Volume 615 Issue 7950, 2 March 2023

Many have sought to copy the IPCC. A new book explains why the panel’s all-encompassing scientific assessments are hard to replicate.

Redoubled international support is needed to renew science in my country, both to help those who stayed and encourage those who have fled to return.

Newly developed connectors allow scientists to link five quantum modules into a functional network.

An upgraded antibiotic holds promise for treating tuberculosis strains that are resistant to existing treatments.

A water-filled gel has the strength and elasticity of natural tendon.

The conflict is raising household fuel bills and the cost of goods and services.

Scientists develop the first system to record the brain activity of a freely swimming octopus.

Avoiding spin classes might be wise when COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses are rampant.

The telescope accidentally found an orbiting body that, if confirmed, would be one of the smallest natural objects ever discovered in space.

But the risks associated with the procedure mean it is unlikely to be used widely in its current form.

‘Impressive’ fossil analysis reveals why some dinosaurs were massive but their cousins were tiny.

Machine-learning tools already help mathematicians to formulate new theories and solve tough problems. But they’re set to shake up the field even more.

Judge’s decision could ban mifepristone across the country, and weaken the Food and Drug Administration’s authority.

Forensic investigation uncovers evidence that a lethal bacterium could have been in his body when he died.

Substance that transforms into a conductive polymer using the body’s own chemistry could improve implantable electronics.

Eighty per cent of respondents have used AI chatbots — and 57% say they use them for ‘creative fun’.

A Nobel-prizewinning scientist’s team has taken a big step forward in its quest to reconstruct an early-Earth RNA capable of building proteins.

Political divisions are intensifying, threatening democracies around the world. What strategies bring people closer together again?

Earth-system scientist and climate advocate.

Ships and ports are ripe for operation without humans — but only if the maritime industry can work through the practical, legal and economic implications first.

Studies involving hundreds, even thousands, of scientists are on the rise, but how do such large groups coordinate their work?

Julie Robinson, a marine biologist-turned-policymaker in Belize, is helping to save her country through seaweed farming.

An inventory of nearly 10 billion individual trees has been compiled for the African drylands, estimating biomass and carbon stocks. The data will aid dryland restoration projects and assessments of the land carbon budget.

The discovery that molecules produced by gut microorganisms can affect immune cells, and thus the success of chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer, points the way towards the use of nutritional interventions to improve outcomes.

Multi-wavelength observations of radiation from a bright neutron-star system show signatures similar to that of a black-hole binary, suggesting that the accretion mechanism is the same for all such sources at high luminosities.

Neighbouring plants affect the performance both of their own species and that of other species. How these interactions vary with rainfall might explain patterns of plant diversity and predict responses to global environmental change.

An extensive genomic time series has been produced for 356 humans from across ice-age Europe. The data reveal how climate change affected the ranges of hunter-gatherer populations as they developed diverse cultures.

An antibody treatment reduces measurements of brain abnormalities called amyloid plaques in people with Alzheimer’s disease, and lessens clinical decline. This result will help in developing therapies to treat and prevent the disease.

Observations from a multiwavelength campaign of a low-mass X-ray binary, Swift J1858.6–0814, shows that accreting neutron stars have the same kind of pulsing behaviour as accreting black holes.

In optimally doped Nd_0.8Sr_0.2NiO₂H epitaxial film, combined state-of-the-art experimental and theoretical approaches show abundant hydrogen with zero resistivity, and its critical role in superconductivity in epitaxial infinite-layer nickelates.

Varying growth temperatures enables the tuning of the degree of disorder, which is fully described by the absence/presence of medium-range order and temperature-dependent densities of nanocrystallites, and electrical conductivity in amorphous monolayer carbon films.

A class of dielectric copolymers called ladderphanes is shown to outperform existing dielectric polymers and composites, with high discharged energy density and charge–discharge efficiency even at temperatures up to 200 °C.

An electrochemical strategy is described in which the direct carboxylation of pyridines and related N-heteroarenes with CO₂ shows divergent site selectivity depending on the type of reactor used.

A proposed optimal nitrogen rate strategy together with analysis of an extensive on-farm dataset shows that meeting national rice production targets in 2030 in China is possible while concurrently reducing nationwide nitrogen consumption.

A database and viewer is described, resulting from the assessment of the carbon stock of over 9 billion individual trees in semi-arid sub-Saharan Africa using field data, machine learning, satellite data and high-performance computing.

Weakening blocking effect of the High Mountain Asia on the westerlies-carried deficit in precipitation minus evaporation from the southeast North Atlantic is demonstrated, leading to persistent northward expansion of terrestrial water storage deficit in the Tibet Plateau.

A modelling study shows that crustal nitrogen from the crystalline basement can reach sufficient concentrations in some sedimentary basins to form a free gas phase, into which helium partitions.

Moist soil strengthens density-dependent mortality with long-lasting effects on species diversity of tropical trees.

Comparative chromosome-scale genome sequencing and transcriptomic and epigenomic profiling of three different species of annelid provide insight into the evolutionary origin of larvae.

Non-CRYPTOCHROME-dependent radical pairs can elicit responses to magnetic fields in neurons in Drosophila melanogaster.

Combined analysis of new genomic data from 116 ancient hunter-gatherer individuals together with previously published data provides insights into the genetic structure and demographic shifts of west Eurasian forager populations over a period of 30,000 years.

A culture system allows the long-term expansion of human haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) in vivo without the use of recombinant cytokines or albumin, with potential applications for clinical therapies involving HSCs.

FXR regulates the levels of ACE2 in tissues of the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems that are affected by COVID-19, and inhibiting FXR with ursodeoxycholic acid downregulates ACE2 and reduces susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Comparisons of a chimeric recombinant version of SARS-CoV-2, the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 strain and an Omicron isolate show that the attenuated virulence of Omicron is caused by mutations in both the spike protein and nsp6.

Single-cell transcriptomic profiling and functional assays are used to identify subpopulations of eosinophils that are present in the mouse gastrointestinal tract and provide insight into the role of these cells in inflammatory bowel diseases in humans.

Targeting TBK1 is an effective strategy to overcome resistance to cancer immunotherapy.

Indole-3-acetic acid (3-IAA), a tryptophan metabolite derived from the gut microbiota, is associated with a better response to chemotherapy in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), and dietary interventions could have a role in the treatment of PDAC.