Nature - Damage control (2024)

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

How the cauliflower got its curlicues

More than 2,000 years of domestication have given the popular vegetable its short stem and clumpy ‘curds’.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

• Sara Reardon

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

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

How men evolved to care for babies — before society got in the way

An exploration of the evolution of male nurturing shows why, unlike fathers among other great apes, human dads are biologically wired to be hands-on parents.

• Kermyt G. Anderson

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

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

Inequality is bad — but that doesn’t mean the rich are

• Henrik Ekelund

Interpersonal therapy can be an effective tool against the devastating effects of loneliness

• Myrna M. Weissman
• Jennifer J. Mootz

Standardized metadata for biological samples could unlock the potential of collections

• Vojtěch Brlík

Real-world plastic-waste success stories can help to boost global treaty

• Haoxuan Yu
• Izni Zahidi

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

Why my heart beats for Nigeria’s endangered bats

Iroro Tanshi works to better understand a number of threatened species.

• Linda Nordling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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