Volume 526 Issue 7571, 1 October 2015

An effort to sequence thousands of people’s genomes reaches the end of the beginning.

The latest global targets from the United Nations must be translated into realistic policies.

To maintain public support, researchers need to be able to adapt to the rapidly changing needs of society and politicians, warns Guy Poppy.

A paper suggesting a Dutch grant scheme shows bias against women is criticized for a statistical flaw.

German minister accused of plagiarism; Indian satellite blasts off; and Arctic drilling plans shelved.

Climate commitment could help to build momentum towards a new global pact to limit greenhouse-gas emissions.

El Niño might bring relief, but longer and deeper dry spells are predicted.

From unpaid electricity bills to delayed participation in a telescope project, funding cuts bite.

Smaller enzyme may make process simpler and more exact.

The pigs are endearing but scientists warn that they may be a distraction from more serious research.

Recreation of a 2,000-year-old model of the Universe to appear in exhibition.

Terence Tao builds on an online collaboration to successfully attack the Erdős discrepancy problem.

The digital currency has caused any number of headaches for law enforcement. Now entrepreneurs and academics are scrambling to build a better version.

Plans to build one of the world's biggest telescopes on Mauna Kea in Hawaii are mired in conflict. Four people involved in the fight explain their diverse views.

The Human Genome Project, which launched a quarter of a century ago this week, still holds lessons for the consortium-based science it ushered in, say Eric D. Green, James D. Watson and Francis S. Collins.

Energy-optimized hybrid computers with a range of processor accuracies will advance modelling in fields from climate change to neuroscience, says Tim Palmer.

David Katz applauds an analysis of the carbonated-drinks industry and public health.

Highlights of this season's releases

Mark Buchanan examines a treatise on evolution as central to processes in a vast, varied range of domains.

Robert P. Crease contrasts a physicist's account of awe with a historian's reality check.

Jane C. S. Long relishes an erudite exploration of the people and principles of climate intervention.

Michael S. Turner weighs up two distinctive popular books on the evolution of the Universe.

Daniel Bor enjoys a sophisticated study of how the meat in our skulls generates the self.

The earliest stars are of huge importance to the chemical history of the cosmos, but have previously existed only in theory. There is now strong evidence that such population III stars exist in the brightest galaxy yet found in the early Universe.

Cloaking drug-loaded nanoparticles with platelet membranes enhances the drugs' abilities to target desired cells and tissues. This technology might improve treatments for cardiovascular and infectious diseases. See Letter p.118

Warmer temperatures have been associated with an earlier emergence of spring leaves each year. New data, however, suggest that leaf emergence is becoming less sensitive to temperature as global temperatures rise. See Letter p.104

The identification of a regulatory site on the UBE3A protein that can be phosphorylated to alter its enzymatic activity provides insight into the aetiology of two human neurodevelopmental diseases, Angelman syndrome and autism.

A transistor has been demonstrated that operates at low supply voltages by exceeding a theoretical limit. The finding opens up avenues to the development of integrated circuits that have extremely low power consumption. See Letter p.91

In the final phase of a seven-year project, the genomes of 2,504 people across five continental regions have been sequenced. The result is a compendium of in-depth data on variation in human populations. See Articles p.68 & p.75

The CRISPR-Cas systems of bacteria and archaea provide adaptive immunity against invading mobile genetic elements such as phages and plasmids; this Review describes the discovery of these systems and the mechanisms of immunity, including recent progress in establishing the molecular basis of host immunization.

Practical applications of magnesium as a lightweight structural metal are limited by its high work hardening, low ductility and fracture at very low strains; now molecular dynamics simulations reveal the origins of these problems and offer a route to design magnesium alloys with improved mechanical properties.

Results for the final phase of the 1000 Genomes Project are presented including whole-genome sequencing, targeted exome sequencing, and genotyping on high-density SNP arrays for 2,504 individuals across 26 populations, providing a global reference data set to support biomedical genetics.

The Structural Variation Analysis Group of The 1000 Genomes Project reports an integrated structural variation map based on discovery and genotyping of eight major structural variation classes in 2,504 unrelated individuals from across 26 populations; structural variation is compared within and between populations and its functional impact is quantified.

Low read depth sequencing of whole genomes and high read depth exomes of nearly 10,000 extensively phenotyped individuals are combined to help characterize novel sequence variants, generate a highly accurate imputation reference panel and identify novel alleles associated with lipid-related traits; in addition to describing population structure and providing functional annotation of rare and low-frequency variants the authors use the data to estimate the benefits of sequencing for association studies.

A new type of device, the band-to-band tunnel transistor, which has atomically thin molybdenum disulfide as the active channel, operates in a fundamentally different way from a conventional silicon (MOSFET) transistor; it has turn-on characteristics and low-power operation that are better than those of state-of-the-art MOSFETs or any tunnelling transistor reported so far.

A synthetic complex with a sulfur-rich coordination sphere is described that, upon reduction, breaks an Fe–S bond and binds N₂, providing a model for the iron–molybdenum cofactor used by nitrogenase enzymes to produce ammonia.

Erosion and velocity data from 15 outlet glaciers covering temperate to polar glacier thermal regimes from Patagonia to the Antarctic Peninsula reveal that over the past century the basin-averaged erosion rates vary by three orders of magnitude as a function of climate across this latitudinal transect.

Spring leaf unfolding has been occurring earlier in the year because of rising temperatures; however, long-term evidence in the field from 7 European tree species studied in 1,245 sites shows that this early unfolding effect is being reduced in recent years, possibly because the reducing chilling and/or insolation render trees less responsive to warming.

Enamel is a tissue unique to vertebrates, and nowadays associated with teeth; here, histological material from a fossil bony fish and genomic data from an extant, armour-plated fish are analysed to show that enamel originated on the body surface and only later colonized the teeth.

Human population genomic studies, including whole‐genome sequencing, were undertaken to identify determinants of bone mineral density (BMD), a major predictor of osteoporotic fractures. Non‐coding variants with large effects on BMD and fractures were identified near the EN1 locus and mouse studies confirmed this gene has an important role in skeletal biology.

The authors report a new biomimetic nanodelivery platform in which polymeric nanoparticles enclosed in the plasma membrane of human platelets are used for disease-relevant targeting, and the therapeutic potential of the concept is demonstrated in animal models of coronary restenosis and systemic bacterial infection.

Efficient airborne transmission of influenza viruses between humans is associated with use of α2,6-linked sialic acids, not α2,3-linked sialic acids; however, using a loss-of-function approach in which a 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza virus was engineered to bind α2,3 sialic acids, this study shows in ferrets that the soft palate is an important site for the switch of receptor usage to take place, and reveals that this tissue rapidly selects for transmissible influenza virus with human receptor preference.

α-catulin is identified as a marker to locate functional haematopoiteic stem cells in deep imaging experiments of bone marrow, showing that α-catulin–GFP⁺c-kit⁺ cells commonly reside in perisinusoidal niches throughout the bone marrow.

Single-cell analysis of gene expression in metastatic cells from distinct human breast tumour models shows that early metastatic cells possess basal, stem and mesenchymal cell properties, whereas advanced metastatic cells have more proliferative properties and are more mature, enabling them to be targeted with an anti-proliferative compound.

Bacterial cells evolved an immune system known as CRISPR–Cas to protect themselves from viral infection, triggering viruses to evolve anti-CRISPR proteins; here, three anti-CRISPR proteins are characterized, with each one interfering with the host CRISPR system at a different point.

The most comprehensive architectural model to date of the nuclear pore complex reveals previously unknown local interactions, and a role for nucleoporin 358 in Y-complex oligomerization.

Machine-readable system seeks to clearly explain who did what for a research paper.

Journal that reviews papers from preprint server aims to return publishing to the hands of academics.

Working at a variety of scales and with disparate organisms and technologies, researchers are mapping how parts of the brain connect.

As genomics migrates to the clinic, job options are emerging for genetic counsellors to explain the meaning in mutations.

A construction worker transitions to chemistry to carry out his love of building things.

This is where you live.