Volume 571 Issue 7766, 25 July 2019

The International Seabed Authority must commit the mining industry to a sustainable future.

Misconceptions about disinformation leave us vulnerable to manipulation online, says Kate Starbird.

An algorithm unerringly finds solutions for a mind-bending puzzle.

A one-two punch knocks out treatment-resistant strains of malaria.

An updated method could enable tuberculosis vaccination in low-income nations.

Scratches signal to youngsters that they need to get a move on.

People whose remains were consigned to a sinkhole in Mexico might have journeyed more than 1,000 kilometres to the site.

Smokers who used e-cigarettes consumed fewer of the traditional version than those who did not.

A digital-camera sensor made from organic semiconductors could prove useful in outer space.

The week in science: 19–25 July 2019.

Valuable metals and minerals pepper the creature's habitat, drawing commercial interest to the sea floor.

Animal-rights group’s campaign to end forced-swim tests comes amid debate over whether method is overused.

Ursula von der Leyen’s ambitions to strengthen carbon-cutting goals will need support from European Union member states.

Hotly anticipated technique fails to resolve disagreement over speed of cosmic expansion — for now.

Behavioural evidence suggests that targeting just 20 neurons prompted animals to ‘see’ an image.

Anaesthetist John Carlisle has spotted problems in hundreds of research papers — and spurred a leading medical journal to change its practice.

Plans are advancing to harvest precious ores from the ocean floor, but scientists say that companies have not tested them enough to avoid devastating damage.

Governments that are considering compulsory immunizations must avoid stoking anti-vaccine sentiment, argue Saad B. Omer, Cornelia Betsch and Julie Leask.

Angela Saini assesses a book examining how bad science lingers.

Srinath Perur on a study of how a political movement is co-opting science, myth and pseudoscience.

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

A new breed of protein engineers is finding that the best way to create a molecule is to build it from scratch.

In the final instalment of a three-part series on science start-ups, Nature Careers introduces investor relations: how to find investors, wow them and work with them.

Sound and vibration come in discrete units called phonons, in the same way that light exists as photons. A superconducting device that can count phonons could lead to advances in quantum-information processing.

In mice lacking a protein genetically linked to Parkinson’s disease, an autoimmune response to gut infection compromises the function of dopamine-producing neurons and leads to transient movement impairments.

Were extended warm or cold periods in the past worldwide, or only regional? Efforts to reconstruct Earth’s climate history suggest that the near-global extent of ongoing warming is unparalleled over the past 2,000 years.

The bodies of unicellular organisms called protists can contract extremely fast. Analysis reveals that the flow of surrounding fluid during contraction triggers a chain reaction of contraction of neighbouring protists.

Heatwaves in the ocean can rapidly disrupt marine ecosystems and the economies that depend on them. A global analysis of these events casts light on their causes and sets the stage for revealing how they might change in the future.

How Nature reported early findings from Apollo 11, and Irish attempts to farm New Zealand flax in 1919.

Analysis of two fossils from a Greek cave has shed light on early hominins in Eurasia. One fossil is the earliest known specimen of Homo sapiens found outside Africa; the other is a Neanderthal who lived 40,000 years later.

The authors review recent advances and current debates in epigenetics, including how epigenetic mechanisms interact with genetic variation, ageing, disease and the environment.

Detailed comparative analyses of two fossil crania from Apidima Cave, Greece, indicate that two late Middle Pleistocene human groups were present at this site; first an early Homo sapiens population followed by a Neanderthal population.

The transcriptomes of seven major organs across developmental stages from several mammalian species are used for comparative analyses of gene expression and evolution across organ development.

A transcriptome dataset from seven organs and seven mammalian species throughout development is used to analyse the expression of long noncoding RNAs in tissues within and between species, and at different stages of organ development.

The mitochondrial ADP/ATP carrier mediates the proton leak in mitochondria from all tissues that lack UCP1, thereby linking coupled (ATP production) and uncoupled (thermogenesis) energy conversion.

BRCA1–BARD1 has a role in replication fork protection that is mediated by a mechanism of phosphorylation-targeted isomerization of BRCA1 and is independent of the canonical interaction between BRCA1 and PALB2.

Observations of an eclipsing double-white-dwarf binary with an orbital period of 6.91 minutes that is decaying as predicted by general relativity are reported; once launched, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) should swiftly detect this binary.

Frequency modulation is used to create ‘Floquet polaritons’—strongly interacting quasi-particles that exist in a customizable set of modes.

A hybrid platform comprising a microwave superconducting qubit and a nanomechanical piezoelectric oscillator is used to resolve the phonon number states of the oscillator.

Atomic-resolution imaging of a strongly inhomogeneous superfluid in an iron-based superconductor shows spatial correlation between superfluid density variations and the strength of quasiparticle character.

Prebiotic peptide formation is achieved through chemoselective, high-yielding ligation of α-aminonitriles in water, showing selectivity for α-peptide coupling and tolerance of all proteinogenic amino acid residues.

Warm and cold periods over the past 2,000 years have not occurred at the same time in all geographical locations, with the exception of the twentieth century, during which warming has occurred almost everywhere.

Hydrogen isotopes and compositions of melt inclusions in olivine in komatiites indicate a hydrous source produced by recycling of seawater-altered crust into the deep mantle over 3.3 billion years ago.

Ultra-fast hydrodynamic communication between cells emerges in colonies of Spirostomum ambiguum through the generation of long-ranged vortex flows that are sensed by neighbouring cells, leading to propagating trigger waves that coordinate the release of toxins.

In mice lacking PINK1, bacterial infection in the intestine results in mitochondrial antigen presentation and generation of CD8⁺ T cells, and infected mice develop motor impairments, suggesting that PINK1 suppresses autoimmunity.

The immune response is modulated at a early stage of carcinogenesis, such that both immune activation and evasion precede tumour invasion.

Analysis of more than 17,000 tumours suggests that the contribution of germline and somatic mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes to oncogenesis depends on tumour lineage.

Eight cryo-electron microscopy structures of the ATP-binding cassette exporter TmrAB under turnover conditions characterize the entire transport cycle in a lipid environment.