Volume 575 Issue 7782, 14 November 2019

Anxiety and depression in graduate students is worsening. The health of the next generation of researchers needs systemic change to research cultures.

Indigenous communities must be compensated for their knowledge and treated as equals in research.

Ebola uncovered policy flaws. A bioweapons treaty might show a fix, says Rebecca Katz.

A tumour affecting mussels in Chile and France is traced to a single Northern Hemisphere mussel of a separate species.

A cloud dating to the Universe’s early days hints that star formation had an early start.

A grey wolf in Mongolia roamed more than 7,000 kilometres in a single year, but caribou boast the longest annual migration.

Iconic landscapes of the western United States are more likely to burn if they are overrun by invasive grasses.

Scientists evaluate the seismic risk facing a portion of North America by comparing a centuries-old mega-quake with two recent events.

Too little shut-eye raises anxiety; deep sleep offers protection against it.

The olfactory bulb was considered crucial for a sense of smell, but a chance discovery challenges the dogma.

The latest science news, in brief.

As universities shut down, researchers are demonstrating — and meeting with lawmakers to figure out if science can help solve socio-economic inequality.

A neural network that teaches itself the laws of physics could help to solve quantum-mechanics mysteries.

The practice was probably used to improve the children’s chances of securing a university place.

Researchers fear that plans to send tens of thousands of communications satellites into orbit will disrupt scientific observations of the Universe.

Precise measurement affirms that the particle’s radius is smaller than physicists once thought.

Ultrasonic speakers steer tiny bead to generate displays that you can touch and hear.

Engineers are miniaturizing pharmaceutical production in the hope of making it portable and inexpensive.

A trawl through the global tide of cast-offs shows how we might avoid drowning in them. Edward Humes reviews.

Andy Greenberg’s book Sandworm is trenchant on the mounting capacity of malware to wreak havoc. Brian Nussbaum reviews.

Andrew Robinson reviews five of the week’s best science picks.

Governments worldwide must invest in girls’ education, family planning, agriculture and security in this vulnerable region.

Nature’s survey of more than 6,000 graduate students reveals the turbulent nature of doctoral research.

Noam Shomron includes antiques and his own paintings of wildlife in the decor for his genomics lab.

A multi-nozzle system has been devised that allows the 3D printing of objects using several viscous materials, thereby allowing control over the material properties of objects at the submillimetre scale.

The ability of birds to learn a song depends not on their genes alone, but also on whether their genetic make-up is well matched to that of their singing teacher. This discovery sheds light on how gene–environment interactions affect learning.

Distant DNA regions are juxtaposed and joined to form diverse immune-system genes encoding antibodies and T-cell receptors. It seems that both types of gene form by relying on DNA extrusion through a protein ring called cohesin.

Ultrasensitive experiments on trapped antiprotons provide a window onto possible differences between matter and antimatter. Now they could also shed light on the identity of dark matter — the ‘missing’ mass in the Universe.

A molecule has now been characterized that acts to inhibit a cancer-causing form of KRAS protein and stimulate the immune system. The inhibitor is one of the first of its kind to show anticancer activity in the clinic.

A tracer molecule has been used to analyse tumours in vivo in mice and to group cancers according to their metabolic characteristics. Such information could have implications for determining how different malignancies are treated.

A review of drug resistance in cancer analyses each biological determinant of resistance separately and discusses existing and new therapeutic strategies to combat the problem as a whole.

Spin-flip resonance data are used to place direct constraints on the interaction of ultralight axion-like particles with antiprotons, improving the sensitivity to the corresponding coupling coefficient by five orders of magnitude.

In the charge-density-wave Weyl semimetal (TaSe₄)₂I, an axion is observed and identified as a sliding mode in the charge-density-wave phase characterized by anomalous magnetoelectric transport effects.

A volumetric display that can simultaneously deliver visual, tactile and auditory content is demonstrated.

Heavier-than-air insect-scale aerial robots powered by soft artificial muscles can hover and also recover from in-flight collisions, illustrating the potential for developing next-generation agile soft robots.

Voxelated soft matter is designed and fabricated using multimaterial multinozzle three-dimensional printing, which switches between different viscoelastic inks along the same print filament to print multiple materials simultaneously.

A method for the site-selective C–H borylation of arenes and heteroarenes is described, in which BBr₃ acts as both a reagent and a catalyst.

Glacierized regions that are projected to become ice-free in this century could provide substantial water storage and hydroelectric power, according to this worldwide theoretical assessment.

In contrast to a previous study in which only bankers showed increased dishonesty when reminded of their profession, this study found that such reminders induced some dishonesty in bankers, although the effect was not significant, and that this effect was not unique to bankers.

AlphaStar uses a multi-agent reinforcement learning algorithm and has reached Grandmaster level, ranking among the top 0.2% of human players for the real-time strategy game StarCraft II.

ERK reversibly regulates embryonic stem cell transcription via selective redistribution of co-factors and RNA polymerase from pluripotency to early differentiation enhancers, while leaving transcription factors bound to their enhancers, thus preserving plasticity.

Under conditions such as hypoxia or starvation, an mTORC1-lipid signalling pathway initiates mitochondrial proteolysis by YME1L.

The interaction of UNC93B1 with syntenin-1 facilitates the sorting of TLR7–UNC93B1 complexes into intraluminal vesicles of multivesicular bodies, and mutations in UNC93B1 that disrupt such interactions lead to enhanced TLR7 signalling and autoimmunity.

The Toll-like receptor TLR9 is activated only after regulated release from its trafficking chaperone UNC93B1, which occurs within endosomes and is required for ligand binding and signal transduction.

A CRISPR–Cas9 genetic screen shows that the adenine nucleotide translocator is required for mitophagy and that this role is independent of its nucleotide translocase activity.

A positron emission tomography imaging tracer is developed to image mitochondrial function in vivo, and application of this tracer to a mouse model of lung cancer identifies distinct functional mitochondrial heterogeneity between tumour cells.

Chromatin loop extrusion has fundamental mechanistic roles in immunoglobulin heavy chain class switch recombination.

The S. pombe HP1 protein Swi6 couples chromatin compaction to phase separation by dynamically exposing buried histone residues within nucleosomes.

The high-resolution cryo-electron microscopy structure of the yeast translocase of the outer mitochondrial membrane reveals key features of mitochondrial protein import that are conserved in all eukaryotes.