Volume 506 Issue 7486, 6 February 2014

UK immigration rules are perceived as being tougher than they really are.

The Amazon doesn’t absorb extra carbon in the dry season after all. It can become a carbon source.

Figures from a national survey of land use seem positive, but the effort exposed some worrying trends, says Xiangbin Kong.

The week in science: Trouble for North American butterfly migration, waste dumping approved in Great Barrier Reef, and lab-animal reforms for UK university.

US panels aim to set standards for crime labs.

Immigration policies scare off foreign talent, warn critics.

Competition and education needed to keep people engaged.

Researchers welcome easier access for harvesting content, but some spurn tight controls.

Scientists raise concerns about relocation of premier French research vineyard dubbed the ‘Louvre of vines’.

Physicists look past graphene for atom-thick layers that could be switches in circuits.

Winter sports face an uncertain future as the planet warms.

A hard-won political victory for primate research is at risk of unravelling in pockets of Europe.

Society's infrastructure is hit hard by extreme weather. Networks of trade, transport and production need to adapt globally, says Anders Levermann.

Henry Gee relishes the memoir of Svante Pääbo, a leader in the field of ancient DNA.

Xu Xing applauds a study tracing the links between Chinese nationalism and geology.

Acoustical engineer Trevor Cox has designed concert halls, but recently turned to 'sound tourism' — gathering audible phenomena worldwide for his book Sonic Wonderland. He talks about burping sand dunes, the bass baritone of a cracking glacier and the hiss of the nervous system.

Nobel-prizewinning chemist who tracked how enzymes build cholesterol.

Members of a newly described candidate bacterial genus, Entotheonella, have been identified as the sources of the rich array of natural products found in the marine sponge Theonella swinhoei. Two scientists discuss this discovery from the perspectives of microbial ecology and drug discovery. See Article p.58

A broad in vivo screen of the effects of specific gene inhibition on the antitumour activity of immune cells in mice bearing melanomas has revealed potential targets for cancer therapy. See Article p.52

Aircraft have captured the 'breath' of the Amazon forest — carbon emissions over the Amazon basin. The findings raise concerns about the effects of future drought and call for a reassessment of how fire is used in the region. See Letter p.76

Oily substances in the skin have now been shown to contain structures that activate a population of skin-homing, self-reactive T cells. The responses of these immune cells may contribute to local defences, but also to autoimmune disease.

By separately scattering right- and left-handed electrons off quarks in a deuterium target, researchers have improved, by about a factor of five, on a classic result of mirror-symmetry breaking from 35 years ago. See Letter p.67

Ecologists have long pondered how so many species of plant can coexist locally in tropical forests. It seems that fungal pathogens have a central role, by disadvantaging species where they are locally common. See Letter p.85

By analysing plant and nematode DNA from sites all around the Arctic, it is shown that vegetation before about 10,000 years ago contained more forbs (non-graminoid herbaceous vascular plants) than previously believed, which changes our understanding about the functioning of the diverse northern ecosystem that existed at this time.

A short hairpin RNA screen to identify genes that modify the action of tumour-infiltrating CD8 T cells in tumour-bearing mice pinpointed the phosphatase subunit Ppp2r2d as a new target for tumour therapy; knockdown of Ppp2r2d in T cells enabled their accumulation in tumours and significantly delayed tumour growth.

Single-cell- and metagenomics-based study reveals two members of the candidate genus ‘Entotheonella’, symbionts of the marine sponge Theonella swinhoei; distinct biosynthetic gene clusters that account for most of the bioactive polyketides and peptides known from T. swinhoei are shown to be attributable to a single member of the T. swinhoei Y microbiome.

Observations of a cosmic web filament have been made in Lyman-α emission; the filament has a projected size of approximately 460 physical kiloparsecs, and its estimated cold gas mass is more than ten times larger than what is typically found in cosmological simulations.

A high-precision parity-violating electron–quark scattering experiment provides measurements of a combination of electron–quark weak couplings with a precision five times higher than the single previous direct study, confirming the predictions of the electroweak particle-physics theory and providing constraints on parity-violating interactions beyond the standard model.

In the search for stable and accurate atomic clocks, many-atom lattice clocks have shown higher precision than clocks based on single trapped ions, but have been less accurate; here, a stable many-atom clock is demonstrated that has accuracy better than single-ion clocks.

Carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide measurements across the Amazon basin for 2010 and 2011 reveal that drought rather than temperature caused the observed halt in forest productivity during the anomalously dry year of 2010.

Sea-ice leads (open water channels), which increase with an ongoing shift from perennial to seasonal sea ice, are shown to initiate convection in the Arctic boundary layer, thus supplying ozone and gaseous mercury to the surface and possibly leading to additional pollution effects.

Suppressing fungi in a tropical forest plant community lowers diversity by reducing the negative effects of density on seedling recruitment, and removing insects increases seedling survival and alters plant community composition; this demonstrates the crucial role of pathogens and insects in maintaining and structuring tropical forest plant diversity.

This large comparative phylogenetic study across angiosperms shows that species that are herbaceous or have small conduits evolved these traits before colonizing environments with freezing conditions, whereas deciduous species changed their climate niche before becoming deciduous.

A mathematical modelling study assesses the role of peer behaviour and ‘herding’ behaviour in aggregating information through the peer-review process; peer review works best when reviewers exercise intermediate levels of subjectivity.

A risk haplotype for type 2 diabetes is identified with four amino acid substitutions in SLC16A11, which is present at ∼50% frequency in Native American samples and ∼10% in east Asian samples, but is rare in European and African samples; SLC16A11 may alter hepatic lipid metabolism, causing an increase in triacylglycerol levels.

Newly synthesized proteins are targeted to the SecY protein-conducting channel for translocation across the membrane; here, cryo-electron microscopy structures of inactive and active ribosome–channel complexes are presented, revealing that ribosome binding does not result in major structural changes to transmembrane regions of the channel, and that stable channel opening requires loop insertion of the translocating nascent chain.

Nascent secretory and membrane proteins are targeted to the Sec61 protein-conducting channel for translocation across or insertion into the endoplasmic reticulum membrane; here cryo-electron microscopy structures of eukaryotic ribosome–channel complexes show how this channel opens vertically during translocation of a secretory protein into the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum and how it opens laterally during insertion of a transmembrane domain into the lipid bilayer.

This study shows that aprataxin, encoded by a gene mutated in the neurodegenerative disorder AOA1, can remove the 5′ AMP from RNA–DNA junctions; this RNA–DNA damage response promotes cell survival.

The crystal structure of the Lsm protein ring of the U6 small nuclear ribonucleoprotein (snRNP), with and without an RNA comprising the 3′ end of the U6 small nuclear RNA, is solved here; this structure provides insight into the function of U6 snRNP in precursor messenger RNA splicing.

Researchers can avoid stressful commutes and boost efficiency by working from home.

References in research blogs correlated with increased journal citations.

European universities broaden PhD career-path training, according to report.

Doctoral studentships offered for UK universities.

The price of perseverance.