Volume 547 Issue 7662, 13 July 2017

In sharp contrast to President Trump, Brenda Fitzgerald has put maternal and child health at the heart of her policies.

Interactions between humans and robots may eventually include sex.

Unchallenged assumptions about how science works threaten its support and decrease its ability to contribute to society, says Daniel Sarewitz.

The week in science: 7–13 July 2017.

Pared-back staff struggles to continue cybersecurity, climate-change and science-education efforts without direction from the Trump administration.

Artificial soils that mimic the surfaces of the Moon, Mars and asteroids are hard to make — and often miss the mark.

The technique could be used on everything from flowers to cells to examine the factors that influence the shapes of plant parts.

Physicists find ways to make LIGO and other gravitational-wave detectors even more sensitive.

Clutch of DNA analyses show that ancient humans moved around on the continent far more than has been appreciated.

An unprecedented study in Bangladesh could reveal how malnutrition, poor sanitation and other challenges make their mark on child development.

The hunt for treatments to halt Alzheimer’s disease has been frustrating; it is time to trial preventive drugs, urge Eric McDade and Randall J. Bateman.

Physicists should rethink interference experiments to reveal whether or not general relativity follows classical theory, argue Chiara Marletto and Vlatko Vedral.

Vint Cerf savours a life of Claude Shannon, information-theory pioneer and wildly inventive tinkerer.

Asif Siddiqi examines a biography of a Soviet meteorologist who taught his daughter from prison.

Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week's best science picks.

Quantum physics ultimately constrains how well sensors of position, speed and acceleration can perform. A hybrid quantum system that avoids these constraints could give rise to improved sensor technologies. See Letter p.191

The T cells of the immune system can destroy tumours, but their activation can be inefficient. Vaccines that exploit tumour mutations elicit robust T-cell responses to tumours, with potential clinical benefits. See Letters p.217 & p.222

Trace elements are enriched in plants by natural processes, human activities or both. An analysis of mercury in Arctic tundra vegetation offers fresh insight into the uptake of trace metals from the atmosphere by plants. See Letter p.201

The protein HP1 mediates compaction of DNA into a repressive structure called heterochromatin. Analysis reveals that HP1 has liquid-like properties, offering a fresh perspective on genome organization. See Letters p.236 & p.241

The protein tau forms abnormal filamentous aggregates called tangles in the brains of people with neurodegeneration. Structures of two such filaments offer pathways to a deeper understanding of Alzheimer's disease. See Article p.185

The development of a protocol for isolating and expanding the cell population that lines bile ducts has enabled the in vitro generation of bioengineered ducts. These can replace native bile ducts when transplanted into mice.

Results of fine-mapping 94 inflammatory bowel disease loci using high-density genotyping in 67,852 individuals and several new fine-mapping methods.

The extracellular matrix protein agrin promotes cardiac regeneration in adult mice after myocardial infarction; it modulates cardiac differentiation and proliferation by interacting with the dystrophin–glycoprotein complex, Yap and ERK-mediated signalling.

High-resolution structures of tau filaments shed light on the ultrastructure of neurofibrillary lesions in Alzheimer’s disease.

By coupling a mechanical object to an ensemble of atomic spins with negative effective mass, the object’s position can be measured without the usual quantum back-action perturbation of its momentum.

Non-symmetric internal alkenes are selectively converted into allylic functionalized products with high stereoselectivity and regioselectivity.

A two-year study of mercury deposition in the Arctic finds that the main source of mercury is gaseous elemental mercury, which is deposited throughout the year and leads to very high soil mercury levels.

The pyrite-type high-pressure form of FeOOH is predicted from first principles, and found experimentally to be stable under the conditions at the base of the mantle, with implications for transport of water within Earth’s deep interior.

In contrast to the prevailing belief that the gut begins with the mouth and continues backwards from there, this work shows that substantial areas of the faces of ray-finned fishes originate from the pre-oral gut or endoderm.

Malaria parasites use a sensing mechanism to moderate their growth in response to the nutrient content of their host.

The results of a phase I trial assessing a personal neoantigen multi-peptide vaccine in patients with melanoma, showing feasibility, safety, and immunogenicity.

The authors report the first-in-human application of personalized neo-antigen RNA vaccines in patients with melanoma.

After injury in the heart, postnatal mouse hearts deficient in the Hippo pathway show efficient repair, and in the hearts of Mdx mice (a model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy) Hippo deficiency protects against overload-induced heart failure.

A low-input Hi-C method is used to show that chromatin organization is markedly relaxed in pre-implantation mouse embryos after fertilization and that the subsequent maturation of 3D chromatin architecture is surprisingly slow.

Phosphorylation or DNA binding promotes the physical partitioning of HP1α out of a soluble aqueous phase into droplets, suggesting that the repressive action of heterochromatin may in part be mediated by the phase separation of HP1.

HP1a can nucleate into foci that display liquid properties during the early stages of heterochromatin domain formation in Drosophila embryos, suggesting that the repressive action of heterochromatin may be mediated in part by emergent properties of phase separation.

Affordable dwellings are rare in many areas where junior researchers want to study or work.

Living expenses force an Oxford postdoc to quit.

Meet the home help.