Research articles

An analysis of 21 coral reefs in the Indian Ocean using data across 17 years that spanned a major climatic disturbance reveals factors that predispose a coral reef to recovery or regime shift from hard corals to macroalgae; these results could foreshadow the likely outcomes of tropical coral reefs to the effects of climate change, informing management and adaptation plans.

Structural synaptic plasticity and remodelling are features of the healthy adult brain and are seen during hibernation; a hibernation-inspired model of mouse cooling used to study synaptic regeneration has identified the ‘cold-shock’ RNA-binding protein, RBM3, as a regulator of synaptic assembly, deficiency of which contributes to synapse loss in neurodegenerative disease.

The origin of most chondrules (small, previously molten spherules inside meteorites) is shown to be impact jetting; chondrules form from the shock-melted material ejected from a protoplanet on impact, making meteorites a byproduct of planet formation.

A statistical reassessment of the tide gauge record concludes that sea level rose at a rate of about 1.2 millimetres per year from 1901 to 1990, slightly lower than prior estimates and now consistent with estimates based on individual contributions to sea-level change; the estimates reported here from 1990 onwards are consistent with other work, suggesting that the recent acceleration in sea-level rise is greater than previously thought.

Examination of the global uranium cycle — whereby uranium from the Earth’s crust is first transported to the oceans and then returned, by subduction, to the mantle — shows that the subducted uranium is isotopically distinct from the Earth as a whole and that this signature has been stirred throughout upper mantle, arguably within the past 600 million years.

Mycothiol and ergothioneine are shown to have important roles in the biosynthesis of lincomycin A, a sulfur-containing antibiotic that is used to treat severe Gram-positive bacterial infections in people who cannot receive penicillin antibiotics.

A new analysis of a 415-million-year-old fossil fish head originally described as from an early osteichthyan (bony fish) puts it instead as the sister group of the gnathosomes (jawed vertebrates), and suggests that the extinct acanthodians were relatives of cartilaginous fishes.

Human antibodies in complex with the soluble dimeric form of the dengue virus envelope protein E recognize a quaternary epitope and exhibit strong neutralizing activity against all four virus serotypes.

A ruthenium–disulfide catalyst is presented that is effective in generating compounds of medical and industrial utility (alcohols that contain a phenol, an aldehyde, or a carboxylic acid) by room-temperature, inexpensive, high-yielding cross-metathesis.

An essential ingredient of future worldwide quantum communication is the generation of long-lived entangled quantum states; a coherence time of six hours is now reported for optically addressable nuclear spins in europium-doped yttrium orthosilicate.

Despite receiving antiretroviral therapy, most patients with HIV still have latent reservoirs of the virus; here, these reservoirs are shown to be dominated by viruses with cytotoxic T lymphocyte escape mutations, with potential implications for the development of therapeutic vaccines.

To limit global warming to a rise of 2 °C compared to pre-industrial levels, we cannot use all of our fossil fuel reserves; here an integrated assessment model shows that this temperature limit implies that we must leave unused a third of our oil reserves, half of our gas reserves and over 80 per cent of our coal reserves during the next 40 years, and indicates where these are geographically located.

An optogenetic strategy allowing light-mediated recruitment of distinct cytoskeletal motor proteins to specific organelles is established; this technique enabled rapid and reversible activation or inhibition of the transport of organelles such as peroxisomes, recycling endosomes and mitochondria with high spatiotemporal accuracy, and the approach was also applied to primary neurons to demonstrate optical control of axonal growth by recycling endosome repositioning.

The mTORC1 protein kinase complex integrates nutrient and growth stimuli to modulate signalling pathways that regulate cellular metabolism and physiology, but the molecular nature of the amino acid sensing mechanism at the lysosome is unknown; here, an orphan member of the human solute carrier group of proteins, SLC38A9, is shown to be an integral component of the lysosomal machinery that can directly sense amino acids and activate mTORC1.

Spectrographically obtained zirconium, niobium and technetium abundances in a sample of low-mass stars of type S are used to determine that, in these stars, heavy elements are synthesized by the slow-neutron-capture process at a temperature of less than about 250 million kelvin, and that the process began one million to three million years ago.

Inorganic–organic lead halide perovskite could be efficient when used as the light-harvesting component of solar cells; here incorporation of methylammonium lead bromide into formamidinium lead iodide stabilizes the perovskite and improves the power conversion efficiency of the solar cell up to 17.9 per cent.

Unlike the limited post-injury neuronal regeneration in humans, severed axons in C. elegans can regenerate through a cellular fusion mechanism; this study identifies the molecular basis for this process which includes phosphatidylserine recognition and a role for specific molecules that also act in apoptosis.

A search of a data set of light curves for 247,000 known, spectroscopically confirmed quasars with a temporal baseline of about 9 years reveals a strong, smooth periodic signal in the optical variability of quasar PG 1302−102 with a mean observed period of 1,884 ± 88 days, indicating a possible supermassive black-hole binary.

Traditionally, the vertebral column of snakes was thought to have lost regionalization; Hox regionalization is now shown to be maintained in snakes, suggesting that gradational vertebral column regionalization is primitive to amniotes.

Meiotic recombination is initiated by a fairly uniform distribution of hundreds of DNA double-strand breaks catalysed by the Spo11 protein; here, Tel1 (orthologue of human ATM) is shown to be required for the localized inhibition that prevents double-strand breaks from forming close to one another.