Volume 507 Issue 7491, 13 March 2014

Universal theories are few and far between in ecology, but that is what makes it fascinating.

Research communities need to agree on standard etiquette for data-sharing.

As English schools consider downgrading practical science, John Baruch points out that other nations are rushing to include more.

The week in science: Infant HIV cure; Craig Venter launches genomics company; and asteroid caught falling apart.

Hopes dim for a science-funding increase in 2015.

Core science gets budget boost in a bid to change research culture and increase innovation.

Industry backlash expected over suggested cut in intake.

Two systems could plug the ocean-sized gap in earthquake detection.

Pioneering biofuel producers hope that US government largesse will ease their way into a tough market.

More than a billion people lack electricity, but now microgrids are powering up rural areas.

Predators are supposed to exert strong control over ecosystems, but nature doesn’t always play by the rules.

Ideas in a thirteenth-century treatise on the nature of matter still resonate today, say Tom C. B. McLeish and colleagues.

Peter Gluckman, New Zealand's chief science adviser, offers his ten principles for building trust, influence, engagement and independence.

Gabriel Hemery celebrates the 350th anniversary of John Evelyn's treatise on the science and practice of forestry.

Alexandra Witze savours a behind-the-scenes look at physics's most famous arrival.

Variation in an evolutionarily conserved sexual-differentiation gene, doublesex, has been found to explain how females of one species of butterfly mimic the colour patterns of several toxic species to avoid predation. See Letter p.229

The power of a cosmic lens to magnify and split the light from a distant, mass-accreting giant black hole into four components has allowed researchers to measure the black hole's spin. See Letter p.207

A tiny sample of a mineral included in a diamond confirms predictions from high-pressure laboratory experiments that a water reservoir comparable in size to all the oceans combined is hidden deep in Earth's mantle. See Letter p.221

Multiplication of repetitive DNA sequences is often the cause of neurodegenerative diseases. A four-stranded structure has been found to form in one such expansion in the gene C9orf72, altering gene function in four ways. See Article p.195

A systematic and painstaking analysis reveals that much of the complexity and variability of the courtship song of male fruit flies can be accounted for by simple rules that relate sensory experience to motor output. See Letter p.233

Hybridization can cause two species to fuse into a single population. New observations suggest that two species of Darwin's finches are hybridizing on a Galapagos island, and that a third one has disappeared through interbreeding.

Recent progress in the various lab-on-a-chip microtechnologies is reviewed and the clinical and research areas in which they have made the greatest impact are discussed.

Lung alveoli are lined by two types of alveolar epithelial cells, squamous alveolar type (AT) 1 cells that mediate gas exchange and cuboidal AT2 cells that secrete surfactant to prevent alveolar collapse during breathing; here alveolar markers, genetic lineage tracing and clonal analysis are used in mice to identify alveolar progenitor and stem cells in vivo, and to map their locations and potential during lung development, maintenance and cancer.

Structurally polymorphic C9orf72 hexanucleotide repeats cause an impairment in transcriptional processivity and lead to accumulation of truncated repeat-containing transcripts that bind to specific ribonucleoproteins, such as nucleolin, in a conformation-dependent manner resulting in nucleolar stress and C9orf72-linked pathology in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia.

Computational protein design methods are used to generate new candidates for a human respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine; artificial protein scaffolds that mimic the structure of a RSV epitope are shown to induce RSV-specific neutralizing antibodies in macaques.

Observations of a gravitationally lensed quasar at redshift 0.658 imply a high spin parameter, which indicates that this supermassive black hole grew by coherent accretion rather than in a chaotic manner.

A set of parameters based on the response of a molecule’s properties to infrared vibrations can be used to model and predict selectivity trends for molecular reactions with interlinked steric and electronic effects at positions of interest

In anilines and benzylic amines, a recyclable chemical template can direct the olefination and acetoxylation of meta-C–H bonds as far as 11 bonds away from a functional group; in particular, it is able to direct the meta-selective C–H functionalization of bicyclic heterocycles via a highly strained, tricyclic-cyclophane-like palladated intermediate.

X-ray diffraction, Raman and infrared spectroscopic evidence for the inclusion of water-rich ringwoodite in diamond from Juína, Brazil, indicates that, at least locally, the Earth’s transition zone is hydrous to about 1 weight per cent.

A complete pre-agricultural European human genome from a ∼7,000-year-old Mesolithic skeleton suggests the existence of a common genomic signature across western and central Eurasia from the Upper Paleolithic to the Mesolithic, and ancestral alleles in several skin pigmentation genes suggest that the light skin of modern Europeans was not yet ubiquitous in Mesolithic times.

The phenomenon of sex-limited mimicry is phylogenetically widespread in the swallowtail butterfly genus Papilio — now, a single gene, doublesex, is shown to control supergene mimicry, a finding that is in contrast to the long-held view that supergenes are likely to be controlled by a tightly linked cluster of loci.

Drosophila male courtship songs were thought to have a fixed structure with song repetition variations introduced unintentionally because of neural noise; this behavioural assay and computational modelling study instead reveals that males use fast changes in sensory information to actively pattern individual song sequences.

The AgRP-expressing neurons in the arcuate nucleus drive food-seeking behaviours during caloric restriction; a mouse study of monosynaptic retrograde rabies spread and optogenetic circuit mapping reveals that these neurons are activated by input from hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus cells and their activation or inhibition can modulate feeding behaviour.

L-Myc, a paralogue of the proto-oncogene c-Myc, is shown to regulate dendritic cell homeostasis and functionality; unlike c-Myc, L-Myc is not repressed by interferons and its expression allows for optimal dendritic cell proliferation and T-cell priming in the presence of inflammation.

The DNA-binding protein PfAP2-G is found to be a master regulator of sexual development in the malaria parasite; this protein appears to regulate early gametocytogenesis and is epigenetically silenced in the majority of blood-stage parasites.

Malaria parasites must produce gametocytes for transmission to the mosquito vector, although the molecular mechanisms underlying commitment to gametocyte production remain unclear; here this process is found to be controlled by PbAP2-G, a member of the ApiAP2 family of DNA-binding proteins, in the rodent-infecting Plasmodium berghei parasite.

Here, Argonaute from the prokaryote Thermus thermophilus is shown to use small DNA guides to interfere directly with invading foreign DNA, rather than being involved in RNA-guided RNA interference, as observed in eukaryotes.

Scientists in the United States who are looking to ride the gas-exploration boom can find a variety of options for employment, from chemical research to environmental monitoring.

Behavioural researcher aims to transform current funding models.

UK report seeks to quantify diversity in the country's scientific workforce.

Female researchers avoid collaborating with lower-ranked female colleagues.

Breaks due to childcare are associated with lower wages for female physicians.

In search of freedom.