Volume 561 Issue 7724, 27 September 2018

With six months to go, uncertainty posed by the decision to leave the European Union is taking its toll.

Chance unearthing of a famous document reveals the scientist’s attempt to avoid the Inquisition.

If we really want transdisciplinary research, we must ditch the ordered listing of authors that stalls collaborative science, says Gretchen L. Kiser.

Hundreds of thousands of lives are at risk as a result of population boom in seismic zone.

Electric and magnetic pulses can fool an electron into reaching out for an illusory atom.

Molluscs’ reaction to popular party drug echoes humans’ response.

Deep-learning model picks out two kinds of lung cancer by studying images of tissue.

A super-Earth orbits the star named by Star Trek’s creator as the host of the planet Vulcan.

A drug taken regularly by half of US adults might raise the risk of serious bleeding.

Cells sprout into bits of human bone when implanted in mice.

The week in science: 21–27 September 2018.

Exclusive: Document shows that the astronomer toned down the claims that triggered science history’s most infamous battle — then lied about his edits.

Nicholas Longrich has been disciplined by the University of Bath, UK, for breaching its anti-harassment policy.

“Gummy squirrels,” single-celled organisms the size of softballs and strange worms thrive in a Pacific Ocean zone some considered an underwater desert.

The National Science Foundation’s rules for reporting harassment by grant recipients are the strictest yet instituted by a US government science agency.

Bones and artefacts suggest that kids laboured at skilled tasks thousands of years ago.

In a multi-‘cat’ experiment, the textbook interpretation of quantum theory seems to lead to contradictory pictures of reality, physicists claim.

For the first time, the World Health Organization will recognize traditional medicine in its influential global medical compendium.

Seven researchers and campaigners tell Nature how Britain’s break-up with the EU is affecting research.

Confusion about mesenchymal stem cells is making it easier for people to sell unproven treatments, warn Douglas Sipp, Pamela G. Robey and Leigh Turner.

Track connections between hurricanes, wildfires, climate change and other risks, urge Amir AghaKouchak and colleagues.

Nathaniel Comfort questions a psychologist’s troubling claims about genes and behaviour.

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

Marine biologists are using artificial intelligence to help them identify objects in millions of images.

As the imaging technique produces ever-sharper protein structures, researchers are racing to develop tools to assess how accurate they are.

How to step out from the shadow of your principal investigator.

Confronting loss can give rise to difficult career choices, says Summer Praetorius.

Current biological sensors require bulky external power sources. Ultrathin solar cells have now been fabricated that can power flexible, wearable sensors for the precise and continuous monitoring of biological signals.

Chromosomes can exist outside the nucleus in rupture-prone structures called micronuclei. It emerges that micronuclei are fragile because their outer layer lacks some nuclear-envelope components.

Drug treatments for HIV infection require the long-term use of daily medication that can have toxic side effects. A pair of HIV-targeting antibodies might offer an alternative therapeutic approach.

Mechanical structures have been made that exhibit self-guided, multi-step sequences of shape changes in response to an applied force. Such structures could have applications in flexible electronics and soft robotics.

A computational method has been devised that allows a structural motif found in proteins, known as a β-barrel, to be designed to bind specifically to any small molecule, opening the door to biotechnological applications.

Analysis of blood from a healthy human show that haematopoietic stem cells increase rapidly in numbers through early life, reaching a stable plateau in adulthood, and contribute to myeloid and B lymphocyte populations throughout life.

Combination therapy with the anti-HIV-1 monoclonal antibodies 3BNC117 and 10-1074 maintains long-term suppression in the absence of antiretroviral therapy in individuals with antibody-sensitive viral reservoirs.

The elucidation of general principles for designing β-barrels enables the de novo creation of fluorescent proteins.

The structure of a complex containing calcitonin gene-related peptide, the human calcitonin gene-related peptide receptor and the G_s heterotrimer, determined using Volta phase-plate cryo-electron microscopy, provides structural insight into the regulation of G-protein-coupled receptors by receptor activity modifying protein 1.

Three-dimensional simulations of the convective envelopes of massive stars suggest that it is the helium opacity that controls outbursts in luminous blue variable stars.

Topologically protected edge states realized in a square array of ring resonators are used to demonstrate a robust source of heralded single photons produced by spontaneous four-wave mixing.

Efficient terahertz harmonic generation—challenging but important for ultrahigh-speed optoelectronic technologies—is demonstrated in graphene through a nonlinear process that could potentially be generalized to other materials.

A scheme for implementing multi-step topological reorganization of a mechanical metamaterial is demonstrated, which proceeds autonomously, without the need for external control.

Detection of biometric signals by self-powered electronic devices that are highly flexible and can be applied to skin.

Complex tertiary alkylamines are prepared in one step from readily available amines, carbonyls and alkenes, via the visible-light-mediated reduction of in-situ-generated iminium ions to form alkyl-substituted α-amino radicals.

The High Plains region of North America is in a transient state, with a younger, efficient network of river channels progressively cannibalizing an older, less efficient region, aiding water retention for wetlands and groundwater recharge.

Biomechanical analyses of mammaliaform and cynodont fossils demonstrate that miniaturization drove the evolutionary transformation of the mammalian jaw, which preceded the optimization of bite force-to-joint load in the mandible

The diversity in the hydraulic traits of trees mediates ecosystem resilience to drought and will probably have an important role in future ecosystem–atmosphere feedback effects.

Mice can learn to detect objects with their whiskers and respond appropriately even in the absence of their primary somatosensory cortex.

Somatosensory corticospinal neurons facilitate touch sensitivity and touch-evoked neuropathic pain in mice.

The mitotic spindle prevents normal nuclear envelope assembly on missegregated chromosomes, leading to spontaneous envelope disruption of micronuclei and subsequent genome instability.

METTL3, the enzyme responsible for m⁶A modification, influences translation by interacting with eIF3h to mediate looping between the regions near the stop codon and 5′ cap of mRNA.

The retromer complex (the vacuolar protein sorting heterotrimer Vps26–Vps29–Vps35) has been resolved in association with membranes and the sorting nexin protein Vps5 using cryo-electron tomography.