Comment in 2018

Promising immunizations for diseases that affect mostly people in low- and middle-income countries need help getting to market, urge David C. Kaslow and colleagues.

International discussion must guide research, urge Nicolas Rivron, Martin Pera and colleagues.

With sources of renewable energy spreading fast, all sectors can do more to decarbonize the world, argue Christiana Figueres and colleagues.

Three trends will combine to hasten it, warn Yangyang Xu, Veerabhadran Ramanathan and David G. Victor.

Take these eight steps to make soils more resilient to drought, produce more food and store emissions, urge Cornelia Rumpel and colleagues.

Misleading terminology and arbitrary divisions stymie drug trials and can give false hope about the potential of tailoring drugs to individuals, warns Stephen Senn.

The Haldane principle, born a century ago, has enabled government scientists to speak truth to power without fear of retribution — cherish it, says Ehsan Masood.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will founder unless they integrate quantum technologies, warn Aleksey K. Fedorov, Evgeniy O. Kiktenko and Alexander I. Lvovsky.

Access to evidence from disappointing drug-development programmes advances the whole scientific process, explain Enrica Alteri and Lorenzo Guizzaro.

To solve real-world problems using emerging abilities in synthetic biology, research must focus on a few ambitious goals, argues Dan Fletcher.

Global conservation policy must stop the disappearance of Earth’s few intact ecosystems, warn James E. M. Watson, James R. Allan and colleagues.

The first large-scale analysis of compliance with open-access rules reveals that up to one-third of articles are not free to read, report Vincent Larivière and Cassidy R. Sugimoto.

Governments should use patents to shape the deployment of CRISPR–Cas9 as they have done for past technologies, argues Shobita Parthasarathy.

Using artificial intelligence to predict outbursts of violence and probe their causes could save lives, argue Weisi Guo, Kristian Gleditsch and Alan Wilson.

Sand-grain-sized computers, self-healing materials and constellations of craft would reboot our reach, explain Igor Levchenko, Michael Keidar and colleagues.

Three examples show how public participation in research can be extended at every step of the process to generate useful knowledge.

To assess whether research is relevant to society, ask the stakeholders, say Catherine Durose, Liz Richardson and Beth Perry.

Confusion about mesenchymal stem cells is making it easier for people to sell unproven treatments, warn Douglas Sipp, Pamela G. Robey and Leigh Turner.

Track connections between hurricanes, wildfires, climate change and other risks, urge Amir AghaKouchak and colleagues.

Climate policy advice is being undermined by value-laden choices over risky mitigation strategies, warn Dominic Lenzi and colleagues.