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It is thought that only climate change drives temporal tree mortality increases in old forests. Here, Luo and Chen show that both forest dynamics and climate change drive temporal tree mortality increases in young and old forests, and that climate change-associated mortality increases are higher in the young forests.

Inhibition of return describes a mechanism in humans and monkeys whereby the visual detection of recently attended objects or locations is impaired. Gabay et al.find that inhibition of return is also present in archer fish, meaning that a fully developed cortex is not needed for this mechanism.

The ability to add and move individual atoms on a surface with a scanning tunnelling microscope enables precise control over the electronic quantum states of the surface. Schofield et al. show that removing hydrogen atoms from a passivated silicon surface can be used to generate and control such states.

The interactions of quasiparticles can be described by renormalizing their masses, such that some materials have a vanishingly small effective mass, whereas others have a very high effective mass. The observation by Vyalikh and colleagues of both extremes occurring on the surface and interior of the same material offers a new view of many-body interactions.

Recently, the NASA MESSENGER mission reported signatures of Kelvin–Helmholtz instabilities in the magnetic environment of Mercury. Using global hybrid kinetic simulations, Paral and Rankin reproduce these observations, revealing a dawn–dusk asymmetry in the instability.

Klf5 is a transcription factor that regulates self-renewal of pluripotent stem cells. Here the authors test the function of Klf5 in somatic stem cells, and discover that it controls stem cell homing and adhesion by regulating endocytosis of beta integrins.

The atmosphere of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, consists of orange-yellow haze, but its formation and dynamics are not well understood. Here laboratory studies show that Titan’s lower atmosphere is photochemically active and the formation of complex prebiotic precursor molecules occurs at lower altitudes.

A model-independent protocol is developed for reconstructing a two-dimensional particle from multiparticle diffraction images. The method is verified experimentally with gold nanostructures, paving the way towards single-molecule imaging using high-intensity X-ray free-electron laser pulses.

GRASP proteins are thought to play a role in maintaining the stacked structure of the Golgi complex. Xiang et al. discover that depletion of GRASPs accelerates Golgi traffic, but reduces the complexity of Golgi protein glycosylation.

The transcription factor Ets2 is expressed in the extraembryonic ectoderm tropoblast during gastrulation. Here, the authors use Ets2 knock-out mice to show that Ets2 signalling is required for gastrulation, primitive streak elongation and development and the mesoderm epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition.

The spin states associated with nitrogen vacancies in diamond could be useful in the development of solid-state quantum information processing. Laraoui et al. resolve the temporal dynamics of spins associated with C-13 atoms near such vacancies to better understand and perhaps better exploit their behaviour.

Gamma oscillations act to synchronize neuronal activity and are implicated in cognitive processing. Using in vivo electrophysiology, Shinohara et al. find that gamma oscillations and associated structural changes are greater in right-sided hippocampi of enriched environment-reared rats.

The isolation of phosphorylated peptides is important for understanding protein function. Here, the authors use magnetic nanoparticles for the selective analysis of phosphorylated peptides, and show that the composition of the nanoparticles affects the selectivity for mono- or multi-phosphorylated compounds.

Mouse models of arthritis generally do not result in both chronic disease and autoantibody production—two key features of the human disease. Here the authors obtain both features by combining two common protocols, and find that disease severity is associated with the presence of a previously unidentified lymph node.

Epithelial cells in the colon mainly use microbial fermentation products as energy sources. Here Okada et al. find that lactate produced by commensal Lactobacillus murinusregulates colonic epithelial cell proliferation and show that mice are more susceptible to carcinogens when refed after a period of starvation.

Little is known about the mean free path spectra of lattice vibrations—known as phonons—that carry heat in non-metallic solids. Regner et al. demonstrate a technique that enables measurement of these spectra over an unprecedented range, enabling a more complete picture of heat flow in non-metals.

Plasmons excited in gratings create strong resonant absorptions that depend on the nanostructure period. By patterning a gold grating on a silicon substrate, Sobhani et al. exploit plasmon-induced hot electron photocurrent generation to create a narrowband infrared photodetector with greatly enhanced absorption efficiency.

In frustrated magnets geometric constraints are expected to prevent any magnetic ordering. In this work, normally non-magnetic atoms on a silicon surface display an ordered state despite geometric frustration. This offers new ways of controlling magnetism on surfaces.

The gasotransmitter hydrogen sulfide signals by sulfide modification of target proteins. Vandiver and colleagues study the sulfhydration of parkin by hydrogen sulfide and find that sulfhydration stimulates its activity, and that this activity is reduced in patients with Parkinson’s disease.

The visualization of ion-motive-force driven conformational dynamics of membrane proteins is hampered by technical difficulties. Here, the authors develop an experimental platform to visualize the rotary dynamics of ATP synthase driven by proton-motive-force.