Volume 571 Issue 7764, 11 July 2019

WHO responders are braving bullets to end the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but the virus could cross borders without the pledged funding.

More disciplines must embrace a system of academic credit that rewards a greater range of roles more specifically, says Alex Holcombe.

Flaws are revealed in a highly cited database that dates back more than two centuries.

Deforestation in the Amazon has helped to fuel the growth of a seaweed blanket that exceeded 20 million tonnes in 2018.

Gene-editing tool joins forces with antiretroviral drugs to drive HIV from its sanctuaries.

Information is encoded in spots made of assorted substances.

Bones found in the Philistine city of Ashkelon and dating to the twelfth century bc hint at European heritage.

New crystalline materials aid in the detection of tiny temperature shifts in a target object.

Stars moving at high velocity seem to have managed to live on after cataclysm.

The week in science: 5–11 July 2019.

Donald Trump wants US astronauts back on the Moon. But his ambitious plan faces formidable political, financial and technical challenges.

Scientists rushed to study whether the scorching temperatures last week were linked to global warming.

The switch to double-blind peer review will affect roughly 650 scientists working on projects worth an estimated US$55 million.

Researchers describe how a government crackdown on foreign influence is affecting them following a statement of support from their university.

The Research Misconduct Board is one of the first national agencies tasked with investigating serious research misconduct.

Altering the genomes of entire animal populations could help to defeat disease and control pests, but researchers worry about the consequences of unleashing this new technology.

Half a century after Apollo, Nature profiles five researchers who are shaking up lunar exploration.

As today’s tensions mount, it is salutary to recall that cooperation was on the table during the cold war, writes Roger D. Launius.

Alexandra Witze savours seven books commemorating the 50th anniversary of the lunar landings.

Fireworks, wild swans and super-cannons were propelling people mentally Moonwards long before 1969, reveals David Seed.

Drive for accessibility sees research relayed in regional tongues instead of English.

Thick foot calluses develop naturally when walking barefoot. It emerges that they preserve foot sensitivity while offering protection, thus avoiding the trade-off between the two that occurs with cushioned shoes.

Simulations demonstrate that the Moon’s ability to retain material from striking impactors is lower than was previously assumed. This finding helps to explain the scarcity of precious metals in the Moon relative to Earth.

Age-dependent changes in their environment can impair stem cells’ function. The finding that T cells infiltrate the brains of aged mice and cause dysfunction of neural stem cells reveals a potential therapeutic target.

Parasitic genetic elements called transposons carry CRISPR machinery that is normally used against them by bacterial cells. This paradox has now been explained, with implications for gene-therapy research.

How Nature reported a resource of animal sounds in 1969, and an analysis of psychiatric disorders in 1919.

If an animal’s body shape is specialized in a way that aids feeding on specific organisms, does this restrict what the animal can prey on? An observation of fishes feeding in the wild might now help to settle this question.

The milestones that mark the advances in ageing research, the medical, commercial and societal implications of ageing and the different ageing pathways and processes that are associated with ageing are discussed.

Climate has affected organized armed conflict within countries, and intensifying climate change is estimated to increase future risks of conflict, although other drivers are substantially more influential and the mechanisms of climate–conflict linkages remain uncertain.

Fluorescence-based polysomnography in zebrafish reveals two major sleep signatures that share features with those of amniotes, which suggests that common neural sleep signatures emerged in the vertebrate brain over 450 million years ago.

Single-cell transcriptomic analysis of neurogenic niches in young and old mice reveals that T cells infiltrate the neurogenic niches of old mice and inhibit the proliferation of neural stem cells, in part through expression of interferon-γ.

The transcription factor TOX is a central regulator of the transcriptional and epigenetic development of exhausted T cells.

A programmable transposase integrates donor DNA at user-defined genomic target sites with high fidelity, revealing a new approach for genetic engineering that obviates the need for DNA double-strand breaks and homologous recombination. 

Lunar impact simulations find an impactor-retention ratio three times lower than previously thought and indicate that highly siderophile element retention began 4.35 billion years ago, resolving accretion mass discrepancies between Earth and the Moon.

Periodic weak measurements of just a few carbon-13 nuclear spins in diamond demonstrate sensitive, high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy at the molecular level.

Magnetic-flux noise measurements with a SQUID-based spectrometer demonstrate the presence of a magnetic monopole plasma in Dy₂Ti₂O₇.

The magnetic properties of a ferromagnetic layer stack are controlled on attosecond timescales through optically induced spin and orbital momentum transfer, demonstrating a coherent regime of ultrafast magnetism.

Addition of an ionic liquid, BMIMBF₄, to metal halide perovskite solar cells improves their efficiency and long-term operation under accelerated aging conditions of high temperature and full-spectrum sunlight.

The controlled design of arrays of carboxylates geometrically matched to a potassium ion sublattice leads to the formation of extended self-assembled protein structures on mica.

A greater diversity of crops at the national level increases the temporal stability of total national harvest, reflecting markedly lower frequencies of years with sharp harvest losses.

People who frequently walk barefoot have thicker and harder calluses than those who typically use footwear; however, in contrast to shoes, callus thickness does not trade-off protection for the ability to perceive tactile stimuli during walking.

TOX is a critical factor for the normal progression of T cell dysfunction and the maintenance of exhausted T cells during chronic infections.

The nuclear factor TOX is highly expressed in antigen-specific dysfunctional T cells in tumours and exhausted T cells during chronic viral infection and is a crucial regulator of the differentiation of tumour-specific T cells.

Cytosine and adenine base editors have undesired off-target effects on RNA, but this activity can be reduced in deaminase-engineered variants while preserving on-target DNA editing.

Cryo-electron microscopy structure of the human Smoothened protein bound to 24(S),25-epoxycholesterol and a heterotrimeric G_i protein provides insights into the activation of a Frizzled-class G-protein-coupled receptor and Hedgehog signal transduction.

The crystal structure of active mouse SMO in complex with the SAG21k agonist and a stabilizing intracellular binding nanobody reveals the structural basis of SMO regulation by PTCH1.