Volume 629 Issue 8011, 9 May 2024

Permanent jobs and fairer hiring practices would encourage overseas scientists to return.

Fluid studded with microscopic magnetic particles can be inserted into the body and later retrieved.

During periods of enforced isolation, life satisfaction for older adults took less of a hit in those who were already socially isolated.

Daisy, a member of a breed used to find fungal delicacies, detected a critically endangered Australian fungus faster than a trained human could.

Bacteria that make food using a compound other than chlorophyll could paint other planets in a wide range of colours.

The Chang’e-6 mission aims to land in the Moon’s oldest and largest crater, where it will collect rocks to bring back to Earth.

The tissue developed into functioning kidneys and produced urine.

From extreme cold to strong magnets and high pressures, the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility (SECUF) provides conditions for researching potential wonder materials.

Researchers deliberately infect participants with SARS-CoV-2 in ‘challenge’ trials — but high levels of immunity complicate efforts to test vaccines and treatments.

Some scientists argue that it’s time to rethink the blanket policy of letting blazes burn themselves out in northern wildernesses.

Browser plug-in alerts users when studies — or their references — have been posted on a site known for raising integrity concerns.

Some of the AI-designed gene editors could be more versatile than those found in nature.

The first set of results from a pioneering cosmic-mapping project hints that the repulsive force known as dark energy has changed over 11 billion years, which would alter ideas about how the Universe has evolved and what its future will be.

Our immune system falters over time, which could explain the negative effects of ageing.

A deep dive into plant behaviour and consciousness asks why the topic has been taboo for so long, and whether botanists are changing their minds about plants’ cognitive abilities.

Where should society draw the line on extreme wealth? A fresh account sets out the logic and suggests how to redress inequality.

Andrew Robinson reviews five of the best science picks.

Innovator who pioneered scanning electrochemical microscopy, bioassays and solar fuels.

Graduate students are relying on donated and discounted food in the struggle to make ends meet.

Latest methods bring the speed, portability, and long read lengths of nanopore sequencing to proteomics.

Jan Pisek seeks a better understanding of how forests absorb sunlight, carbon and heat.

Genetic pedigrees spanning nine generations uncover the social organization of a nomadic empire that dominated much of central and eastern Europe from the sixth to the early ninth century.

The development of high-performance organic LEDs and other devices that emit near-infrared light has been hindered by seemingly fundamental features of the light-emitting molecules. A potential solution has been identified.

Some fox species leap up and pounce head first into snow to capture prey that they hear below the surface. An analysis of the forces involved reveals how the shape of the skull has evolved to minimize damage from this behaviour.

How does the human brain temporarily store information without losing track of it? Neuroscientists have discovered that neurons in the frontal and temporal lobes work together to hold information in working memory.

Cells grown on a 3D scaffold have generated a ‘mini-colon’ that mimics key features of the organ. Controlled expression of cancer-associated genes in the system offers a way to examine tumour formation over space and time.

Efforts to find renewable alternatives to fossil fuels that might enable a carbon-neutral society by 2050 are described, as well as outlining a possible roadmap towards a refinery of the future and evaluating its requirements.

Water loss to space late in Venus history is shown to be more active than previously thought, with unmeasured HCO⁺ dissociative recombination dominating present-day H loss.

Boson sampling using ultracold atoms in a two-dimensional, tunnel-coupled optical lattice is enabled by high-fidelity programmable control with optical tweezers of a large number of atoms trapped in an optical lattice.

Emergence of Nagaoka polarons and kinetic magnetism is observed in a Hubbard system realized with strongly interacting fermions trapped in a triangular optical lattice.

A triangular-lattice Hubbard system realized with ultracold atoms is used to directly image spin polarons, revealing ferromagnetic correlations around a charge dopant, a manifestation of the Nagaoka effect.

All-optical subcycle microscopy is achieved on atomic length scales, with picometric spatial and femtosecond temporal resolution.

The iconic 6502 microprocessor designed in two key thin-film transistor technologies by independent foundries is used to demonstrate and expand the multi-project wafer approach for flexible electronics.

The introduction of chemical short-range disorder substantially affects the crystal structure of layered lithium oxide cathodes, leading to improved charge transfer and structural stability.

Diamond crystals and polycrystalline diamond films can be grown using liquid metal at standard pressure and high temperature instead of conventional high pressure and high temperature.

A molecular design strategy for reducing the vibration-induced non-radiative losses in emissive organic semiconductors is realized by decoupling excitons from high-frequency vibrations.

Use of N-methoxyamides as oxidants enables controllable, redox-neutral, green catalysis of bimodal dehydrogenation/lactonization reactions with methanol as the only by-product.

An effort to map roads in the Asia-Pacific region finds that there are 3.0–6.6 times more roads than other sources suggest, and that unmapped ‘ghost roads’ are a major contributor to tropical forest loss.

Analysis of ancient DNA from 424 individuals in the Avar period, from the sixth to the ninth century AD, reveals population movement from the steppe and the prolonged existence of a steppe nomadic descent system centred around patrilineality and female exogamy in central Europe.

Using mosaic variant barcode analysis, clonal dynamics of specific cell types are deconvolved in the human forebrain.

Hippocampal theta–gamma phase–amplitude coupling integrates cognitive control and working memory storage across brain areas in humans.

Signalling by the developmental morphogen BMP2 through the transcription factor SMAD1 has a key role in controlling the glutamatergic innervation of parvalbumin-expressing interneurons and maintaining the balance between excitation and inhibition in the mammalian cortex.

A screen utilizing an environmental DNA library in Escherichia coli is used to identify Brig1, a previously unknown anti-phage defence system with homologues across distinct clades of bacteria.

Tumour-derived prostaglandin E₂, signaling through its receptors EP₂ and EP₄, is shown to restrain the responses of tumour-infiltrating stem-like TCF1⁺CD8⁺ T lymphocytes, and modulation of T cell EP₂ and EP₄ can restore anticancer immunity.

Prostaglandin E2 from the tumour microenvironment impairs interleukin-2 sensing by tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes, restricting proliferative response and promoting T cell death via metabolic impairment and ferroptosis. 

VVD-133214, a clinical-stage, covalent allosteric inhibitor of the helicase WRN, was well tolerated in mice and led to robust tumour regression in multiple microsatellite-instability-high colorectal cancer cell lines and patient-derived xenograft models.

HRO761 is a potent, selective, allosteric WRN inhibitor that binds at the interface of the D1 and D2 helicase domains, locking WRN in an inactive conformation.

Topobiologically complex mini-colons—which enable the faithful in vitro recapitulation of colorectal cancer tumorigenesis and its environmental determinants—offer the possibility to reduce animal use in a wide range of experimental applications.

A new method for tracking single-cell heteroplasmy, called SCI-LITE, is combined with mitochondrial DNA base editing to reveal principles of heteroplasmy dynamics in dividing cells.

Structures of complexes containing GajA and GajB proteins of the prokaryotic Gabija anti-phage defence system reveal the mechanism of its activation after DNA cleavage upon ATP depletion.

Studies on the µ-opioid receptor using fluorescent labelling of intracellular residues and energy transfer experiments in the presence of different ligands with or without G-protein binding reveals conformational changes that correlate to ligand efficacy.

Structures of the human calcium-sensing receptor can be bound into complex with G proteins from three different Gα subtypes while maintaining G-protein-binding specificity.