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The cover image shows the muscle fibre network of the planarian Schmidtea mediterranea. Planarian muscle is host to the expression of many of the genes that help to direct where regenerating cells are positioned, a crucial aspect for properly controlling the regeneration of missing body parts. Previous work has identified position control genes but how they exert their effects has remained unclear. In this issue, Peter Reddien and his colleagues show that the regeneration of different types of muscle fibres is controlled by different transcription factors: myoD is needed to regenerate longitudinal fibres, whereas nkx1-1 is needed for the formation of circular fibres. They find that loss of longitudinal fibres leads to complete regeneration failure, whereas loss of circular fibres results in two heads regenerating instead of one. As a result, the authors suggest that different muscle types have distinct roles in orchestrating regeneration through controlling wound signalling and patterning. Cover image: M. Lucila Scimone and Kutay Deniz Atabay
Researchers funded by the US military are developing appliances to record neural activity and automatically stimulate the brain to treat mental illness.
Analyses in mice suggest that dietary salt increases blood pressure partly by affecting some of the microbes that inhabit the gut. The implications of this work for hypertension warrant further study in humans. See Article p.585
A study of 64 archaeological sites across four continents shows that the growth of agricultural and political systems provoked economic disparities, more so in Eurasia than in North America. See Letter p.619
The energy source that drives vesicle fusion with a target organelle in vivo has been unclear. It emerges that proteins that tether fusing structures together also decrease the energy needed for the final fusion step. See Letter p.634
Programmable quantum simulations of many-body systems are demonstrated using a reconfigurable array of 51 individually trapped cold atoms with strong, coherent interactions controlled via excitation to Rydberg states.
High salt intake changed the gut microbiome and increased TH17 cell numbers in mice, and reduced intestinal survival of Lactobacillus species, increased the number of TH17 cells and increased blood pressure in humans.
IceCube has measured the absorption of atmospheric and astrophysical neutrinos in the Earth, and found that the interaction cross-section of multi-TeV neutrinos is within 50 per cent of the predictions of the standard model.
Many-body dynamical phases in an Ising-like quantum spin model with long-range interactions are observed by measuring correlations in single shots, using a quantum simulator composed of 53 qubits.
Single-site isolated rhodium species anchored on zeolites or titanium dioxide are shown to catalyse the direct conversion of methane to methanol and acetic acid, using oxygen and carbon monoxide under mild conditions.
The functionalization of specific inert C–H bonds avoids the need for functional groups in organic synthesis and here the challenges of this approach are overcome using a dirhodium catalyst that is capable of C–H bond site-selectivity.
Halogen abundances in chondrites are 6 to 37 times lower than previously reported, which is consistent with the low abundances of these elements found in Earth.
Analyses of house-size distributions in the Old and New World showed that wealth disparities increased with the domestication of plants and animals and with increased sociopolitical scale.
Sperm-activated lysosomes enhance proteostasis in nematode oocytes just before fertilization; this could prevent transmission of damaged proteins to the next generation and may explain the immortality of the germ-cell lineage.
Tethering proteins, known to mediate initial recognition and attachment during membrane fusion, are essential for driving the transition from the hemifused state to fusion pore formation.
Cancers growing in high-oxygen environments, such as lung adenocarcinomas, select for the iron–sulfur cluster synthesizing enzyme NFS1 to support malignant proliferation and to protect from oxidative damage.
A modified Escherichia coli is used to demonstrate that semi-synthetic organisms can use non-natural hydrophobic base pairs to genetically encode for the incorporation of non-canonical amino acids into proteins.
A pathway for the production of aromatic amino acid metabolites in Clostridium sporogenes is described; modulation of serum levels of these metabolites in gnotobiotic mice affects intestinal permeability and systemic immunity.
Cryo-electron microscopy analysis of yeast Rad26 bound to RNA polymerase II provides insight into the initiation of the transcription-coupled DNA repair mechanism in eukaryotes.