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RNA sequencing of thousands of single cells located at the interface between mother and fetus in early pregnancy reveals remarkable complexity in the cell types and regulatory networks that support reproduction.
Have Neanderthals gained an unfair reputation for having led highly violent lives? A comparison of skulls of Neanderthals and prehistoric humans in Eurasia reveals no evidence of higher levels of trauma in these hominins.
A high-quality genome sequence for the mosquito Aedes aegypti has now been assembled. The sequence will enable researchers to identify genes that could be targeted to keep mosquito populations at bay.
Operationally simple chemistry enables aliphatic carbon–carbon bonds — the ‘girders’ in the framework of many organic molecules — to be prepared from widely available hydrocarbons known as alkenes.
A natural chemical reaction that occurs below the sea floor makes the amino acid tryptophan without biological input. This finding reveals a process that might have helped life on Earth to begin.
Understanding the dynamics of quantum systems far from equilibrium is one of the most pressing issues in physics. Three experiments based on ultracold atomic systems provide a major step forward.
Engineering approaches allow biological structures and behaviours to be reconstituted in vitro. A biologist and a physicist discuss the potential and limitations of this bottom-up philosophy in providing insights into complex biological processes.
A nanometre-scale mechanism has been proposed to explain how bacteria improve their grip on human cells. The findings have implications for drug discovery, and might inspire biomimetic applications such as adhesives.
External forces can make cells undergo large, irreversible deformations. It emerges that stretched mammalian cells grown in vitro can enter a state called superelasticity, in which large, reversible deformations occur.
A single-cell sequencing study reveals how different types of neuron are distributed in the brain. An analysis then demonstrates how these data can improve our understanding of neuronal functions.
The control of quantum systems offers great potential for advanced information-processing and sensing applications. An approach has been demonstrated that enables such control over the motion of mechanical oscillators.
The discovery of a mechanism that leads to cancer-therapy resistance highlights the many ways that tumour cells can adapt to survive — and reveals the limitations of categorizing patients by their gene mutations.
Protein aggregation is a characteristic of several neurodegenerative diseases. But disease-associated aggregates of the protein TDP-43 have now been shown to have a beneficial role in healthy muscle.
An analysis of data from the Gaia space observatory suggests that stars in the inner halo of the Milky Way originated in another galaxy. This galaxy is thought to have collided with the Milky Way about ten billion years ago.
During development, some synaptic connections between neurons are removed by immune cells called microglia, and others are retained. The discovery of a ‘don’t eat me’ signal that prevents excess pruning sheds light on this process.
Adult tissues must maintain themselves and regenerate after damage. But are these crucial functions mediated by dedicated populations of stem cells, or do differentiated cells adopt stem-cell-like properties according to an organ’s needs? Here, two scientists present evidence from both sides of the debate.
