Volume 578 Issue 7794, 13 February 2020

The history of metrology holds valuable lessons for initiatives to reproduce results — and for efforts to enhance trust in research.

Employers must do more to support researchers when they take a break.

Use techniques honed during the SARS, H1N1 and Ebola epidemics to separate sick and well, keep workers safe and prepare for the next outbreak, says Nahid Bhadelia

Formal instruction in ‘parentese’ might seem unnecessary, but researchers find that coaching caregivers leads to chattier children.

A crowd of atoms helps to cool an ion to less than one ten-thousandth of a kelvin.

Scientific sleuthing uncovers data from the run-up to a massive blast at Mount St. Helens.

Immune cells whose genomes have been altered with CRISPR are well-tolerated by three people with cancer.

Scientists identify two primate species as hosts of a high number of pathogens that can jump to Homo sapiens.

The island’s waterways have lower levels of fertilizer-linked pollution than the Mississippi River in the United States.

Fruit hauled by container ship can prove more environmentally friendly than that carried shorter distances by road.

The latest science news, in brief.

Allegations of fabricated data have prompted a university investigation and some soul-searching.

Investigation finds that biophysicist Kuo-Chen Chou repeatedly suggested dozens of citations be added to papers.

The number of protein structures being determined by cryo-electron microscopy is growing at an explosive rate.

Months after the military expelled thousands of illegal miners from La Pampa, researchers gained access to a sandy wasteland.

Across the globe, drained peatlands are emitting billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. Scotland has emerged as a leader in efforts to restore bogs to health.

A physicist and humanist takes us on a grand tour of all time. By Philip Ball

Organic chemist whose rules aided the synthesis of natural products.

A levy on fossil fuels can support and restore ecosystems that help to stem climate change.

Sensationalistic terms in titles or abstracts of articles produce more citations than do articles without such words — and men are more likely to use them.

Robert Seaborne’s overcommitment to his PhD work led to a loss of identity. He explains three things that helped him to rediscover himself after graduate studies.

Anne-Marie Imafidon launched an outreach business to encourage young women to pursue careers in technology and science.

Devices known as quantum cascade lasers produce useful terahertz radiation, but are typically highly sensitive to fabrication defects. This limitation has now been overcome using a property called topological robustness.

Unlike many sugar-transporting proteins, a transporter in one species of malaria parasite can import several types of sugar equally effectively, aiding the parasite’s survival. The structure of this protein reveals the reason for its versatility.

Prussian blue analogues are archetypes of coordination solids, in which metal ions are bridged by ligands to form extended network structures. An analysis reveals a surprising ordering of the gaps found in their crystal lattices.

Parkinson’s disease and multiple system atrophy involve the protein α-synuclein. Proof that aggregated α-synuclein adopts a different structure in each case suggests that its conformation underlies the distinct disorders.

Healthy cells in smokers’ lungs have a high burden of mutations, similar to the mutational profile of lung cancer. Surprisingly, ex-smokers’ lungs have a large fraction of healthy cells with nearly normal profiles.

Does time spent using digital technology and social media have an adverse effect on mental health, especially that of adolescents? Here, two scientists discuss the question, and how digital devices might be used to improve well-being.

The scientific, technical and ethical aspects of using CRISPR technology for therapeutic applications in humans are discussed, highlighting both opportunities and challenges of this technology to treat, cure and prevent genetic disease.

The three-dimensional structure of all cloud complexes in the solar neighbourhood is revealed, showing a narrow and coherent 2.7-kpc arrangement of dense gas, in disagreement with the Gould Belt model.

The entanglement of two atomic-ensemble quantum memories via optical fibres, enabled by the use of cavity enhancement and quantum frequency conversion, is demonstrated over dozens of kilometres.

A topological laser based on the valley degree of freedom in a compact photonic crystal can be pumped electrically, bringing topological physics concepts closer to real-life applications.

By containing lithium metal within oriented tubes of a mixed ionic-electronic conductor, a 3D anode for lithium metal batteries is produced that overcomes  chemomechanical stability issues at the electrolyte interface.

The growth of single-crystal Prussian blue analogues and their analysis using X-ray diffuse scattering reveals diverse, non-random vacancy arrangements and information about the micropore-network characteristics of these materials.

This analysis of the exchange of air pollution amongst the contiguous United States finds that, on average, around half of the early deaths caused by a state’s air pollution occurs outside that state, with different contributions by different emission sectors and chemical species.

Whole-genome sequencing of normal bronchial epithelium from 16 individuals shows that tobacco smoking increases genomic heterogeneity, mutational burden and driver mutations, whereas stopping smoking promotes replenishment of the epithelium with near-normal cells.

Protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA) technology can discriminate between patients with Parkinson’s disease and patients with multiple system atrophy on the basis of the characteristics of the α-synuclein aggregates in the cerebrospinal fluid.

A dual genetic strategy enables the labelling and in vivo imaging of native long-term haematopoietic stem cells in the mouse calvarial bone marrow.

In a mouse model, aryl hydrocarbon receptor signalling in enteric neurons is revealed as a mechanism that helps to maintain gut homeostasis by integrating the luminal environment with the physiology of intestinal neural circuits.

PLXND1 is a mechanosensor that is required for endothelial cells to respond to shear stress both in vitro and in vivo by regulating the site-specific distribution of atherosclerotic lesions.

Hyperosmotic stress leads to a phase separation of the proteasome, triggered by interactions between RAD23B and ubiquitylated proteins, which bring together p97 and proteasome-associated proteins into nuclear proteolytic foci.

The pre-autophagosomal structure in yeast is a liquid-like condensate of Atg proteins whose phase separation may have a critical, active role in autophagy.

ABBV-744, a selective inhibitor of the BD2 domains of BET family proteins, is effective against prostate cancer in mouse xenograft models, with lower toxicities than the dual-bromodomain BET inhibitor ABBV-075.

A silkworm model recapitulates key steps of Zucchini-mediated cleavage of pre-pre-piRNA and provides insights into Zucchini-mediated and -independent pathways that generate pre-piRNAs, which converge to a common piRNA maturation step.

A combination of optical tweezers and fluorescent-particle tracking is used to dissect the dynamics of the Hsp100 disaggregase ClpB, and show that the processive extrusion of polypeptide loops is the mechanistic basis of its activity.

Crystal structure of the Plasmodium falciparum hexose transporter PfHT1 reveals the molecular basis of its ability to transport multiple types of sugar as efficiently as the dedicated mammalian glucose and fructose transporters.