Research Briefing in 2024

By using volunteers to map roads in forests across Borneo, Sumatra and New Guinea, an innovative study shows that existing maps of the Asia-Pacific region are rife with errors. It also reveals that unmapped roads are extremely common — up to seven times more abundant than mapped ones. Such ‘ghost roads’ are promoting illegal logging, mining, wildlife poaching and deforestation in some of the world’s biologically richest ecosystems.

A hallucinogenic compound secreted by toads has served as a springboard for research into the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics. The findings suggest that these compounds exert antidepressant effects in part by binding an under-appreciated target in the brain.

The oscillating electromagnetic fields that carry light can cause electrons to tunnel back and forth through a potential energy barrier. Remarkably, this alternating current can coherently emit measurable light waves — an unexpected process that can be exploited to build an optical microscope that undercuts existing spatial and temporal limitations.

In ordinary materials, electrons move too quickly for their negative electric charges to affect their interactions. But at low temperatures and densities, they can be made to crystallize into an exotic type of electron solid — a phenomenon predicted by Eugene Wigner 90 years ago and only now directly observed.

A study provides insights into how energy flows in the food webs that connect soil- and canopy-dwelling organisms in tropical ecosystems with high biodiversity. When rainforest is converted to plantations, food webs are simplified and restructured, leading to profound changes in tropical-ecosystem functioning.

A study of male and female rats has examined the biomolecular changes induced in many of their organs by eight weeks of endurance treadmill training. The findings offer insights into the many benefits to our immune, metabolic and stress-response pathways as we adapt to exercise.

The elephant-nose fish senses its environment by emitting electrical pulses. A multi-pronged investigation suggests that this remarkable sensing ability is amplified in social groups by individuals ‘listening in’ on the pulses of their neighbours.

A broadly applicable method allows selective, rapid and efficient chemical modification of the side chain of tryptophan amino acids in proteins. This platform enables systematic, proteome-wide identification of tryptophan residues, which can form a bond (called cation–π interaction) with positively charged molecules. Such interactions are key in many biochemical processes, including protein-mediated phase separation.

An ambitious investigation has analysed discourse on eight social-media platforms, covering a vast array of topics and spanning several decades. It reveals that online conversations increase in toxicity as they get longer — and that this behaviour persists despite shifts in platforms’ business models, technological advances and societal norms.

An innovative solid-state lithiation strategy allows the exfoliation of layered transition-metal tellurides into nanosheets in an unprecedentedly short time, without sacrificing their quality. The observation of physical phenomena typically seen in highly crystalline TMT nanosheets opens the way to their use in applications such as batteries and micro-supercapacitors.

Applications from quantum computing to searches for physics beyond the standard model could benefit from precision control of polyatomic molecules. A method of confining and manipulating single polyatomic molecules held in tightly focused ‘optical tweezer’ laser arrays at ultracold temperatures could boost progress on all those fronts.

The largest genome-wide association study for type 2 diabetes so far, which included several ancestry groups, led to the identification of eight clusters of genetic risk variants. The clusters capture different biological pathways that contribute to the disease, and some clusters are associated with vascular complications.

Anthropogenic climate change is accelerating the hydrological cycle, causing an increase in the risk of flood-related disasters. A system that uses artificial intelligence allows the creation of reliable, global river flood forecasts, even in places where accurate local data are not available.

Genetic variants contribute to the risk of developing certain diseases, but identifying the genes and molecular pathways under their control has been difficult. Now, a systematic approach to pinpointing these factors yields insights into how a specific pathway in endothelial cells influences the risk of coronary artery disease.

Humans and other social animals are highly adept at learning by observing how others interact with the environment, especially when identifying potential sources of danger. In mice, a specific brain region acts as an information-processing hub that distinguishes between observed and directly experienced fear, and signals different behavioural responses accordingly.

Cutting-edge communication (6G and beyond) will rely on precise time control of large amounts of wirelessly transferred information. To achieve this precision, a ‘quasi-true time delay’ chip has been designed that packs as much time delay as possible into a tiny area using 3D waveguides whose length can be varied as required.

This study identifies a major migratory route for young neurons in the brains of young children. This route forms during pregnancy and links the birthplace of these nerve cells to their destination in highly interconnected brain regions that are responsible for memory and spatial processing.

In organic chemistry, finding conditions that enable a broad range of compounds to undergo a particular type of reaction is highly desirable. However, conventional methods for doing so consume a lot of time and reagents. A machine-learning method has been developed that overcomes these problems.

Stress responses protect cells from harmful conditions, but once the stress has resolved, these responses must be actively turned off to avoid cell damage that might lead to the development of neurodegenerative disease.

A combination of technical improvements in noise mitigation enabled the observation of the quantum force of light on a millimetre-scale drum at room temperature. This experimental system permits the drum’s position to be measured with an accuracy close to the quantum limit.