Volume 632 Issue 8023, 1 August 2024

The UK code of practice for researchers working with stem-cell-based embryo models is designed to both reassure the public and provide valuable guidance to researchers.

Heart injury is reduced in mice when the cells that trigger inflammation are blocked.

Genes associated with postpartum haemorrhage spotlight a hormone’s role in dangerous bleeding after childbirth.

A bouquet of genes involved in making volatile compounds helps to produce the flower’s characteristic scent.

Observations of electron neutrinos could allow physicists to test theories about the particles’ behaviour.

Virginia Burkett has filed a whistle-blower complaint, asking for an investigation and better policies to protect scientists against political interference.

The daughter of a scientist and a supporter of diversity in STEM, Harris as a potential candidate has stirred optimism among scientists.

Success with a new route to producing superheavy elements paves the way to making the elusive element 120.

Researchers gave successive versions of a large language model information produced by previous generations of the AI — and observed rapid collapse.

Eighty-year-olds are able to identify familiar tunes just as well as teenagers can.

From training to broadcasting, artificial intelligence will have an imprint on this year’s event for the first time.

It’s a transformational time long neglected by neuroscience. That is starting to change.

Pioneer of targeted therapy in cancer who turned failed contraceptive tamoxifen into an essential drug for treating breast cancer and osteoporosis.

Too often, journal assessments of potentially unreliable research are superficial, opaque and prolonged. Changes to the guidance given by the Committee on Publication Ethics could tighten up the process.

Researchers who have fallen prey to predatory conferences share the tell-tale signs of a dud event.

Environmental scientist Anya Sherman studies how microplastics can be taken up by crops and people.

A meta-analysis of 21 carbon-pricing schemes suggests that the strategy reduces greenhouse-gas emissions. Deciding how high to set prices is the next step — and one that might benefit from the insights of less-aggregated studies in various sectors.

After a person takes the psychedelic compound psilocybin, some of their brain networks dissolve — especially the one involved in the perception of self, space and time. Changes to the connections to this network can last for weeks.

Light-based devices can reduce the energy consumption of computers, but most rely on lasers, which are expensive to integrate with other technologies. An approach that uses LEDs instead of lasers provides a path forwards.

Mice live longer and healthier lives when a cytokine protein called IL-11 is inhibited. The findings show how researchers can move beyond broad generalizations to engage with the nuances that modulate the pace of ageing.

As components on a computer chip shrink, their structure becomes ever-more complicated to image. A method that uses bursts of X-rays offers high-resolution, rapid-fire visualization down to single-transistor level.

This Review examines the diverse strategies utilized by naturally occurring antibiotics and suggests how they have provided, and will in future provide, inspiration for the design of novel antibiotics.

The spectroscopic and photometric observations of a high-mass, transiting warm Jupiter, TIC 241249530 b, with an orbital eccentricity of 0.94, provide evidence that hot Jupiters may have formed by means of a high-eccentricity tidal-migration pathway.

Two photonic platforms using a convolutional processing system with partially coherent light sources is shown to boost computing parallelism, demonstrated using the classification of gaits of patients with Parkinson’s disease and the MNIST handwritten digits dataset.

By using a photonic synthetic lattice, it can be experimentally demonstrated that Dirac masses can be induced by means of non-Hermitian perturbations based on optical gain and loss.

By incorporating chiral molecules into conventional superconductor lattices such as TaS₂ to form a hybrid superlattice, non-centrosymmetry could be introduced and can be shown to help lead to unconventional superconductivity.

A time-dependent magnetic field expulsion was measured in optically driven YBa₂Cu₃O_6.48 above the equilibrium superconducting transition temperature and all the way to room temperature. 

X-ray computed tomography is combined with burst ptychography and filtered back-propagation to achieve high-speed, three-dimensional imaging of features as small as 4 nm.

A framework that integrates materials, process design, techno-economics and life-cycle assessment can be used to accelerate the development of carbon-capture technology as we aim for a net-zero world.

Analysis of benthic foraminiferal δ¹⁸O profiles from sediment cores in two depth transects in the Northwest Atlantic suggests that the subtropical gyre was deeper and stronger during the Last Glacial Maximum compared with today.

Mapping of groundwater-dependent ecosystems, which support biodiversity and rural livelihoods, shows they occur on more than one-third of global drylands analysed, but lack protections to safeguard these critical ecosystems and the societies dependent upon them from groundwater depletion.

Zooarchaeological and proteomic analyses of bones from Baishiya Karst Cave on the Tibetan Plateau identify a hominin rib specimen, and provide insight into the ways Denisovans interacted with their surrounding environment and made use of animal resources.

Population-scale ancient genomics are used to infer ancestry, social structure and pathogen infection in 108 Scandinavian Neolithic individuals from eight megalithic graves and a stone cist, showing that Neolithic plague was widespread.

A new open-access RNA sequencing dataset, MAGE, of 731 individuals across geographically diverse human populations provides a valuable resource to study genetic diversity and evolution and expands the capacity to identify new genetic associations.

Healthy adults were tracked before, during and after high doses of psilocybin and methylphenidate to assess how psychedelics can change human brain networks, and psilocybin was found to massively disrupt functional connectivity in cortex and subcortex with some changes persisting for weeks.

This study explores how adenosine A2B receptors can act as astrocytic sensors of brain metabolic activity and how cAMP signalling in astrocytes may support core brain functions such as sleep and memory.

Changes in day length, conveyed by the preoptic area, drive axonal neurotransmitter reorganization in median raphe dual serotonin–glutamate neurons to regulate behaviour and sleep timing, highlighting a photoperiod-sensitive brain circuit.

IL-11 is identified as a key regulator of ERK–AMPK–mTORC1 signalling, metabolism, inflammation and age-related disease and lifespan in mouse and human.

A high-throughput yeast-based assay is used to identify more than 1,500 activation domains (ADs) in Arabidopsis transcription factors, and a deep learning approach applied to this dataset can predict AD activity on the basis of sequence features.

An analysis of the intestinal microbiome of people who have undergone allogenic haematopoietic cell transplantation shows that an enzyme derived from a bacteriophage has specific antibacterial activity against Enterococcus faecalis, and suppresses E. faecalis-associated graft-versus-host disease.

Type 1 regulatory T cells (Tr1) represent a major obstacle that compromises naturally occurring and therapeutically induced tumour-specific immunity.

A method is developed for expressing large dystrophins to enhance muscle function in mouse models of muscular dystrophy, with potential clinical benefits for numerous disorders caused by mutations in large genes that exceed the adeno-associated virus capacity.

Studies in mice show that telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) has a role in enhancing stem cell competition that is independent of its reverse transcriptase activity, and promotes chromatin accessibility and activity of the MYC oncogene.

Cryo-electron microscopy structures of NMDA receptors in open and apo states reveal the molecular mechanism underlying the dual ligand requirement for its channel gating and opening.