Volume 548 Issue 7666, 10 August 2017

A flaw in the system leaves physicists grappling with dimensionless units.

Gene-edited embryos are exciting, but the truly urgent conversations concern genomic medicine, says Vivienne Parry.

The week in science: 4–10 August 2017.

Odd results could still be consistent with the ‘standard model’ of cosmology.

Scientific network aims to train a generation of African leaders in primate research.

Women with sleep disorders were about twice as likely to deliver babies more than six weeks early.

From ground, sky and space, researchers are ready to test latest technologies on the Great American Eclipse.

Non-scientists are being recruited to collect data on everything from the Sun’s outer atmosphere to animal behaviour.

US firm AquaBounty Technologies says that its transgenic fish has hit the market after a 25-year wait.

Neuroscientists want to understand how tangles of neurons produce complex behaviours, but even the simplest networks defy understanding.

Emojis, smartphone technologies and revamped guidelines would boost transparency at scientific meetings, say Shai D. Silberberg and colleagues.

Kevin Padian hails a stunning, provocative book probing evolutionary mechanisms.

Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week's best science picks.

Fossil evidence is scarce for early stages of evolution in the ape family tree at the time before apes and the ancestors of humans diverged. A 13-million-year-old skull now offers insights into ape development at that time. See Article p.169

Conventional sensors based on devices called optical resonators have fundamentally limited sensitivity. Careful engineering has been used to overcome this constraint, opening the door to ultraprecise sensing. See Letters p.187 & p.192

Details of the activity of promising anticancer drugs known as BET inhibitors remain elusive. An approach called click chemistry enables in-depth analysis of how these drugs modulate the function of a crucial target protein, BRD4.

An analysis suggests that the time taken for ecosystems to recover from drought increased during the twentieth century. If the frequency of drought events rises, some ecosystems might never have the chance to fully recover. See Letter p.202

The ability to become nearly any cell type is restricted to eggs, sperm and primitive stem cells in very early embryos. Two studies reveal that maintaining this pluripotent state in vitro comes at a cost. See Letters p.219 & p.224

A modelling approach used to investigate competition between different species provides insight into how contests that have multiple players can help to maintain biodiversity. See Letter p.210

Description of the most complete fossil skull of an infant ape recovered from the Miocene epoch of Kenya, assigned to a new species in the genusNyanzapithecus.

The complete, synapse-resolution connectome of the Drosophila larval mushroom body.

In an analysis of a large sample of microlensing events, a few suggest the existence of Earth-mass free-floating planets, but only the expected number of Jupiter-mass free-floating objects were detected.

The response of a ternary, parity–time-symmetric system that exhibits a third-order exceptional point increases as a function of the cube-root of induced perturbations.

Tuning optical microcavities to exceptional points enhances their ability to sense nanoscale objects, owing to the topological features of exceptional points.

A bottom-up process to achieve rapid growth of micrometre-sized three-dimensional nanocrystal superlattices during colloidal synthesis at high temperatures is revealed by in situ small-angle X-ray scattering; the process is applicable to several colloidal materials.

A global analysis of gross primary productivity reveals that drought recovery is driven by climate and carbon cycling, with recovery longest in the tropics and high northern latitudes, and with impacts increasing over the twentieth century.

The pollination service provided by nocturnal flower visitors is disrupted near streetlamps, which leads to a reduced reproductive output of the plant that cannot be compensated for by day-time pollinators; in addition, the structure of combined nocturnal and diurnal pollination networks facilitates the spread of the consequences of disrupted night-time pollination to daytime pollinators.

Communities that are very rich in species could persist thanks to the stabilizing role of higher-order interactions, in which the presence of a species influences the interaction between other species.

New genome-wide data for ancient, Bronze Age individuals, including Minoans, Mycenaeans, and southwestern Anatolians, show that Minoans and Mycenaeans were genetically very similar yet distinct, supporting the idea of continuity but not isolation in the history of populations of the Aegean.

Long-term culture of male embryonic stem cells in naive conditions containing Mek1/2 and Gsk3a/b inhibitors leads to irreversible changes in epigenetic and genomic stability that compromise their in vivo developmental potential.

Derivation of female mouse embryonic stem cells under certain conditions induces a loss of DNA methylation and erasure of genomic imprints, which are not recovered and that may contribute to observed impaired development.

Metabolic changes in T cells can affect the genomic methylation status of key transcription factors and regulate the fate decision between induced regulatory T cells and T helper 17 cells.

Hypoactive BRAF mutants bind more tightly than wild type to the upstream regulator RAS, thus amplifying to amplify ERK signalling; tumours expressing these mutants require coexistent mechanisms for RAS activation to grow and are sensitive to their inhibition.

Kinase-inactive Braf mutants can initiate the development of lung adenocarcinoma in mice; co-expression of activated Kras enhances tumour initiation and progression, and wild-type Braf is required to sustain tumorigenesis.

Introducing a single ‘sticky’ (hydrophobic) amino acid by point mutation into symmetric protein complexes frequently triggers their association into higher-order assemblies, without affecting their native fold and structure.

Institutions in Argentina and Brazil are struggling to maintain their funding and talent.

Brazilian astrophysicist bridges fields to gain cosmological insights.

Seconds to disaster.

For innovation to bring public benefit, mapping the influence of academic papers is just the beginning.

Some papers have a profound and obvious influence on future research and industry applications. Patents citing these life science papers indicate their bearing on developments which have widespread health implications.

For the love of discovery, a biochemist freely shared the research which laid the groundwork for widely-used drugs.

The system for assessing the link between science and innovation is flawed.

Trace people, not papers; a new way to measure the impact of science on society.

Herceptin changed the nature of cancer treatment, but this life-extending drug may never have seen the light of day without parallel breakthroughs on many fronts.

A description of the terminology and methodology used in this supplement, and a guide to the functionality available free online at natureindex.com.