Volume 583 Issue 7814, 2 July 2020

The European Union must improve how it collects forest data, which are essential to its ambitions in biodiversity and climate change.

Conservation could be part of the toolkit for diplomacy between China and India.

Remotely controlled experiments are the way forward.

High-powered microscope allows scientists to visualize an exotic structure called a superlattice.

A violent eruption in the far north might have changed the course of history.

Miniature plaster delivers stem cells designed to heal damaged heart tissue.

Springtails, some of the most isolated animals on Earth, harbour polystyrene foam in their guts.

The latest science news, in brief.

The virus can damage lung, liver and kidney tissue grown in the lab, which might explain some severe COVID-19 complications in people.

Evidence from tissue studies and some people with COVID-19 shows that the virus damages insulin-producing cells.

Three studies showing large DNA deletions and reshuffling heighten safety concerns about heritable genome editing.

Latest action sows anxiety and confusion across the US scientific workforce.

Detection of particles produced by the Sun’s core supports long-held theory about how our star is powered.

The agency has outlined actions it may take to deal with bullies and harassers, but it still relies on universities to report bad behaviour.

Some interventions could help to reduce racism and rein in the use of unnecessary force in police work, but the evidence base is still evolving.

It’s time to take trials out of the hands of pharmaceutical makers, argues the latest in a long line of books on corruption and the pharmaceutical industry.

Treaties might not be enough to stop chemical weapons being deployed — scientists and industry also play a part.

Systemic racism, sexual harassment and institutional bias permeate a film about three female scientists, who have survived and thrived.

Bogus remedies, myths and fake news about COVID-19 can cost lives. Here’s how some scientists are fighting back.

What project-management software can do for scientists.

Conservation scientist Claudine Loisel is spellbound by the stained-glass splendours that survived a devastating fire at Paris’s famous cathedral.

A method has been reported that improves the precision of measurements made by gravitational-wave detectors beyond an intrinsic limit — and shows that quantum fluctuations can alter the position of macroscopic objects.

Immune cells called neutrophils can support the spread of cancer. How neutrophils aid this process now comes into focus through insights into the function of structures called neutrophil extracellular traps.

A population of excitatory neurons has been found to have a key role in controlling body temperature in rodents. The discovery adds to a body of work that is raising questions about long-standing models of thermoregulation.

The forces between electrons and nuclei in solids are difficult to image directly. A study shows that these forces can instead be indirectly imaged using the light emitted when the electrons are subjected to a strong laser field.

Senescence is a hallmark of cellular ageing and contributes to many diseases. A new method enabling immune cells to target senescent cells might offer improved therapeutic options.

Observations of TOI-849b reveal a radius smaller than Neptune’s but a large mass of about 40 Earth masses, indicating that the planet is the remnant core of a gas giant.

Quantum correlations between the laser beams and the positions of the 40-kg mirrors of LIGO are confirmed experimentally, enabling high-precision measurements of both gravitational waves and macroscopic quantum states.

A fluorescent bicolour sensor is proposed as the basis of a barium-tagging technique for the detection of neutrinoless double β decay in xenon gas experiments.

Laser-generated high-harmonic emission is used to image the valence potential and electron density in magnesium fluoride and calcium fluoride at the picometre scale, enabling direct probing of material properties.

Branched flow of light is experimentally observed inside a thin soap membrane, where smooth variations of the membrane thickness transform the light beam into branched filaments of enhanced intensity that keep dividing as the waves propagate.

Hydroxylapatite crystallites in human dental enamel show gradients in chemical composition, with a layer of magnesium enrichment on each side of a core rich in sodium, fluoride and carbonate ions.

Fine-scale satellite data are used to quantify forest harvest rates in 26 European countries, finding an increase in harvested forest area of 49% and an increase in biomass loss of 69% between 2011–2015 and 2016–2018.

Advanced deep-sea imaging tools yield insights into the structure and function of mucus filtration houses built by midwater giant larvaceans.

Structural variants in more than 17,000 human genomes are mapped and characterized using whole-genome sequencing, showing how this type of variation contributes to rare deleterious coding and noncoding alleles.

Whole-genome sequencing analysis of individuals with primary immunodeficiency identifies new candidate disease-associated genes and shows how the interplay between genetic variants can explain the variable penetrance and complexity of the disease.

Whole-genome sequencing and phenotype data sharing are introduced in a national health system to streamline diagnosis and to discover coding and non-coding variants that cause rare diseases.

Primate inferotemporal cortex contains a coarse map of object space consisting of four networks, identified using functional imaging, electrophysiology and deep networks.

In rodents, activation of a population of neurons characterized by the expression of the neuropeptide QRFP induces a hibernation-like state of long-lasting hypothermia and hypometabolism.

A specific neuronal population in the medial and lateral preoptic area of the hypothalamus regulates entry into torpor in mice.

The authors identify an increased hepatic NADH/NAD⁺ ratio as an underlying metabolic parameter that is shaped by human genetic variation and contributes causally to key metabolic traits and diseases.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells targeting uPAR, a cell-surface protein that is upregulated on senescent cells, eliminate senescent cells in vitro and in vivo and reduce liver fibrosis in mice.

DNA from neutrophil extracellular traps interacts with the transmembrane receptor CCDC25 on cancer cells, activating the ILK-β-parvin pathway to enhance cell motility and promote distant metastases.

Repression of a messenger RNA by a cognate microRNA depends not only on complementary base pairing, but also on the rearrangement of a single base pair, producing a conformation that fits better within the human Ago2 protein.

The cryo-electron microscopy structure of the hyperpolarization-activated K⁺ channel KAT1 points to a direct-coupling mechanism between S4 movement and the reorientation of the C-linker.

Cryo-electron microscopy studies of the influenza haemagglutinin glycoprotein at the low pH of host endosomes reveals structural intermediates, offering a dynamic view of how the protein mediates membrane fusion.