Reviews & Analysis

An attempt to reconcile the effects of temperature on economic productivity at the micro and macro levels produces predictions of global economic losses due to climate change that are much higher than previous estimates. See Letter p.235

Models of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet predict substantial ice loss over the next few centuries — and that a glacier expected to contribute greatly to sea-level rise may already be unstable.

The combined neuronal activity of two seemingly opposite types of Purkinje cell in the brain's cerebellum has been found to be required to control the jerky eye movements known as saccades in monkeys. See Letter p.439

Breakthrough measurements of a rare decay process in an excited barium nucleus pave the way for the development of techniques that probe the structure and decay modes of atomic nuclei. See Letter p.406

Simulations show that melting of the Antarctic ice sheet in response to climate change could raise the global sea level by up to 3 metres by the year 2300 and continue for thousands of years thereafter. See Letter p.421

Mutations in the gene MECP2 cause an intellectual-disability disorder called Rett syndrome. In a mouse model, electrical stimulation of deep brain regions is found to ameliorate some of the features of the syndrome. See Letter p.430

The epithelial cells that line the intestine have been found to sense tight attachment of bacteria, and to respond by producing proteins that shape the effector functions of the immune system's T_H17 cells.

Cold ions sliding across periodic energy-potential patterns formed by lasers have been used to elucidate the physics of dry friction between crystals. Experiments with no more than six ions suffice to explore a vast domain of frictional forces.

Experiments suggest that when people can see wealth inequality in their social network, this propels further inequality through reduced cooperation and reduced social connectivity. See Letter p.426

Single-cell analyses reveal that combinatorial changes in the intracellular locations of transcription factors can tune the expression of the factors' target genes in response to environmental stimuli. See Article p.54

A discovery in southern China of human teeth dated to more than 80,000 years old indicates that Homo sapiens was present in the region considerably earlier than had previously been suspected. See Letter p.696

This Review evaluates current techniques used to investigate human brain function, discusses the successes and limitations of these techniques to test hypotheses about causal mechanisms, and looks to future directions and implementation of these techniques in real-world problems.

A comprehensive modelling effort has revealed the relative contributions of different malaria-control measures to the massive reductions in disease prevalence that have occurred in Africa between 2000 and 2015. See Article p.207

The finding that the Mediator protein complex contributes to messenger RNA export from the nucleus in yeast adds to a growing list of roles for the complex in regulating transcriptional processes.

Engineered human cells that can give rise to every cell type have been induced to generate structures that resemble an embryonic kidney. This advance charts a course towards growing transplantable kidneys in culture. See Letter p.564

Nanotechnology studies explore the extreme properties of strongly interacting electronic systems through conductance measurements, and probe quantum phase transitions close to absolute zero temperature. See Letters p.233 & p.237