Volume 501 Issue 7467, 19 September 2013

Researchers and lawmakers must work to rebuild trust in secure Internet standards.

Novelist Thomas Pynchon shows that science and art can combine, with mutual benefit.

Climate change and human activities are pushing the fragile ecosystem ever closer to instability, warns Maharaj K. Pandit.

The week in science: No science minister in Australia; Syria agrees to join chemical weapons convention, and Voyager enters interstellar space.

But election prompts fears that budgetary pressures may sap strong investment.

Plant secretion curbs greenhouse-gas emissions from soil.

Other observatories watch for sharpened worker demands.

Conciliation sought in talks on EU research guidelines.

Lack of in-depth studies hampers efforts to identify source.

As the IPCC finalizes its next big climate-science assessment, Nature looks at the past and future of the planet's watchdog.

A graphical tour through the history of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the science that underlies it.

Researchers struggle to project how fast, how high and how far the oceans will rise.

Getting hundreds of experts to agree is never easy. Ottmar Edenhofer takes a firm, philosophical approach to the task.

Home-made national approaches can be effective for climate-change mitigation if countries agree on rules and build trust, says Elliot Diringer.

The first large-scale environmental surveys, carried out on the US arid lands, hold scientific lessons for policy-making still relevant today, explains K. John Holmes.

Sean Carroll finds Thomas Pynchon on compelling form in a tale of big data and bigger conspiracies.

Leonid Gokhberg and Dirk Meissner compare accounts on the trajectory of innovation in two towering economies.

David Singmaster delights in the autobiography of Martin Gardner, whose Scientific American maths column enchanted tens of thousands.

A global climate model that factors in the observed temperature of the surface ocean in the eastern equatorial Pacific offers an explanation for the recent hiatus in global warming. See Letter p.403

A study shows that stem cells can be used to generate self-organizing three-dimensional tissues that mimic the developing human brain. These tissues provide a tool for modelling neurodevelopmental disorders. See Article p.373

Internal lee waves are a player in ocean dynamics that may make an important contribution to deep-ocean mixing. They warrant serious consideration for inclusion in the next generation of climate models.

Pathogens and their hosts engage in perpetual molecular arms races. In one such evolutionary stand-off, the protagonists are trypanosome parasites and a human immune complex based on a high-density lipoprotein. See Letter p.430

The ultimate goal of the solar-cell industry is to make inexpensive devices that are highly efficient at converting sunlight into electricity. The advent of perovskite semiconductors could be the key to reaching this goal. See Letter p.395

Triplication of the enzyme USP16 in models of Down's syndrome creates defects in the stem cells resident in adult tissues. This finding provides insight into stem-cell homeostasis during ageing. See Article p.380

Here the authors present a human pluripotent stem cell-derived three-dimensional organoid culture system that is able to recapitulate several aspects of human brain development in addition to modelling the brain disorder microcephaly, which has been difficult to achieve using mouse models.

An analysis of somatic tissues derived from mouse models of Down’s syndrome shows reduced self-renewal capacities in various cell types, with these defects partially dependent on triplication of the Usp16 gene; overexpression and knockout studies in human cells shows that USP16 has a role in Down’s syndrome-related proliferation defects, making this gene an attractive option for further study.

The crystal structure of BamA, the central component of the β-barrel assembly machinery (BAM) complex, from N. gonorrhoeae and H. ducreyi is determined; the structure consists of an interior cavity capped by extracellular loops, an exterior rim with a narrowed hydrophobic surface and a lateral opening of the barrel domain, providing insight into a possible route for the insertion of β-barrel membrane proteins into the bacterial outer membrane.

The unusually large Faraday rotation of a newly discovered pulsar indicates that there is a dynamically important magnetic field near the supermassive black hole believed to lie at the centre of the Milky Way.

The use of organometal halide perovskites as the light-absorbing material in nanostructured solar cells has increased efficiency to practical levels; here it is shown that vapour deposition of the perovskite removes the need for complex nanostructures and will hence simplify large-scale manufacture.

Silver nanoparticles are susceptible to oxidation and have accordingly received less attention than gold nanoparticles; ultrastable silver nanoparticles are now reported, which can be produced in very large quantities as a single-sized molecular product, and the origins of their enhanced stability are elucidated using a single-crystal X-ray structure and first-principles calculations.

Global warming has stalled since the late 1990s, puzzling researchers; here a climate model that includes observed sea surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific reproduces the hiatus as part of natural variation, suggesting that long-term global warming is likely to continue.

An ocean tracer release in the Drake Passage, between South America and Antarctica, shows that its rough bottom topography causes greatly increased internal mixing, by a factor of about 20 at depths of around 1,500 metres.

Mutations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) accumulate at a higher rate than mutations in nuclear DNA, and although somatic mtDNA mutations are known to be involved in mammalian ageing, the role of germline mutations in this process is unclear: here germline-transmitted mtDNA mutations are shown to be associated with ageing and brain malformations, and maternally transmitted mtDNA mutations may thus influence both development and ageing.

In Caenorhabditis elegans, genome instability in the form of exogenous and endogenous DNA damage in germ cells evokes elevated heat- and oxidative-stress resistance in somatic tissues; this is mediated by MPK-1, which triggers the induction of putative secreted peptides associated with innate immunity, leading to activation of the ubiquitin–proteasome system.

In mice with Eµ-myc transgenic lymphomas in which therapy-induced senescence (TIS) depends on the H3K9 histone methyltransferase Suv39h1, TIS-competent lymphomas but not TIS-incompetent Suv39h1^– lymphomas show increased glucose utilization and ATP production after senescence-inducing chemotherapy to cope with proteotoxic stress elicited by factors of the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP); senescent cancers are selectively vulnerable to drugs that block glucose utilization or autophagy.

Germ-free mice mono-associated with a single species of Bacteroides are found to be resistant to further colonization by the same, but not different, species; a unique class of polysaccharide utilization loci that is required for the penetration of the colonic mucus and colonization of the crypt channel niche is discovered that explains this observed species-specific saturable colonization.

This study shows that Trypanosoma brucei gambiense resists trypanolytic factors (TLFs) in a multifactorial manner, relying on a hydrophobic β-sheet of the TgsGP glycoprotein, which prevents APOL1 toxicity and induces membrane stiffening, as well as a reduction in sensitivity to APOL1 requiring cysteine protease activity and TLF-1 receptor inactivation owing to a single amino acid substitution.

Cells expressing variable lymphocyte receptor C (VLRC) genes that encode VLRC receptors, which are used by jawless vertebrates to react with antigens, are defined as a second T-cell-like lymphocyte subset (the first being VLRA-bearing cells); distinct properties of these two T-cell-like subsets are reminiscent of the distinction between αβ and γδ T cells in jawed vertebrates.

A human monoclonal antibody has been identified which can cross-neutralize both human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV) and human metapneumovirus (HMPV), demonstrating that a single monoclonal antibody can target different viruses, a discovery that may lead to the creation of new therapeutics and vaccines.

An X-ray crystal structure of two intracellular domains of a mouse KCNH voltage-dependent potassium channel, EAG1, is presented: the structure reveals that the eag domain interacts directly with the cyclic nucleotide-binding homology domain (CNBHD), and that many KCNH-associated disease mutations are localized to the eag domain–CNBHD interface.

Disputes are bound to happen in high-pressure research environments. The key is knowing how to respond when they do.

A coaching programme helps to boost researchers' grant and publication rates.

Lack of experimental-resource identifiers in papers may affect reproducibility.

Holders of maths master's degree earn more than chemists or biologists.

Impact factors.

Cancer is not one but many diseases, continuously evolving and different in each patient. This Insight covers key topics in cancer research, ranging from the basic understanding of tumour heterogeneity to translational research and clinical trials.