Volume 572 Issue 7771, 29 August 2019

Universities must accept that there will be consequences if early-career researchers are not properly supported.

Until appropriate safeguards are in place, we need a moratorium on biometric technology that identifies individuals, says Kate Crawford.

A pioneering group of stick insects that settled in the United Kingdom lost all of its males, leaving females that reproduce asexually.

Changes in trade between the United Kingdom, the European Union and the rest of the world mean that goods would be imported over longer distances.

Skulls found in an ancient settlement in the Andes Mountains were altered for display.

Alkaline compound helps the tuberculosis bacterium to ward off an acid attack from host cells.

A Los Angeles fault could unleash significant destruction — but isn’t factored into the region’s earthquake planning.

Promising thermal-insulator materials are tens of thousands of times thinner than a human hair.

Death rates from cardiovascular disease were falling in many wealthy nations but are now plateauing.

The week in science: 23–29 August 2019.

Colleagues of Alan Cooper, who has been suspended as leader of the prestigious Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, describe a toxic work environment.

A firm hired by the National Institutes of Health will work with participants in a research programme that plans to sequence one million genomes.

Wunderkind gene-editing tool used to trigger smart materials that can deliver drugs and sense biological signals.

Researchers say that Irina Artemieva’s dismissal from the University of Copenhagen runs counter to international academic standards.

If the country’s main science-funding agency doesn’t get more cash soon, young researchers will stop getting paid.

Some highly cited academics seem to be heavy self-promoters — but researchers warn against policing self-citation.

Researchers rushing to apply powerful sequencing techniques to ancient-human remains must think harder about safeguarding, urge Keolu Fox and John Hawks.

The treatment for bipolar disorder was discovered through an unlikely route. Douwe Draaisma praises an account of it.

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

Helen Currie has shared her fish-migration research at several UK festivals, including Glastonbury.

Scientists can improve how they inform politicians and other policymakers on how to make decisions, say Hannah Safford and Austin Brown.

Electronic devices that are based on carbon nanotubes have the potential to be more energy efficient than their silicon counterparts, but have been restricted in functionality. This limitation has now been overcome.

Cancer cells that travel to a distant site can prompt the normal neighbouring cells at that location to create a tumour-promoting microenvironment. A tool that identifies these normal cells offers a way to study this process.

Inflammation and the repair of damaged tissues are regulated by immune cells called macrophages. The finding that they form a layer that shields mouse joints from damage has implications for the treatment of arthritis.

How Nature reported a toxicological study of alcohol in 1919, and the potential benefits of computer graphics for medical geography in 1969.

Magnetism alone was thought to be responsible for superconductivity in copper oxides. The finding of superconductivity in a non-magnetic compound that is structurally similar to these copper oxides challenges this view.

Flatworms called planarians can break off fragments of themselves that regenerate to form new, complete worms. The molecular cues that regulate the frequency of such fission events have been revealed.

A 16-bit microprocessor built from over 14,000 carbon nanotube transistors may enable energy efficiency advances in electronics technologies beyond silicon.

A cell-penetrating fluorescent marker is used to label cells in the metastatic tumour microenvironment, revealing a variety of cell types including parenchymal cells with lung stem-cell characteristics.

The pore-forming and ATP-binding subunits of a mitochondrial protein complex that mediates ATP-dependent potassium currents are identified and characterized, revealing the role of this channel in mitochondrial physiology and pathologies.

The solute carrier transporter protein SLC25A44 regulates uptake of branched-chain amino acids in mitochondria of brown adipose tissue in which they are utilized for thermogenesis.

Algorithms based on diffractive wave propagation of light offer effective imaging of complex scenes hidden from direct view.

Superconductivity is demonstrated in an infinite-layer nickelate similar to infinite-layer copper oxides, which is synthesized using soft- chemistry topotactic reduction of the perovskite precursor phase.

The thermal conductance of single-molecule junctions is measured using picowatt-resolution calorimetric scanning probes and is found to be nearly independent of the length of the alkanedithiol molecules studied.

The limitations of conventional chemical doping of polymeric semiconductors can be overcome by adding a second ionic species into the system, leading to enhanced doping, electrical conductivity and stability.

The North Atlantic jet stream has become 15 per cent more sheared in the upper atmosphere since 1979, an expected consequence of climate change, and consistent with increased aircraft turbulence.

Unexpectedly low seismic velocities of CaSiO₃ perovskite in deeply subducted oceanic crust can explain the properties of anomalous continent-sized regions in Earth’s lower mantle.

Overfishing and warming ocean temperature have caused an increase in methylmercury concentrations in some Atlantic predatory fish, and this trend is predicted to continue unless stronger mercury and carbon emissions standards are imposed.

Evolutionary change in basal metabolic rate was not coupled with body temperature across endothermic species, although the mechanism by which birds and mammals adapted to colder environments differed.

A planarian fission protocol shows that the number of progeny and the frequency of fission initiation correlate with parent size, and TGFβ and Wnt signalling components are identified as regulators of fission behaviour.

Transcriptomics and DNA methylomics are used to study the implantation process of human embryos at single-cell resolution.

The gut commensal Blautia producta secretes a lantibiotic that reduces colonization of the gut by the major pathogen vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium, and transplantation of microbiota with high abundance of the lantibiotic gene enhances resistance to colonization in mice.

Analysis of macrophage subsets within joints reveals a population of CX₃CR1⁺ tissue-resident macrophages that form a tight-junction-mediated barrier at the synovial lining, protecting the joint from the invasion of inflammatory cells.

The CTCF paralogue BORIS is upregulated in transcriptionally reprogrammed neuroblastoma cells rendered resistant to targeted therapy, in which it promotes regulatory chromatin interactions that maintain the resistance phenotype.