemotherapy resistance; acquired resistance was associated with diverse mechanisms such as reversions of germline BRCA1/2 mutations and overexpression of the drug efflux pump MDR1.

    • Ann-Marie Patch
    • Elizabeth L. Christie
    • David D. L. Bowtell
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Letter

  • Intense light interacting with a thin film of silicon dioxide is used to generate broadband extreme ultraviolet radiation; the spectra reveal detailed information on the energy dispersion of the conduction band of silicon dioxide, which is at present inaccessible by conventional photoemission spectroscopy.

    • T. T. Luu
    • M. Garg
    • E. Goulielmakis
    Letter
  • The circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean, interpreted via the sea level gradient along the US coast, is found to respond to atmospheric drivers from the North Atlantic Oscillation, and in turn influences the oceanic temperature changes characterized by Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation; in this way, ocean circulation acts as the intermediary between atmospheric and ocean oscillations.

    • Gerard D. McCarthy
    • Ivan D. Haigh
    • David A. Smeed
    Letter
  • Exploring the relationship between population coupling and neuronal activity reveals that neighbouring neurons can differ in their coupling to the overall firing rate of the population, the circuitry of which may potentially help to explain the complex activity patterns in cortical populations.

    • Michael Okun
    • Nicholas A. Steinmetz
    • Kenneth D. Harris
    Letter
  • The COPI complex, which has a role in retrograde transport through the Golgi, is shown to also mediate anterograde tubular transport through the Golgi; in response to external stimuli, the small GTPase CDC42 acts as an essential modulator of bidirectional Golgi transport, and promotes the sorting of cargoes destined for anterograde transport into the tubules at the expense of those targeted for retrograde transport.

    • Seung-Yeol Park
    • Jia-Shu Yang
    • Victor W. Hsu
    Letter
  • The assembly of single Drosophila RNA-induced silencing complexes (RISCs) is reconstituted using seven purified proteins, revealing that chaperones help stabilize the interaction of the protein heterodimer Dicer-2–R2D2 bound to the short interfering RNA with Ago2.

    • Shintaro Iwasaki
    • Hiroshi M. Sasaki
    • Yukihide Tomari
    Letter
  • Loss of REV7 is shown to regulate end resection of double-stranded DNA breaks in BRCA1-deficient cells, leading to PARP inhibitor resistance and restoration of homologous recombination; REV7 dictates pathway choice in BRCA1-deficient cells and during immunoglobulin class switching.

    • Guotai Xu
    • J. Ross Chapman
    • Sven Rottenberg
    Letter
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Feature

  • Most scientists who study disease carry out their research with an eye to treating others — but a few have only to look at their own bodies to feel the need for a cure.

    • Virginia Gewin
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Q&A

  • A microbiologist dispenses career advice for his postdocs, but they had better bring their own funding.

    • Julie Gould
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Futures

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Collections

  • Research in the field of machine intelligence is seeing a resurgence. Big conceptual breakthroughs in artificial neural networks and access to powerful processors have led to applications that can process information in a human-like way. In addition, the creation of robots that can safely assist us with different tasks may soon become a reality. The Reviews in this Insight discuss the exciting developments in these fields and the opportunities for further research.

    Insight
  • Cancer immunotherapy is a rapidly advancing field with relevance for an expanding list of tumour types. In this Collection, Naturepresents seven recent articles on cancer immunotherapy. Collectively, they investigate the efficacy and immunological effects of various checkpoint-blockade therapies in both clinical settings and pre-clinical models, explore strategies for the identification of immunogenic tumour antigens, and show that tailored neo-epitope-based vaccines can control tumour growth.

    Collection
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