Reviews & Analysis

Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel use in China have grown dramatically in the past few decades, yet it emerges that the country's relative contribution to global climate change has remained surprisingly constant. See Letter p.357

Carbon dioxide is an abundant resource, but difficult for industry to use effectively. A simple reaction might allow it to be used to make commercial products more sustainably than with current processes. See Letter p.215

Quantum computers will one day wildly outperform conventional machines. An experimental feat reveals a fundamental property of exotic superconductors that brings this quantum technology a step closer. See Letter p.206

Stem-cell engineering has allowed successful cornea transplantations in rabbits and the regeneration of transparent lens tissue in children, demonstrating the therapeutic potential of this approach. See Article p.323 & Letter p.376

A cross-cultural experiment involving thousands of people worldwide shows that the prevalence of rule violations in a society, such as tax evasion and fraudulent politics, is detrimental to individuals' intrinsic honesty. See Letter p.496

Lack of the protein IRP2 in mice prevents organelles called mitochondria from accumulating toxic levels of iron in response to smoke exposure. This discovery links environmental and genetic risk factors for a chronic lung disease.

In flowering plants, sperm-containing pollen tubes are guided towards ovules by attractants from the female reproductive organ. Receptors for the attractant molecule AtLURE1 have now been found. See Letters p.241 & p.245

Single-molecule experiments have revealed that chemical reactions can be controlled using electric fields — and that the reaction rate is sensitive to both the direction and the strength of the applied field. See Letter p.88

In mice, a high-fat diet has now been found to induce intestinal progenitor cells to adopt a more stem-cell-like fate, altering the size of the gut and increasing tumour incidence. See Article p.53

The development of a radio technique for detecting cosmic rays casts fresh light on the origins of some of these accelerated particles, and suggests that they might have travelled much farther than was previously thought. See Letter p.70

Nitric oxide gas has now been found to act as a switch during developmental remodelling of axonal projections from neurons: high gas levels promote the degeneration of unwanted axons and low levels support subsequent regrowth.

Our understanding of fast radio bursts — intense pulses of radio waves — and their use as cosmic probes promises to be transformed now that one burst has been associated with a galaxy of known distance from Earth. See Letter p.453

An in situ experiment finds that reducing the acidity of the seawater surrounding a natural coral reef significantly increases reef calcification, suggesting that ocean acidification may already be slowing coral growth. See Letter p.362

An analysis confirms the long-standing theory that sex increases the rate of adaptive evolution by accelerating the speed at which beneficial mutations sweep through sexual, as opposed to asexual, populations. See Letter p.233

The discovery of gravitational waves from a merging black-hole system opens a window on the Universe that promises to test gravity at its strongest, and to reveal many surprises about black holes and other astrophysical systems.

The presence of an N¹ methyl group on adenine bases in DNA and RNA was thought to be a form of damage. Results now show that it also occurs at specific sites in messenger RNAs, where it affects protein expression. See Article p.441

Models based on developmental mechanisms described in mice and shared by most mammals are shown to accurately predict tooth size in extinct hominins, and can explain the small third molars in our species. See Letter p.477

Simulations of the flux of atmospheric carbon dioxide into the ocean show that changes in flux associated with human activities are currently masked by natural climate variations, but will be evident in the near future. See Letter p.469