Reviews & Analysis

Efforts to treat brain tumours by targeting cancer cells have had only modest clinical success. It emerges that targeting a protein secreted from neurons adjacent to the tumour might be a useful alternative approach. See Letter p.533

Glaciers in the high mountains of Asia are a crucial water resource, but are at risk from global warming. Modelling suggests that the glaciers will shed mass in direct proportion to the warming to which they are exposed. See Letter p.257

Polypterid fish were considered to be archaic outliers of the bony-fish grouping. Fossil analysis now places them at the heart of early ray-finned fishes, a radical change that transforms the timing of their evolution. See Letter p.265

The direct conversion of heat into electricity — a reversible process known as the thermoelectric effect — can be greatly enhanced in some materials by embedding them with a small number of magnetic nanoparticles. See Letter p.247

Bacteria that can oxidize both ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate seem to be better adapted to ammonia-limited environments than most cultured microbes that oxidize ammonia to nitrite only, contrary to expectations. See Letter p.269

Experiments reveal that the laws governing the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang also apply to the behaviour of coupled lasers. The findings could be used to solve complex computational problems.

Quantum machine learning software could enable quantum computers to learn complex patterns in data more efficiently than classical computers are able to.

The era of fully fledged quantum computers threatens to destroy internet security as we know it; the ways in which modern cryptography is developing solutions are reviewed.

To enable a quantum computer to solve practical problems more efficiently than classical computers, quantum programming languages and compilers are required to translate quantum algorithms into machine code; here the currently available software is reviewed.

An overview of the nature and timescales of stratospheric ozone recovery and the extent to which it can currently be detected.

The 4D Nucleome Network aims to map the spatial and dynamic organization of the human and mouse genomes to gain insight into the structure and biological functions of the nucleus.

The leading proposals for converting noise-resilient quantum devices from memories to processors are compared, paying attention to the relative resource demands of each.

Proposals for demonstrating quantum supremacy, when a quantum computer supersedes any possible classical computer at a specific task, are reviewed.

Infection during pregnancy increases the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism, in offspring. Mouse studies now reveal a link between gut bacteria and atypical brain-circuit connections. See Article p.482 & Letter p.528

Identifying and imaging catalytically active sites on solid surfaces is a grand challenge for science. A microscopy technique has been developed that images 'noise' to detect active sites with nanometre-scale resolution. See Letter p.74

High-energy battery electrodes can break apart during operation. Conventional rope-and-pulley systems have inspired the development of a polymer that holds electrodes together at the molecular scale, enabling durable batteries to be made.

Quantum communication offers many advantages over classical methods, but it has been limited to sending signals across a few hundred kilometres. Two studies overcome this limitation. See Article p.43 & Letter p.70

Flies use master lists of DNA sequences from transposons to identify and silence these virus-like, genomic parasites. How the lists themselves escape the fate of their transposon targets has now been solved. See Letter p.54