Volume 540 Issue 7631, 1 December 2016

In an era of online discussion, debate must remain nuanced and courteous.

A change in cultural and social factors — such as overcoming a distaste for doggy bags — will be required to shift people’s behaviour.

If politicians can lie without condemnation, what are scientists to do? Kathleen Higgins offers some explanation.

The week in science: 25 November–1 December 2016.

The drug, and others based on the ‘amyloid hypothesis’, are still being tested in other, different trials.

Cash to include fund modelled on DARPA, the US defence department’s research arm — but how much will go to basic research is unclear.

Advances in neuroscience are driving the development of therapies that could save thousands of the most vulnerable patients.

British team is first to seek site of 1.5-million-year-old sample.

Next generation of Trojan-horse drugs designed to minimize damage to healthy cells.

String of publications describes attempts — mostly unsuccessful — to use proposed CRISPR rival.

Some of the most toxic refuse from modern society ends up in poor communities. Researchers are helping one area in the Middle East clean up its electronic-waste problem.

Challenges in preventing pollution from ballast water highlight reforms needed in global shipping regulation, write Zheng Wan and colleagues.

Lawrence Haddad, Corinna Hawkes and colleagues propose ten ways to shift the focus from feeding people to nourishing them.

For sustainable, equitable nutrition we must count the true global costs and benefits of food production, urge Pavan Sukhdev, Peter May and Alexander Müller.

Roger Schonfeld analyses how the sector's scientific books are faring in the digitized, open-access era.

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

Biologist who found unexpected power in protein folding.

Studies of a large frost-filled basin on Pluto show that this feature altered the dwarf planet's spin axis, driving tectonic activity on its surface, and hint at the presence of a subsurface ocean. See Letters p.86, p.90, p.94 & p.97

Mitochondrial organelles — the energy powerhouses of the cell — must divide and fuse dynamically to function. It emerges that two distinct dynamin enzymes enable mitochondrial division. See Letter p.139

Dealing with errors in a quantum computer typically requires complex programming and many additional quantum bits. A technique for controlling errors has been proposed that alleviates both of these problems.

To reach the cell surface, membrane proteins are first targeted to an organelle called the endoplasmic reticulum. Several targeting pathways are known, but it now emerges that there is yet another pathway. See Letter p.134

Changes in the amount of carbon stored in soil might be a crucial feedback to climate change. Experimental field studies show that warming-induced soil carbon losses are greatest where carbon stocks are largest. See Letter p.104

In the 1980s, the gas surrounding a black hole in a nearby galaxy began to emit much more radiation than before. This change has unexpectedly reversed in the past five years, questioning our understanding of these extreme phenomena.

Little is known about the biological rhythms that emerge from social behaviours in the wild. A study of shorebird pairs shows that rhythms of nest-incubation duties are mainly governed by strategies to avoid predators. See Letter p.109

A comprehensive review into mammalian interspecies chimaeras, documenting the advances that have occurred alongside developments in stem-cell biology and assessing the future of the field, including any possible ethical and legal issues.

This Review discusses current knowledge of the structure, function and interactions of the metabotropic glutamate and GABA_B receptors and the potential to target receptor subunits for future therapeutic intervention in neurological and mental health disorders.

Genomic and molecular analyses of Clunio marinus timing strains suggest that modulation of alternative splicing of Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent kinase II represents a mechanism for evolutionary adaptation of circadian timing.

Specific intramolecular interactions of mitofusin 2 amino acid sequences either constrain or permit mitochondrial fusion and the addition of short peptides matching these sequences stabilize the fusion-constrained or fusion-permissive form, thus inhibiting or promoting mitochondrial fusion.

The structures of several states on the pathway of SelB-mediated delivery of selenocysteine-specific tRNA to the ribosome in Escherichia coli reveal the mechanism of UGA stop codon recoding to selenocysteine and show how codon recognition triggers activation of translational GTPases.

Simulations of the levels of nitrogen, methane and carbon monoxide over thousands of years confirm the existence of a nitrogen glacier in Sputnik Planitia, Pluto’s deepest basin.

The location of Sputnik Planitia on Pluto is shown to result from volatiles sequestered within the basin forcing the reorientation of the dwarf planet, as supported by the planet-wide fault network.

To explain the position of the Sputnik Planitia basin on Pluto, the feature would need to have formed via impact and Pluto would need to have a subsurface ocean.

Modelling suggests that the icy region on Pluto known as Sputnik Planitia formed shortly after Charon did and has since been stable, with its latitude corresponding to a minimum in annual solar illumination and its longitude determined by tidal forces from Charon.

Ghost imaging is demonstrated using beams of correlated pairs of ultracold helium atoms, rather than photons, yielding a reconstructed image with submillimetre resolution.

A compilation of global soil carbon data from field experiments provides empirical evidence that warming-induced net losses of soil carbon could accelerate climate change.

Socially synchronized rhythms in shorebirds were assessed during biparental incubation under natural circumstances and were exceptionally diverse, often not following the 24-h day, whereby risk of predation, not starvation, determined some of the variation in incubation rhythms.

Genomic analyses show that primary germ-cell tumours are highly enriched for chromosomal reciprocal loss of heterozygosity, mutations in KRAS and have high mitochondrial priming, providing insight into chemosensitivity and the evolution of chemoresistance in this disease.

Inhibition of mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) suspends mouse blastocyst development and the cells remain ‘paused’ in a reversible pluripotent state, allowing prolonged culture.

The enzyme RIPK1 functions through its RHIM domain to prevent ZBP1-mediated activation of RIPK3–MLKL-dependent necroptosis, thus preventing perinatal lethality and skin inflammation in adult mice.

In the absence of RIPK1, ZBP1 engages RIPK3 in a RHIM-dependent manner and acts as a critical activator of RIPK3/MLKL-dependent necroptosis.

Experiments in yeast cells show that three proteins—Snd1, Snd2 and Snd3—provide an alternative pathway for targeting of cellular proteins to the endoplasmic reticulum.

The classical dynamin Dyn2 is required for mitochondrial division.

A method for CRISPR-based genome editing that harnesses cellular non-homologous end joining activity to achieve targeted DNA knock-in in non-dividing tissues.

Researchers debate whether using a program to automatically detect inconsistencies in papers improves the literature, or raises false alarms.

Sensitive mass spectrometry and innovative cell-sampling techniques allow researchers to profile metabolites in single cells, but the field is still in its infancy.

Technology and practice can help shy and introverted researchers to succeed when reticence is risky.

Women have fewer co-authors than men over the course of their careers.

The pay gap between men and women in UK science is narrowing.

Order from chaos.

Multiple sclerosis often strikes between the ages of 20 and 40, when people are entering the workforce and raising families.

Emerging evidence points to a viral infection, low levels of vitamin D and genetics as culprits in multiple sclerosis, but how they combine to cause the disease is unclear.

New drugs are beginning to show promise for people with one of the less common, and harder to treat, forms of multiple sclerosis.

It is time for a bolder approach to developing drugs for progressive multiple sclerosis, says Bibi Bielekova.

Could a high-risk treatment play a part in tackling multiple sclerosis?

Dietary changes may be able to alleviate the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, but testing the effects of diet will need a different protocol to the one used for drugs.