Volume 621 Issue 7979, 21 September 2023

Research in poorer countries maps closely with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals — wealthy nations must follow if the goals are to be met.

Safe delivery of samples from an asteroid on 24 September will be the start of a global scientific journey — but similar missions need support.

In a large trial, not a single participant developed a serious precancerous lesion caused by a vaccine-targeted viral type.

Experiments at a simulated railway platform show people space themselves out regardless of obstacles.

Air pockets trapped between ice crystals are an underappreciated factor in the melting at the glacier–ocean boundary.

Male palm cockatoos prefer certain types of percussion tool, which they create themselves from branches and seed pods.

As many countries head into autumn, they are targeting vaccinations at people in high-risk categories, leaving those at lower risk uncertain about what to do.

Trio of scientists who developed the combination drug Trikafta are among the winners of five major awards in life sciences, physics and mathematics.

Climate change, civil war and international sanctions all contributed to the devastation caused by some of Libya’s worst flooding ever, researchers say.

The polar region is demilitarized, but the conflict is posing a threat to important climate data collected at Ukraine’s research station.

Research centre launched by the US National Science Foundation will partner with native peoples to study farming, climate and more.

Never-before-seen forms and unexpected connections between proteins revealed by analysis of their shapes.

In just two weeks, the Indian mission has made some surprising discoveries about the composition of the Moon

US regulators will consider clinical trials of a system that mimics the womb, which could reduce deaths and disability for babies born extremely preterm.

Researchers want to know why cells produce tiny packages called vesicles — and whether these bundles could be used for therapy.

The human genome ‘maverick’ talks sequencing the ocean, setting up a health-screening company after checking his own genes — and why he has no plans to stop.

Artificial-intelligence tools that enable companies to share data about drug candidates while keeping sensitive information safe can unleash the potential of machine learning and cutting-edge lab techniques, for the common good.

With a changing climate and a growing population, the world increasingly needs more-productive and resilient crops. But improving them requires a knowledge of what actually works in the field.

Confused about promotion opportunities after moving to industry? Here are some pointers.

Cryo-electron tomography is a hugely promising tool in visual proteomics — if researchers can work out what they are seeing.

As coordinator and caretaker at an ice-core facility, Rebecca Pyne preserves these precious records of past climate.

A nickel-based compound has shown evidence of a superconducting state at a temperature of 80 kelvin. The material bridges a gap between other nickelates and a notable class of superconductor containing copper.

Smoking causes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Some people with this disease have high levels of eosinophil cells, which is typical of the type 2 category of inflammation, and blocking such inflammation improves their lung health.

A wide range of harmful bacteria introduce proteins into plant cells. Some of these proteins move to the cell membrane and serve as channels for water and nutrients, creating favourable conditions for bacterial growth beside plant cells.

Scientists have had limited success in converting lignin, a structural component of plants, into high-value products. The discovery that lignin can be used as a wood glue could be a game-changer for biorefineries.

Snippets from Nature’s past.

Tumour cells tend to migrate to the vertebrae rather than to long bones, but the mechanism underlying this has been unclear. It emerges that the stem cells from which vertebrae are derived make a factor that attracts tumour cells.

Linearly polarized thermal emission from dust grains in a strongly lensed, intrinsically luminous galaxy forming stars at a rate more than 1,000 times that of the Milky Way is detected.

Quantum-metric-induced nonlinear transport, including the nonlinear anomalous Hall effect and a diode-like response, is observed in thin films of a topological antiferromagnet, providing a means to design magnetic nonlinear devices.

Signatures of superconductivity in single crystals of La₃Ni₂O₇ were observed at a maximum transition temperature of 80  K at pressures between 14.0  GPa and 43.5  GPa.

Stacks of van der Waals superconductor heterostructures comprising many layers and several blocks of two-dimensional materials have been grown in a highly controllable manner at a wafer scale using a high-to-low temperature strategy.

Using centimetre-sized substrate-free monolayer graphene suspended on aqueous electrolyte surface, the structural evolution versus gate voltage at the graphene–water interface is shown, demonstrating minimal influence of extrinsic factors.

A straightforward strategy for preparing lignin-based wood adhesives from lignocellulosic biomass is described, with the resulting adhesives demonstrating performance attractive for plywood manufacture.

To demonstrate the power of multistability, a specific class of groovy metasheets is introduced as a new shape-morphing platform that allows repeated switching from the flat state to multiple, precisely selected and stable three-dimensional shapes.

The global population is increasingly exposed to daily landscape fire-sourced air pollution but there are socioeconomic disparities, with this pollution four times higher in low-income countries than in high-income countries during the period 2000–2019.

A spatially explicit global estimate reveals that land–water connections are important for regulating methane supply to running waters, and that these connections are vulnerable to both climate change and direct human modifications of the land.

Surveys of reef change are combined with a unique 20-year time series of land–sea human impacts and the results show that integrated land–sea management could help achieve coastal ocean conservation goals and provide coral reefs with the best opportunity to persist in our changing climate.

In the absence of reward, dopamine and acetylcholine levels in the striatum fluctuate in a phasic manner, with their dynamics autonomously organized by extra-striatal neurons.

A pooled analysis of longitudinal studies in low- and middle-income countries identifies the typical age of onset of linear growth faltering and investigates recurrent faltering in early life.

An analysis of longitudinal cohort data across diverse populations suggests that the incidence of wasting between birth and 24 months is higher than previously thought, and highlights the role of seasonal factors that affect child growth.

Analysis of data from 33 longitudinal cohorts from low- and middle-income countries indicates that conditions during pre-conception, pregnancy and the first few months of life are crucial in determining the risk of growth faltering in young children.

Experiments in mice provide insight into the dynamic relationship between dopamine and acetylcholine in the ventrolateral striatum and how this signalling circuit affects decision-making and behaviour.

The bacterial effector proteins of the AvrE family function as membrane channels in plant cells, enabling the passage of water and solutes from host cells to support pathogen growth, and disrupting the viability of the host cell.

Convergent mutations in hot spots of the spike proteins of currently circulating SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants increase the binding affinity for the host receptor and promote more efficient fusion with host cell membranes.

Vertebral osteoblasts in mouse and human are formed from a precursor skeletal stem cell population that is distinct from long bone skeletal stem cells in function, location and transcriptional programme.

SOSS–INTAC stimulates promoter-proximal termination of transcription and attenuates R-loops associated with paused RNA polymerase II to prevent R-loop-induced genome instability.

The cryo-electron microscopy structure of the mitochondrial TIM23 complex from Saccharomyces cerevisiae shows that Tim17 forms a protein translocation path.

Tim17 contains conserved negative charges close to the intermembrane space side of the bilayer, which are essential to initiate presequence protein translocation along a distinct transmembrane cavity of Tim17 for both classes of preproteins.

A study reports an orally available small-molecule agonist that binds between a G protein and its receptor, and characterizes this new binding mode.