Volume 507 Issue 7493, 27 March 2014

Growth in yields of the cereal must double if the Green Revolution is to be put back on track.

The decay at ancient Pompeii is symbolic of a deeper malaise in Italy’s heritage.

To speed up progress to tackle the disease, basic researchers and those on the front line must talk to each other more, says Christian Lienhardt.

The week in science: Ebola kills dozens in Guinea, the top quark become more precise, and Japan hands over nuclear material.

Despite drug’s legalization in two US states, biomedical science faces continued restrictions.

Scientists must show projects’ potential to secure funding.

Supreme Court ruling could affect medical-diagnostics firms.

Archaeologists hope that funding and conservation boost can halt decay of ancient city.

Government rethinks former president’s bid to create first unified science department.

Thirty years after the study of ancient DNA began, it promises to upend our view of the past.

Despite a long record of failure, a few immunologists continue to pursue precisely targeted therapies for autoimmune diseases.

A participatory view of science resolves quantum paradoxes and finds room in classical physics for 'the Now', says N. David Mermin.

More investment to characterize animal models can boost the ability of preclinical work to predict drug effects in humans, says Steve Perrin.

Roger Pielke Jr assesses the legacy of J. D. Bernal's science-policy classic on its 75th anniversary.

Mark O. Martin relishes a stimulating tour of 'little lives', from fungi to bacteria.

George Szpiro enjoys a history of the slow but irresistible rise of mathematical symbols.

Our brains create a stable view of the world even though our eyes dart around. A study of how the brain might compensate for eye movements reveals an unexpected twist in the vision-stabilizing mechanism. See Letter p.504

The discovery of a second resident in a region of the Solar System called the inner Oort cloud prompts fresh thinking about this no-man's-land between the giant planets and the reservoir of comets of long orbital period. See Letter p.471

A meta-analysis of methane emissions at the ecosystem level reveals a simple exponential dependence on temperature, despite the complex array of factors that control this process. See Letter p.488

Climate simulations suggest that multi-decadal periods of high and low variability in the phenomenon known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation in the tropical Pacific Ocean may be entirely unpredictable.

What guards the aged brain against neurodegeneration? A study finds that the REST protein has a central role in protecting ageing neurons from death and in maintaining cognitive capacity in the elderly. See Article p.448

A marriage between theory and experiment has shown that ultracold erbium atoms trapped with laser light and subjected to a magnetic field undergo collisions that are characterized by quantum chaos. See Letter p.475

Increased influx of zinc into chondrocytes — the cells that make up cartilage — has been found to activate matrix-degrading enzymes that cause the destruction of cartilage in osteoarthritis.

Developments in quantum cryptography show that it is possible to protect secrets — from those with superior technology, those who profess to provide our security and even those who manipulate us without our knowledge — under surprisingly weak assumptions.

REST, a developmental regulator, is markedly induced in human neurons during ageing but is lost in Alzheimer’s disease; REST represses genes that promote neurodegeneration, is neuroprotective in animal models, and is associated with cognitive preservation and longevity in humans.

Using the FANTOM5 CAGE expression atlas, the authors show that bidirectional capped RNAs are a signature feature of active enhancers and identify over 40,000 enhancer candidates from over 800 human cell and tissue samples across the whole human body.

A study from the FANTOM consortium using single-molecule cDNA sequencing of transcription start sites and their usage in human and mouse primary cells, cell lines and tissues reveals insights into the specificity and diversity of transcription patterns across different mammalian cell types.

The discovery of the distant dwarf planet 2012 VP₁₁₃, with its large perihelion like that of the dwarf planet Sedna, shows that Sedna is not isolated and may be part of the putative massive inner Oort cloud, which extends far beyond the observable Solar System.

An ultracold gas of erbium atoms is shown to have many scattering resonances whose quantum fluctuations exhibit chaotic behaviour resulting from the anisotropy of the atoms’ interactions.

The discrepancy between the components of the oceanic carbon budget — export of carbon from the surface and its conversion into carbon dioxide by water-column biota at depth — is reconciled using field data and a steady-state model which indicates that synergy between microbes and zooplankton is an important factor.

MAC waves (arising from magnetic, Archimedes and Coriolis forces) in the liquid core indicate a 140-kilometre-thick stratified layer on top of the Earth’s core and account for the 60-year geomagnetic fluctuations observed in the Earth’s geomagnetic field.

Meta-analyses show that the temperature dependence of methane fluxes scales consistently across populations of methanogens, microbial communities and whole ecosystems, and that this temperature dependence is higher than for respiration and photosynthesis; this indicates that global warming may impact the relative contributions of CO₂ and CH₄ to total greenhouse gas emissions.

Global maps constructed using climate-change velocities to derive spatial trajectories for climatic niches between 1960 and 2100 show past and future shifts in ecological climate niches; properties of these trajectories are used to infer changes in species distributions, and thus identify areas that will act as climate sources and sinks, and geographical barriers to species migrations.

Tamisiocaris borealis, an Early Cambrian member of the anomalocarids—giant, predatory marine stem arthropods—probably used its frontal appendage to trap microscopic, planktonic animals.

Studies of the head of the very primitive jawed vertebrate Romundina show that it combines jawed vertebrate architecture with cranial and cerebral proportions resembling those of extant jawless vertebrates such as lampreys.

Saccadic eye movements cause substantial shifts in the retinal image as we take in visual scenes, but our perception is stable and continuous; here, visual receptive fields are shown to shift dramatically towards the saccadic goal, running counter to the long-standing hypothesis of receptive field remapping as the basis of perceived stability.

The E3 ligase Cbl-b acts on TAM tyrosine kinase receptors and has a critical role in the regulation of natural killer (NK) cell rejection of metastatic tumours; a small molecule TAM kinase inhibitor is shown to enhance the anti-metastatic NK cell activity.

Here, the helix–loop–helix transcription factor Ascl2 is shown to be critically important for the initiation of follicular T-helper-cell development and the germinal centre response.

An amphiphile vaccine consisting of a peptide antigen or adjuvant cargo linked to a lipophilic tail is shown to have improved potency and safety in mice by targeting the lymph nodes.

Researchers are learning to embrace online lab notebooks, but not without growing pains.

Success rate for UK government grants is lower for women, analysis reveals.

Erasmus Plus grants off-limits for student exchanges in and out of Switzerland.

US public universities give higher salary increases than do private universities, finds poll.

Time well spent.