Letters

Human scientists make unrepresentative chemical reagent and reaction condition choices, and machine-learning algorithms trained on human-selected experiments are less capable of successfully predicting reaction outcomes than those trained on randomly generated experiments.

Whole-genome sequencing of the strains of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae gene-knockout collection reveals the effects of the deletion of non-essential genes on genome stability.

Caspase-8 suppresses apoptosis and necroptosis in embryonic mice by cleaving RIPK1.

Palaeoproteomic analysis of dental enamel from an Early Pleistocene Stephanorhinus resolves the phylogeny of Eurasian Rhinocerotidae, by enabling the reconstruction of molecular evolution beyond the limits of ancient DNA preservation.

A genome-wide CRISPR-interference screen is used to identify the reduced folate carrier SLC19A1 as the major transporter of cyclic dinucleotides in human cells, with potential roles in immunotherapeutic treatment of cancer, immune responses to pathogens and inflammatory diseases.

Adoptive transfer of CAR T cells against the fibroblast marker FAP reduces cardiac fibrosis and restores function after cardiac injury in mice, providing proof-of-principle for the development of immunotherapeutic treatments for cardiac disease.

A route to the synthesis of hindered ethers is developed, in which electrochemical oxidation is used to liberate high-energy carbocations that are then captured by an alcohol.

Observation of the collective mode responding to the superfluid stiffness—the low-energy Goldstone mode—provides direct evidence for phase rigidity, which is a key signature of supersolidity in an ultracold quantum gas.

Two distinct compressional oscillation modes are characterized in a dipolar Bose–Einstein condensate; this demonstrates the breaking of two symmetries owing to the coexisting superfluid and crystal properties of a supersolid.

Organic photovoltaic cells containing an intrinsically stable organic absorber layer that are likely to be stable for many decades under illumination are demonstrated.

In a voter game, information gerrymandering can sway the outcome of the vote towards one party, even when both parties have equal sizes and each player has the same influence; and this effect can be exaggerated by strategically placed zealots or automated bots.

Analysis of a dataset of high-sensitivity Tohoku–Hokkaido seismograph records shows that pairs of subduction-type earthquakes of different sizes have very similar initial characteristics, implying that the final size of an earthquake cannot be reliably predicted from these.

Quantum critical behaviour at the many-body localization transition in a disordered Bose–Hubbard system of bosonic rubidium atoms in an optical lattice is observed, connecting the macroscopic phenomenology of the transition to the system’s microscopic quantum correlations.

Yilingia spiciformis, a bilaterian dating to the Ediacaran period, is described from body fossils associated with trails produced by the animal, shedding light on the origins of segmentation and motility in bilaterian animals.

N-trifluoromethyl analogues of amides and related carbonyl compounds are prepared via bench-stable carbamoyl fluoride building blocks.

Cryo-electron microscopy structures of mixed-lineage leukaemia methyltransferases 1 and 3 associated with unmodified or mono-ubiquitinated nucleosome reveal the structural basis for the activity specificity and regulation of these enzymes.

Observations of highly redshifted broad absorption lines of helium and hydrogen atoms provide unambiguous evidence of fast infalling gas that is merging into an accretion disk around a black hole.

Structures of RNA polymerase of human and avian influenza A viruses reveal that the interface of the RNA polymerase dimer is required to initiate viral RNA synthesis in viral genome replication.

Although E-cadherin loss promotes tumour-cell invasion in mouse and human models of invasive ductal carcinoma, E-cadherin expression prevents oxidative-stress-mediated apoptosis during detachment and is essential for metastasis.

The re-seeding of antibiotic-resistant persister subpopulations of Salmonella enterica into the gut lumen favours the transfer of resistance plasmids to gut-resident enterobacteria, showing that even small reservoirs of persister bacteria facilitate the spread of antibiotic resistance.