This Week
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Editorial
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Forestry social science is failing the needs of the people who need it most
Rich nations’ fixation on forests as climate offsets has resulted in the needs of those who live in or make a living from these resources being ignored. A broader view and more collaboration between disciplines is required.
Collection:
- Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals
Editorial
Advertisem*nt
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A DARPA-like agency could boost EU innovation — but cannot come at the expense of existing schemes
If Europe wants to create a high-risk, high-reward research body, it needs grass-roots backing.
Editorial
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World View
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Why mathematics is set to be revolutionized by AI
Cheap data and the absence of coincidences make maths an ideal testing ground for AI-assisted discovery — but only humans will be able to tell good conjectures from bad ones.
- Thomas Fink
World View
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Research Highlights
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Old electric-vehicle batteries can find new purpose — on the grid
An algorithm can monitor the health of retired vehicle batteries used to store surplus power fed into the electrical grid.
Research Highlight
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These parrots go on killing sprees over real-estate shortages
Scientists recorded green-rumped parrotlets pecking others’ chicks to death, probably to claim the nest space.
Research Highlight
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CRISPR therapy restores some vision to people with blindness
People with an inherited condition that causes vision loss in childhood had vision improvements after treatment to replace a mutated gene.
Research Highlight
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How the cauliflower got its curlicues
More than 2,000 years of domestication have given the popular vegetable its short stem and clumpy ‘curds’.
Research Highlight
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News in Focus
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News
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Major AlphaFold upgrade offers boost for drug discovery
Latest version of the AI models how proteins interact with other molecules — but DeepMind restricts access to the tool.
- Ewen Callaway
News
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US funders to tighten oversight of controversial ‘gain of function’ research
New policy on high-risk biology studies aims to address criticism that previous rules were too vague.
- Max Kozlov
News
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Argentina’s pioneering nuclear research threatened by huge budget cuts
President Javier Milei is making moves to partially privatize the sector, but in the meantime, projects have paused.
- Martín De Ambrosio
- Fermín Koop
News
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France’s research mega-campus faces leadership crisis
The contest to elect the next president of Paris-Saclay University has collapsed, reflecting wider issues at the giant research centre.
- Barbara Casassus
News
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Best ever clocks: breakthrough paves way for ultra-precise ‘nuclear’ timekeepers
A clock based on energy shifts in atomic nuclei could transform fundamental-physics research.
- Elizabeth Gibney
News
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Bird flu in US cows: where will it end?
Scientists worry that the H5N1 strain of avian influenza will become endemic in cattle, which would aid its spread in people.
See AlsoRestored Republic via a GCR as of May 23, 2024Restored Republic via a GCR: Update as of May 24, 2024- Sara Reardon
News
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Features
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How to kill the ‘zombie’ cells that make you age
Researchers are using new molecules, engineered immune cells and gene therapy to kill senescent cells and treat age-related diseases.
- Carissa Wong
News Feature
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Lethal AI weapons are here: how can we control them?
Autonomous weapons guided by artificial intelligence are already in use. Researchers, legal experts and ethicists are struggling with what should be allowed on the battlefield.
- David Adam
News Feature
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Books & Arts
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Book Review
Opinion
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Obituary
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Daniel Kahneman obituary: psychologist who revolutionized the way we think about thinking
Nobel prizewinner whose insights into the foibles of human decision-making launched the field of behavioural economics and sent ripples through all social sciences.
- Eldar Shafir
Obituary
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Comment
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Neglecting sex and gender in research is a public-health risk
The data are clear: taking sex and gender into account in research and using that knowledge to change health care could benefit billions of people.
- Sue Haupt
- Cheryl Carcel
- Robyn Norton
Collection:
- Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals
Comment
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Correspondence
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Inequality is bad — but that doesn’t mean the rich are
- Henrik Ekelund
Correspondence
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Interpersonal therapy can be an effective tool against the devastating effects of loneliness
- Myrna M. Weissman
- Jennifer J. Mootz
Correspondence
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Standardized metadata for biological samples could unlock the potential of collections
- Vojtěch Brlík
Correspondence
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Real-world plastic-waste success stories can help to boost global treaty
- Haoxuan Yu
- Izni Zahidi
Correspondence
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Work
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Feature
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Scientists urged to collect royalties from the ‘magic money tree’
By joining a collecting society, researchers can ensure they are paid when copyrighted book content and papers are reproduced.
- Oscar Allan
Career Guide:
- Publishing
Career Feature
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Where I Work
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Why my heart beats for Nigeria’s endangered bats
Iroro Tanshi works to better understand a number of threatened species.
- Linda Nordling
Where I Work
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Research
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News & Views
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Strategic links save buildings from total collapse
A design principle for buildings incorporates components that can control the propagation of failure by isolating parts of the structure as they fail — offering a way to prevent a partial collapse snowballing into complete destruction.
- Sarah L. Orton
News & Views
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Tumours form without genetic mutations
Researchers find that brief and reversible inhibition of a gene-silencing mechanism leads to irreversible tumour formation in fruit flies, challenging the idea that cancer is caused only by permanent changes to DNA.
- Anne-Kathrin Classen
News & Views
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Dad’s gut microbes matter for pregnancy health and baby’s growth
Altering gut bacteria in male mice revealed that microorganisms are needed for normal sperm development and offspring health. Scientists discuss the implications in terms of understanding microbes, male fertility and pregnancy.
- Liisa Veerus
- Martin J. Blaser
- Eldin Jašarević
News & Views Forum
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Did atmospheric weathering help Earth’s earliest continents to survive?
What stabilized and strengthened the oldest, most robust blocks of continental crust billions of years ago during the Archaean eon has long been a mystery. It seems that a surprise helping hand might have come from the air above.
- Claire E. Bucholz
News & Views
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Cells destroy donated mitochondria to build blood vessels
Organelles called mitochondria are transferred to blood-vessel-forming cells by support cells. Unexpectedly, these mitochondria are degraded, kick-starting the production of new ones and boosting vessel formation.
- Chantell S. Evans
News & Views
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Microbubble ultrasound maps hidden signs of heart disease
Cardiovascular disease claims more lives each year than do the two next-deadliest diseases combined. An ultrasound technique that tracks tiny gas-filled bubbles could pave the way towards improved early detection.
- Elisa E. Konofa*gou
News & Views
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Reviews
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Decoding the interplay between genetic and non-genetic drivers of metastasis
This Review discusses the importance of genetic and non-genetic reprogramming events during the metastatic cascade.
- Panagiotis Karras
- James R. M. Black
- Jean-Christophe Marine
Review Article
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Analysis
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Refining the impact of genetic evidence on clinical success
Human genetic evidence increases the success rate of drugs from clinical development to approval but we are still far from reaching peak genetic insights to aid the discovery of targets for more effective drugs.
- Eric Vallabh Minikel
- Jeffery L. Painter
- Matthew R. Nelson
Analysis Open Access
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Articles
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A high-density and high-confinement tokamak plasma regime for fusion energy
A stable tokamak plasma has been demonstrated with a high plasma density and a high energy confinement quality, both of which are simultaneously important for fusion reactors.
- S. Ding
- A. M. Garofalo
- J. M. Hanson
Article Open Access
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Probing entanglement in a 2D hard-core Bose–Hubbard lattice
By emulating a 2D hard-core Bose–Hubbard lattice using a controllable 4 × 4 array of superconducting qubits, volume-law entanglement scaling as well as area-law scaling at different locations in the energy spectrum are observed.
- Amir H. Karamlou
- Ilan T. Rosen
- William D. Oliver
Article Open Access
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Fusion of deterministically generated photonic graph states
Using an optical resonator containing two individually addressable atoms in a single cavity, fusion of deterministically generated photonic graph states to create ring and tree graph states with up to eight qubits is demonstrated.
- Philip Thomas
- Leonardo Ruscio
- Gerhard Rempe
Article Open Access
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Entanglement of nanophotonic quantum memory nodes in a telecom network
Entanglement of two nanophotonic quantum network nodesis demonstrated through 40 km spools of low-loss fibre and a 35-km long fibre loop deployed in the Boston area urban environment.
- C. M. Knaut
- A. Suleymanzade
- M. D. Lukin
Article Open Access
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Creation of memory–memory entanglement in a metropolitan quantum network
A metropolitan-area quantum network based on the generation of pairwise entanglement is formed by three atomic quantum memories connected to a central photonic server.
- Jian-Long Liu
- Xi-Yu Luo
- Jian-Wei Pan
Article
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Long-range order enabled stability in quantum dot light-emitting diodes
Improving the long-range order of the quantum dots in perovskite LEDs can markedly enhance their operational stability.
- Ya-Kun Wang
- Haoyue Wan
- Liang-Sheng Liao
Article
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Arresting failure propagation in buildings through collapse isolation
A design approach arrests collapse propagation in buildings after major initial failures by ensuring that specific elements fail before the failure of the most important components for global stability.
- Nirvan Makoond
- Andri Setiawan
- Jose M. Adam
Article Open Access
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Regioselective hydroformylation of propene catalysed by rhodium-zeolite
Rhodium catalysts confined in zeolite pores exhibit high regioselectivity in the hydroformylation process of propene to high-value n-butanal, surpassing the performance of all heterogeneous and most hom*ogeneous catalysts developed so far.
- Xiangjie Zhang
- Tao Yan
- Zhi Cao
Article
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One-third of Southern Ocean productivity is supported by dust deposition
Nitrate observations over 11 years from autonomous biogeochemical ocean profiling combined with a Southern Hemisphere dust simulation find that iron supplied by dust supports about 30% of Southern Ocean productivity.
- Jakob Weis
- Zanna Chase
- Sonya L. Fiddes
Article
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Subaerial weathering drove stabilization of continents
The geological histories of Archaean regions indicate that stabilization of the Earth’s continents and the formation of cratons was driven by continental emergence and subaerial weathering.
- Jesse R. Reimink
- Andrew J. Smye
Article Open Access
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Biogeographic response of marine plankton to Cenozoic environmental changes
Analysis of a global dataset reveals spatiotemporal patterns of marine plankton and their biogeographical responses during climatic and environmental changes across the Cenozoic era.
- Anshuman Swain
- Adam Woodhouse
- Christopher M. Lowery
Article
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Retuning of hippocampal representations during sleep
Using a Bayesian learning approach, a study tracks the spatial representations by individual hippocampal cells over time in freely moving rats, and provides insights into how ensemble patterns form and reconfigure during sleep.
- Kourosh Maboudi
- Bapun Giri
- Kamran Diba
Article
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Sleep pressure modulates single-neuron synapse number in zebrafish
Synapses are gained during spontaneous or forced periods of wake and lost during sleep in a neuron-subtype-dependent manner in zebrafish.
- Anya Suppermpool
- Declan G. Lyons
- Jason Rihel
Article Open Access
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Mechanics of human embryo compaction
Using micropipette aspiration on donated human embryos, cell surface tensions during compaction were mapped, indicating a role for defective cell contractility in poor quality embryos.
- Julie Firmin
- Nicolas Ecker
- Jean-Léon Maître
Article
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Paternal microbiome perturbations impact offspring fitness
Disturbances in the gut microbiota of male mice manifest as fitness defects in their offspring by affecting plancenta function, revealing a paternal gut–germline axis.
- Ayele Argaw-Denboba
- Thomas S. B. Schmidt
- Jamie A. Hackett
Article Open Access
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Mitochondrial transfer mediates endothelial cell engraftment through mitophagy
Under stressful conditions, mesenchymal stromal cells transfer mitochondria to endothelial cells through tunnelling nanotubes, and artificially transplanting mitochondria into endothelial cells improves the ability of these cells to engraft and to revascularize ischaemic tissues.
- Ruei-Zeng Lin
- Gwang-Bum Im
- Juan M. Melero-Martin
Article
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Distal colonocytes targeted by C. rodentium recruit T-cell help for barrier defence
The murine enteropathogen Citrobacter rodentium targets a specific subset of absorptive intestinal epithelial cells in the mid–distal colon, which stimulate T cells to produce sustained IL-22 signals to mitigate further spread of the pathogen.
- Carlene L. Zindl
- C. Garrett Wilson
- Casey T. Weaver
Article Open Access
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3D genomic mapping reveals multifocality of human pancreatic precancers
Quantitative multimodal 3D reconstruction of human pancreatic tissue at single-cell resolutionreveals a high burden of multifocal, genetically heterogeneous pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasias in the normal adult pancreas.
- Alicia M. Braxton
- Ashley L. Kiemen
- Laura D. Wood
Article
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Transient loss of Polycomb components induces an epigenetic cancer fate
A transient perturbation of transcriptional silencing mediated by Polycomb proteins is sufficient to induce an epigenetic cancer cell fate in Drosophila in the absence of driver mutations.
- V. Parreno
- V. Loubiere
- G. Cavalli
Article Open Access
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Mechanism of single-stranded DNA annealing by RAD52–RPA complex
Single-stranded DNA annealing is driven by RAD52 open rings in association with RPA.
- Chih-Chao Liang
- Luke A. Greenhough
- Stephen C. West
Article Open Access
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Structural and molecular basis of choline uptake into the brain by FLVCR2
FLVCR2 is expressed in the blood–brain barrier of mouse and human, and is the major mediator of choline uptake into the brain.
- Rosemary J. Cater
- Dibyanti Mukherjee
- Filippo Mancia
Article
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Structural basis of lipid head group entry to the Kennedy pathway by FLVCR1
A structural, biochemical and metabolomic analysis reveals the mechanistic basis for transport of extracellular choline and ethanolamine into cells by the human transport protein FLVCR1.
- Yeeun Son
- Timothy C. Kenny
- Richard K. Hite
Article
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Amendments & Corrections
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Author Correction: Targeting DCAF5 suppresses SMARCB1-mutant cancer by stabilizing SWI/SNF
- Sandi Radko-Juettner
- Hong Yue
- Charles W. M. Roberts
Author Correction