Volume 606 Issue 7916, 30 June 2022

Sixteen world leaders have now promised to protect the ocean. Researchers need to work with them to create and improve measurable indicators.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has highlighted the need to improve energy security.

Night-loving insects that look brown by day have bright, species-specific patterns under infrared light.

Bats trained to respond to an artificial sound can recall it up to four years later.

Filaments of genetic material can transport molecular packages and provide structure — just like the framework that supports real cells.

A strong material becomes more rigid or more relaxed when its constituent gears are spun.

These extinct uber-predators occupied an ecological niche that has no known equivalent in the modern ocean.

Low-powered technology based on entangled photons delivers clearer sound than a classical equivalent.

Analysis of the gravitational pull exerted by the giant planet helps to explain its formation.

The latest science news, in brief.

Scientists applaud the nominee, who is set to replace Eric Lander following his controversial exit from the White House science office.

The lineages’ rise seems to stem from their ability to infect people who were immune to earlier forms of Omicron and other variants.

BLOOM aims to address the biases that machine-learning systems inherit from the texts they train on.

After pandemic delays, researchers say countries must agree this year on ambitious targets to protect the environment.

Enormous databases do not necessarily allow scientists to solve long COVID mysteries, such as how well vaccination protects against the condition.

Reasons included a lack of informed consent or ethics approval to share; misplaced data; and that others had moved on from the project.

Drugs made from antibodies are huge money-makers for some conditions — but they have gained little traction in infectious diseases, including COVID.

The legume’s history in West Africa is intimately linked with conquest.

Andrew Robinson reviews five of the week’s best science picks.

Chemist who developed ways to synthesize and depict bioactive products.

Laws to stamp out deforestation, pollution and child labour in global supply chains might have unintended consequences. Researchers need to investigate these effects.

The Swiss National Science Foundation’s ‘narrative’ template seeks evidence of applicants’ wider contributions to science.

Ludovic Slimak, a cultural anthropologist at the CNRS and the University of Toulouse — Jean Jaurès, describes his research and the changing face of archaeology in France.

Computational and experimental methods are bringing researchers closer to their goal of revealing exactly where in a cell or tissue each gene is expressed.

Volcanologist Maarten de Moor helps to warn local people of looming eruptions.

A simple method for incorporating molecules into the gaps of stacked semimetallic materials through immersion offers an efficient way of filtering electrons, which could be useful for information-storage technologies.

How a bacterium coordinates the assembly of its outer layers, and couples the formation of this envelope to cell growth and division, is not fully understood. Assessing the role of peptidoglycan molecules provides some answers.

Synthetic receptor proteins can enable customized and flexible control of immune cells called T lymphocytes. A defined framework for the proteins’ design now improves their potential for use in cancer immunotherapy.

A compound made by plants used in traditional medicine has been prepared by chemical synthesis, providing enough for biological testing. The unexpected finding that it acts at opioid receptors raises prospects for drug discovery.

Cancer-promoting mutations tend to result in tumours arising only in certain organs, but the reasons for this specificity are not fully understood. The analysis of human kidney cancer provides clues to solving this mystery.

A repeating fast radio burst co-located with a persistent radio source and associated with a dwarf host galaxy of a high star-formation rate has been detected.

Measuring the hyperfine structure of a single helium-3 ion in a Penning trap enables direct measurement of the nuclear magnetic moment of helium-3 and provides the high accuracy needed for NMR-based magnetometry.

By using a five-qubit error-correcting code with a recently discovered flag protocol, a logical qubit that is operated fault-tolerantly is realized based on solid-state spin qubits in diamond.

An ordered Majorana-zero-mode lattice in naturally strained LiFeAs is reported, formed by vortices pinned to charge density wave stripes, and with density and geometry tunable by application of an external magnetic field.

Detection of an axial Higgs mode by quantum pathway interference reveals an unconventional charge density wave phase in RTe₃.

By intercalating layered 2D atomic crystals with selected chiral molecules, a new class of chiral molecular intercalation superlattices is reported, demonstrating highly ordered structures and achieving high tunnelling magnetoresistance and spin polarization ratios.

Hypocrystalline ceramic aerogels with a zig-zag architecture show high thermal stability under thermal shock and exposure to high temperature, providing a reliable material system for thermal insulation at extreme conditions.

A synthetic route to GB18, an alkaloid from the bark of hallucinogenic Galbulimima sp., is developed, enabling its identification as an antagonist of κ- and μ-opioid receptors.

Lab experiments show that spontaneously propagating ruptures navigate fault regions through intermittent slip with dramatic friction evolution, providing support that weakening mechanisms may allow ruptures to break through stable faults.

DNA damage during chromothripsis is caused by deoxyinosine formation on accumulated RNA–DNA hybrids in micronuclei that are then recognized by N-methyl-purine DNA glycosylase and cleaved by apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease.

A newly identified population of neurons in the ventral medial preoptic area of the hypothalamus regulate stereotypical symptoms of illness, including fever and appetite suppression.

An immune signature characterized by activated antigen-specific CD8 T cells is identified in the brain and blood of mice with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis-4 (ALS4), suggesting that the immune system is involved in ALS4 neurodegeneration.

Peptidoglycan stem peptides in the Gram-negative bacterial cell wall regulate the insertion of essential outer membrane proteins, thus representing a potential target for antibiotic design.

Caspase-7 cleaves and activates acid sphingomyelinase (ASM), which promotes the repair of gasdermin pores and thereby delays pore-driven lysis to allow other processes such as extrusion or apoptosis to occur before cell death.

A study in mammals identifies a new role for adipose triglyceride lipase in catalysing the esterification of hydroxyl fatty acids to produce biologically active fatty acid esters of hydroxy fatty acids.

Copy number signatures characterize different types of chromosomal instability and predict drug response.

A new framework enables a pan-cancer reference set of copy number signatures derived from allele-specific profiles from different experimental assays.

A vaccine targeting stress proteins expressed by many cancers blocks a tumour escape mechanism, enabling protective immunity mediated by diverse T cell and NK cell populations.

The lineage transcription factor PAX8 is shown to play a pivotal part in determining cancer risk in clear cell renal cell carcinoma, providing insights into how genetic mutations lead to specific types of cancer.

Cryo-electron microscopy structures of the sequential assembly of the CMG replicative helicase on a chromatinized origin of replication provide insights into the mechanism through which DNA melting is initiated by ATP binding.

Structural studies of human Na⁺–taurocholate co-transporting polypeptide in complex with nanobodies reveal mechanisms for bile salts transport and HBV recognition involving an open-pore intermediate state.

Cryo-electron microscopy structures of the bile acid transporter NTCP in the apo state and in complex with the preS1 domain of hepatitis B virus (HBV) provide insight into NTCP substrate transport and HBV recognition mechanisms.

Cryo-electron structures of the hepatitis B virus receptor NTCP show a distinct membrane topology compared with other SLC10 proteins, but a common bile acid transport mechanism that is shared with related mammalian and bacterial proteins.