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The composition of Earth's core may be easier to resolve than previously thought. Laboratory experiments strengthen the hypothesis that oxygen and silicon are the prime candidates for the light elements present in the outer core.
The discovery, in 500-million-year-old rocks, of fossil acorn worms that lived in tubes illuminates the debate about whether the ancestor of vertebrates was a mobile worm-like animal or a sessile colony dweller. See Letter p.503
Neurons use molecular motors to power the transport of cargoes along their axonal extensions. Fresh evidence challenges the view that cellular organelles called mitochondria are the main energy providers for this process.
A type of data-acquisition sequence in magnetic resonance imaging has been developed that rapidly and robustly quantifies properties of imaged tissue by elucidating a characteristic signal fingerprint. See Article p.187
Whether ovarian cancer originates in the ovary or the surrounding tissues is a focus of debate. Work in mice now shows that stem cells that replenish the ovarian surface epithelium can be the initiators of this cancer. See Letter p.241
A low-temperature synthesis has been developed to make single crystals of titanium dioxide that contain pores tens to hundreds of nanometres in size. This opens the way to cheap, highly efficient optoelectronic devices. See Letter p.215
A bacterial enzyme that uses guide RNA molecules to target DNA for cleavage has been adopted as a programmable tool to site-specifically modify genomes of cells and organisms, from bacteria and human cells to whole zebrafish.
The ability of sodium chloride to induce enzymatic activity that leads to the generation of pathogenic TH17 immune cells implicates salt as a possible factor that might exacerbate autoimmune disease. See Letters p.513 & p.518
By having a highly accurate value for the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy, astronomers can get a better measure of cosmic 'dark energy'. Using binary stars, they have now achieved a value accurate to 2.2%. See Letterp.76
Epigenetic changes to the genome can have heritable effects. An epigenome-wide study of wild plants identifies shared patterns of such modifications and their associations with genetic information. See Article p.193
The implications of the X-ray emission patterns of galaxies hosting supermassive black holes have been contentious. Data from NASA's NuSTAR telescope seem to resolve the issue — at least for one such galaxy. See Letter p.449
The discovery that some viruses use a defence mechanism known as a CRISPR/Cas system beautifully illustrates the evolutionary tit-for-tat between viruses and the bacteria they infect. See Letter p.489
Rhesus macaques' responses to computer-animated images of lip-smacking monkey faces suggest that the jaw, tongue and lip oscillations that characterize human speech may have evolved from rhythmic primate facial expressions.
A ruthenium catalyst has been developed that, at a few parts per million, releases hydrogen gas from methanol, a simple bulk chemical. The advance might allow methanol to be used as a hydrogen source for fuelling vehicles. See Letter p.85
Exactly when motor-planning neurons function to produce a bird's song is debatable. New data suggest that bursts of activity in these cells mark sudden changes in the commands to the vocal organ. See Article p.59
The impact of a diet, no matter how rich it is, depends crucially on the host's resident gut microbes. Treatment of severe malnutrition with antibiotics may affect the composition of this microbiota to favour better use of nutrients.
The versatility of RNA seems limitless. The latest surprise comes from circular RNAs, which are found to counteract the function of another class of regulatory RNA — the microRNAs. See Article p.333 & Letter p.384
Chromosome-segregation errors during cell division may play a key part in tumour evolution. The long-awaited identification of a common genetic defect causing such errors comes with an interesting conceptual twist. See Letter p.492
A long-standing ambiguity has been whether quiescent cells located in intestinal crypt structures are stem cells. The answer seems to be yes and no, depending on how one defines the term stem cell. See Article p.65
