Nature - Moment in the Sun (2024)

AlphaFold3 — why did Nature publish it without its code?

Criticism of our decision to publish AlphaFold3 raises important questions. We welcome readers’ views.

Why role-playing games can spur climate action

Solving problems in a safe, collaborative environment can help us think out of the box and build empathy — crucial skills in a warming world.

• Sam Illingworth

Pay researchers to spot errors in published papers

Borrowing the idea of ‘bug bounties’ from the technology industry could provide a systematic way to detect and correct the errors that litter the scientific literature.

• Malte Elson

Reading between the lines: application essays predict university success

Applicants whose essays had broader ‘semantic content’ tended to achieve higher marks.

How cheesemaking could cook up an antidote for alcohol excess

A gel made from a milk protein reduces alcohol levels in the blood of intoxicated mice.

Organoids merge to model the blood–brain barrier

Combining a brain organoid with a blood-vessel organoid yields a system similar to a protective mesh in the brain.

Africa’s lush tropical forests face a surprising threat: fire

Climate change and deforestation have increased the frequency of blazes in the humid forests of West and Central Africa.

Experimental obesity drug packs double punch to reduce weight

Test of weight-loss candidate in mice shows that there is still room for improvement in a burgeoning field.

• Asher Mullard

‘Quantum internet’ demonstration in cities is most advanced yet

Experiments generate quantum entanglement over optical fibres across three real cities, marking progress towards networks that could have revolutionary applications.

• Davide Castelvecchi

Dazzling auroras are just a warm-up as more solar storms are likely, scientists say

Nature talks to physicists about what to expect in the next few months and beyond as the Sun hits its ‘maximum’.

• Alexandra Witze

‘Orangutan, heal thyself’: First wild animal seen using medicinal plant

The Sumatran orangutan used a plant known to humans for its medicinal qualities.

• Gayathri Vaidyanathan

The US Congress is taking on AI — this computer scientist is helping

Kiri Wagstaff, who temporarily shelved her academic career to provide advice on federal AI legislation, talks about life inside the halls of power.

• Nicola Jones

Cubic millimetre of brain mapped in spectacular detail

Google scientists have modelled a fragment of the human brain at nanoscale resolution, revealing cells with previously undiscovered features.

• Carissa Wong

World’s brightest X-rays: China first in Asia to build next-generation synchrotron

The US$665-million High Energy Photon Source (HEPS) outside Beijing puts China among only a handful of countries that have fourth-generation synchrotron light sources.

• Gemma Conroy

Egypt is building a $1-billion mega-museum. Will it bring Egyptology home?

For 100 years, Egypt’s scientists have watched as their nation’s story was largely told by institutions from Europe and the United States. Can a stunning new museum change that narrative?

• Miryam Naddaf

Harassment of scientists is surging — institutions aren’t sure how to help

As researchers increasingly face many kinds of attack over their work, there is debate about how to support and protect them.

• Bianca Nogrady

Dumping, pillaging and slavery — why exploitation of the high seas must end

It’s time to sustainably manage the international ocean for marine and human life, says bold investigative book.

• Diva Amon
• Juliano Palacios Abrantes

Recycled sewage, public health and the memory of the world: Books in brief

Andrew Robinson reviews five of the best science picks.

• Andrew Robinson

Diana Wall obituary: ecologist who foresaw the importance of soil biodiversity

Environmental scientist who revealed the crucial role of underground animals in sustainability.

• Richard D. Bardgett

Why the European Space Agency should join the US mission to Uranus

Without international partnerships, NASA’s groundbreaking mission could fail to be ready in time for its optimal launch window.

• Olivier Mousis
• Robin M. Canup

Social-media influence on teen mental health goes beyond just cause and effect

• Michael A. Spikes

Internet use and teen mental health: it’s about more than just screen time

• Linxiao Zhang

Lack of effective intercultural communication is hobbling academia — fix it for research equity

• Shoumit Dey
• Pooja Sharma

Trials that infected people with common colds can inform today’s COVID-19 challenge trials

• Jonathan Ewbank

How religious scientists balance work and faith

Researchers find ways to interweave faith and science, from discussing Ramadan fasts with colleagues to applying religious parables to lab work.

• Anne Marie Conlon

DeepLabCut: the motion-tracking tool that went viral

Mackenzie and Alexander Mathis were still early in their careers when their software created a sensation. Now they’re using it to support other young scientists.

• Jyoti Madhusoodanan

How my research is putting blue crab on the menu in Croatia

Neven Iveša investigates the invasive species in the Adriatic Sea, and works out how to lessen its impact.

• Jack Leeming

Resilience lessons from ancient societies are still relevant today

What lessons can we learn from the factors that govern the resilience of human populations? A large-scale analysis examining ancient societies around the world provides a detailed look at what drives sustainability.

• John Haldon

Vaccine-enhancing plant extract could be mass produced in yeast

The Chilean soapbark tree is the source of QS-21 — a valuable but hard-to-obtain vaccine additive. Yeast strains engineered to express all components of the QS-21 biosynthetic pathway provide an alternative route to this therapeutic.

• Ryan Nett

Instability could explain the Sun’s curious cycle

A phenomenon that affects the magnetic fields of rotating bodies could be involved in recurring changes in the Sun’s behaviour, which are related to a periodic flipping of its field. The proposal is a fresh take on this strange effect.

• Ellen Zweibel

The phenomenon of genomic imprinting was discovered 40 years ago

Some genes carry an ‘imprint’ on either the maternal or the paternal copy, which determines whether or not that copy is expressed. This 1984 discovery changed how scientists think about gene regulation and inheritance.

• Anne C. Ferguson-Smith
• Marisa S. Bartolomei

Promethium bound: fundamental chemistry of an elusive element finally observed

The chemistry of promethium, a rare radioactive element, has been clouded in mystery, owing to its scarcity and the difficulties involved in working with it. The synthesis of a complex of promethium plugs this knowledge gap.

• Kristina O. Kvashnina

Save the forest to save the tiger — why vegetation conservation matters

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, emphasizes the importance of conserving wild plant species, plus a wonderstruck sky-watcher spots a brilliant meteor, in the weekly dip into Nature’s archive.

Genomics reveal unknown mutation-promoting agents at global sites

Genetic sequencing of human kidney cancers worldwide has revealed associations between geographical locations and specific mutation patterns, indicating exposure to known and unknown mutation-promoting agents.

• Irene Franco
• Fran Supek

The solar dynamo begins near the surface

Simple analytic estimates and detailed numerical calculationsshow that the solar dynamo begins near the surface, rather than at the much-deepertachocline.

• Geoffrey M. Vasil
• Daniel Lecoanet
• Keith Julien

Measurement of the superfluid fraction of a supersolid by Josephson effect

A new method based on the Josephson effect is described, allowing to measure the superfluid fraction of a supersolid, which captures the effect of spatially periodic modulation leading to reduction in the stiffness of superfluids.

• G. Biagioni
• N. Antolini
• G. Modugno

Quantum control of a cat qubit with bit-flip times exceeding ten seconds

A type of qubit that has inherent resistance to bit-flip errors has been manipulated with a bit-flip time of more than 10 s without losing that error protection.

• U. Réglade
• A. Bocquet
• Z. Leghtas

Lithium tantalate photonic integrated circuits for volume manufacturing

Electro-optical photonic integrated circuits based on lithium tantalate perform as well as current state-of-the-art ones using lithium niobate but the materialhas the advantage of existing commercial usesin consumer electronics, easing the problem of scalability.

• Chengli Wang
• Zihan Li
• Tobias J. Kippenberg

Full-colour 3D holographic augmented-reality displays with metasurface waveguides

We develop a method for providing high-quality, holographic, three-dimensional augmented-reality images in a small form factor suitable for incorporation in eyeglass-scale wearables, using high-refraction-index glass waveguides with nanoscale metasurfaces, and incorporating artificial intelligence.

• Manu Gopakumar
• Gun-Yeal Lee
• Gordon Wetzstein

Selenium-alloyed tellurium oxide for amorphous p-channel transistors

A pioneering design strategy for amorphous p-type semiconductors can be used in high-performance, stable p-channel TFTs and complementary circuits, which may establish viable amorphous p-channel TFT technology and large-areacomplementary electronics in a low-cost manner.

• Ao Liu
• Yong-Sung Kim
• Yong-Young Noh

Giant energy storage and power density negative capacitance superlattices

Using a three-pronged approach—spanning field-drivennegative capacitance stabilization to increase intrinsicenergy storage,antiferroelectric superlattice engineering to increase total energy storage, and conformal three-dimensionaldeposition to increase areal energy storage density — very high electrostatic energy storage density and power density are reported in HfO₂–ZrO₂-based thin film microcapacitors integrated into silicon.

• Suraj S. Cheema
• Nirmaan Shanker
• Sayeef Salahuddin

Transcranial volumetric imaging using a conformal ultrasound patch

A conformal ultrasound patch can be used for hands-free volumetric imaging and continuous monitoring of cerebral blood flow

• Sai Zhou
• Xiaoxiang Gao
• Sheng Xu

Observation of a promethium complex in solution

Stable chelation of the ¹⁴⁷Pm radionuclide in aqueous solution by the newly synthesized organic diglycolamide ligand is demonstrated and the resulting complex studied, showing accelerated shortening of bonds at the beginning of the lanthanide series.

• Darren M. Driscoll
• Frankie D. White
• Alexander S. Ivanov

Boron catalysis in a designer enzyme

A completely genetically encoded boronic-acid-containing designer enzyme was created and characterized using X-ray crystallography, high-resolution mass spectrometry and ¹¹B NMR spectroscopy, allowing chemistry that is unknown in nature and currently not possible with small-molecule catalysts.

• Lars Longwitz
• Reuben B. Leveson-Gower
• Gerard Roelfes

A meta-analysis on global change drivers and the risk of infectious disease

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, managing ecosystem health, and preventing biological invasions and biodiversity loss could help to reduce the burden of plant, animal and human diseases, especially when coupled with improvements to social and economic determinants of health.

• Michael B. Mahon
• Alexandra Sack
• Jason R. Rohr

Frequent disturbances enhanced the resilience of past human populations

Analysis of population decline shows that frequent disturbances enhance a population’s capacity to resist and recover from downturns and that trade-offs exist when adopting new or alternative land-use strategies.

• Philip Riris
• Fabio Silva
• Xiaolin Ren

Phylogenomics and the rise of the angiosperms

Phylogenomic analysis of 7,923 angiosperm species using a standardized set of 353 nuclear genes produced an angiosperm tree of life datedwith 200 fossil calibrations, providing key insights into evolutionary relationshipsand diversification.

• Alexandre R. Zuntini
• Tom Carruthers
• William J. Baker

Complexity of avian evolution revealed by family-level genomes

Using intergenic regions and coalescent methods to analyse the genomes of 363 bird species, the authors present a well-supported tree confirming that Neoaves experienced rapid radiation at or near the Cretaceous–Palaeogene boundary.

• Josefin Stiller
• Shaohong Feng
• Guojie Zhang

Temporal multiplexing of perception and memory codes in IT cortex

We examined how familiar faces are encoded in inferotemporal, perirhinal and temporal pole face patches, and found that relative response magnitude to familiar versus unfamiliar faces was not a stable indicator of familiarity in any patch.

• Liang She
• Marcus K. Benna
• Doris Y. Tsao

Airway hillocks are injury-resistant reservoirs of unique plastic stem cells

In the lungs, recently identifiedepithelial structures known as hillocks can act as injury-resistant reservoirs of stem cells.

• Brian Lin
• Viral S. Shah
• Jayaraj Rajagopal

Computationally restoring the potency of a clinical antibody against Omicron

By demonstrating a computational approach to restore the clinical efficacy of a COVID-19 antibody, the potential to rapidly update clinical antibodies is explored.

• Thomas A. Desautels
• Kathryn T. Arrildt
• Daniel M. Faissol

Ligand cross-feeding resolves bacterial vitamin B12 auxotrophies

Two species of auxotrophic marine bacteria are shown to share precursors to synthesize the essential cofactor vitamin B₁₂, and such ligand cross-feeding may be a common phenomenon in the ocean and other ecosystems.

• Gerrit Wienhausen
• Cristina Moraru
• Meinhard Simon

Brainendothelial GSDMD activation mediates inflammatory BBB breakdown

Lipopolysaccharide-induced breakdown of the blood–brain barrier requires activation of GSDMD-mediated plasma membrane permeabilization and pyroptosis in brain endothelial cells.

• Chao Wei
• Wei Jiang
• Feng Shao

Periportal macrophages protect against commensal-driven liver inflammation

A subset of Macro-positive macrophages is identified to have immunosuppressive functions in the periportal vein zones of the liver to mediate excessive inflammation, and their effects depend on commensal gut bacteria.

• Yu Miyamoto
• Junichi Kikuta
• Masaru Ishii

Geographic variation of mutagenic exposures in kidney cancer genomes

Whole-genome sequencing of 962 clear cell renal cell carcinomas from 11 countries shows geographic variations in somatic mutation profiles, including a mutational signature of unknown cause in 70% of cases from Japan.

• Sergey Senkin
• Sarah Moody
• Paul Brennan

Concurrent inhibition of oncogenic and wild-type RAS-GTP for cancer therapy

RMC-7977, a compound that exhibits potent inhibition of the active states of mutant and wild-typeKRAS, NRAS and HRAS variants has a strong anti-tumour effect on RAS-addicted tumours and is well toleratedin preclinical models.

• Matthew Holderfield
• Bianca J. Lee
• Mallika Singh

Tumour-selective activity of RAS-GTP inhibition in pancreatic cancer

RMC-7977, a multi-selective RAS(ON) inhibitor,exhibits potent tumour-selective activity in multiple pre-clinical models of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma through a combination of pharmacology and oncogene dependence.

• Urszula N. Wasko
• Jingjing Jiang
• Kenneth P. Olive

Complete biosynthesis of QS-21 in engineered yeast

QS-21—an FDA-approved vaccine adjuvant—and several structural analogues of QS-21 can be synthesized in engineered yeast strains, and this process is much less laborious compared with the conventional mode of extraction from the Chilean soapbark tree.

• Yuzhong Liu
• Xixi Zhao
• Jay D. Keasling

Discovery of potent small-molecule inhibitors of lipoprotein(a) formation

Biochemical screening and optimization identify small molecules that inhibit the formation of lipoprotein(a), and these inhibitors reduce the levels of Lp(a) in several animal models, suggesting that they could provide a therapeutic option in humans.

• Nuria Diaz
• Carlos Perez
• Laura F. Michael

Stepwise activation of a metabotropic glutamate receptor

We propose a model for a sequential, multistep activation mechanism of metabotropic glutamate receptor subtype 5, including a series of structures in lipid nanodiscs, from inactive to fully active, with agonist-bound intermediate states.

• Kaavya Krishna Kumar
• Haoqing Wang
• Brian K. Kobilka