Volume 521 Issue 7551, 14 May 2015

A European initiative to ban animal research has galvanized resistance.

The UK voter opinion polls show that an anomalous answer can be the correct one.

The use of genome-modification tools in wild species must be properly governed to avoid irreversible damage to ecosystems, says Jeantine Lunshof.

Studies about mysterious signals and super-strong spider silk triggered online chatter.

The week in science: first Arab mission to Mars; guidance on disease-naming without offence; and atmospheric carbon dioxide passes a symbolic threshold.

Geologists say hazard posed by earthquake-loosened earth could linger for years.

A surprise Conservative majority and the rise of the Scottish National Party have implications for research policy.

Aeroplane detects signature spike in photons that does not fit any known source of antiparticles.

DNA from microbes living on the human body can be used to identify individuals.

Health agency’s annual meeting will address shortcomings in outbreak response highlighted by West Africa crisis.

States begin to permit field tests of transgenic plants.

A special issue explores the enormous potential and major challenges for research in south Asia's superpower.

Highs and lows in the country’s research landscape.

Despite great strides in some areas of research and development, the nation still has a long way to go.

K. VijayRaghavan is determined to cut through red tape and build up biological science in India.

Ten Indian research leaders give their prescriptions, from better funding, facilities, mentoring and education to greater respect, fairness, autonomy and confidence.

Address the needs of poor and rural households, target subsidies and support low-carbon industries, urge Arunabha Ghosh and Karthik Ganesan.

Tim Radford revels in Oliver Sacks's memoir of his youth as a biker, druggie, muscle-builder — and scientist.

John Gilbey delights in a vast, technologically charged tale from a science-fiction supremo at the top of his game.

Alison Abbott encounters the discoveries of Renaissance anatomist Andreas Vesalius.

For most galaxies, the shutdown of star formation was a slow process that took 4 billion years. An analysis of some 27,000 galaxies suggests that 'strangulation' by their environment was the most likely cause. See Letter p.192

An analysis reveals that fruit-fly neurons orient flies relative to cues in the insects' environment, providing evidence that the fly's brain contains a key component for drawing a cognitive map of the insect's surroundings. See Article p.186

Optical pulses have previously been used to place the electrons in the beam of an electron microscope into well-defined energy states. These electrons can now be put in a quantum superposition of those states. See Letter p.200

A compound derived from plant cell-wall material that is a waste product of biofuel manufacture has been found to have fungicidal properties: it interacts with a carbohydrate called β1,3 glucan, thus compromising the integrity of fungal cells.

A new archaeal phylum represents the closest known relatives of eukaryotes, the group encompassing all organisms that have nucleated cells. The discovery holds promise for a better understanding of eukaryotic origins. See Article p.173

Two new techniques identify proteins that directly interact with a non-protein-coding RNA called Xist to mediate inactivation of one X chromosome in female mammals. See Letter p.232

This study identifies a clade of archaea that is the immediate sister group of eukaryotes in phylogenetic analyses, and that also has a repertoire of proteins otherwise characteristic of eukaryotes—proteins that would have provided the first eukaryotes with a ‘starter kit’ for the genomic and cellular complexity characteristic of the eukaryotic cell.

Cell-type-specific electrical activity manipulations and deep-brain imaging in mice of neuronal populations associated with homeostasis of nutrient or fluid intake reveals that learning is conditioned by a negative-valence signal from the hunger-mediating AGRP neurons and also from the thirst-mediating neurons in the subfornical organ.

Calcium imaging of the brain of tethered flies walking in a virtual reality arena showed that a population of neurons with dendrites that tile the ‘ellipsoid body’ use information from visual landmarks and the fly's own rotation to compute heading; this suggests insects possess neurons with similarities to ‘head direction cells’ known to contribute to spatial navigation in mammalian brains.

An analysis of the stellar metallicity of local galaxies reveals that strangulation (halting of cold gas supply) rather than sudden removal of gas (through outflows or stripping) is the primary mechanism responsible for the quenching of star formation.

Evidence is presented for electron pairing in strontium titanate far above the superconducting transition temperature; such pairs are thought to be the long-sought pre-formed pairs that condense at lower temperatures to give rise to the unconventional superconducting state in this system.

The coherent manipulation of electron quantum states using light, commonly employed in atoms and molecules, is extended to the case of free electron beams using ultrafast transmission electron microscopy; this approach may enable a range of applications in ultrafast electron imaging and spectroscopy down to attosecond precision.

Particulate organic carbon export from the terrestrial biosphere is primarily controlled by physical erosion, and tectonic and climatic forcing of physical erosion may favour biospheric particulate organic carbon sequestration over silicate weathering as a long-term atmospheric carbon dioxide sink.

A multi-omics approach, integrating metagenomics, metatranscriptomics and metaproteomics, determines the phylogenetic composition of the microbial community and assesses its functional potential and activity along a thaw transition from intact permafrost to thermokast bog.

In Arabidopsis thaliana, pathogen-secreted proteases trigger a previously unknown defence response involving heterotrimeric G-protein complexes upstream of a mitogen-activated protein kinase cascade.

D’Arcy Thompson predicted a century ago that animal body shape is conditioned by gravity, but there has been no animal model to study how cellular forces are coordinated to generate body shapes that withstand gravity; the hirame medaka fish mutant, with pronounced body flattening, reveals how the hirame/YAP gene controls gravity-resisting cellular forces to produce complex 3D organs and body shapes.

A proof-of-concept phase I clinical trial demonstrates that targeting interleukin (IL)-23 with an antibody that binds to the p19 subunit leads to clinical improvement of disease in patients with moderate to severe psoriasis.

HIV-1 integration into the host cell genome occurs in the outer shell of the nucleus in close correspondence with the nuclear pore, in which a series of cellular genes are preferentially targeted by the virus.

The mechanisms by which Xist, a long non-coding RNA, silences one X chromosome in female mammals are unknown; here a mass spectrometry-based approach is developed to identify several proteins that interact directly with Xist, including the transcriptional repressor SHARP that is required for transcriptional silencing through the histone deacetylase HDAC3.

Electron cryomicroscopy of a complete mitochondrial ATP-synthase dimer reveals the elusive structure of the essential a-subunit.

Electron cryomicroscopy shows structures of three distinct rotational states of the V-ATPase from Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Contract teaching positions are becoming the norm for many aspiring professors. Know how to make the best out of them.

Lost vision.

Colorectal cancer occurs throughout the world but is most common in developed countries. As heavily populated countries such as China undergo rapid economic development, the incidence of the disease looks set to increase. An animated version of this infographic is at go.nature.com/wgiqvp. By David Holmes.

Scientists are developing an array of choices for screening colorectal cancer, but patients often choose to go without.

Drugs, lifestyle changes and other measures might lower the risk of colorectal cancer — but the evidence is a long time coming.

Oncologist Victor Velculescu, co-director of cancer biology at the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in Baltimore, Maryland, describes how circulating tumour DNA can be used to improve the detection and treatment of colorectal cancer.

Gut bacteria have an important but elusive role in the formation of colorectal cancer.

Doctors face a maze of drug options and genetic markers to find the right treatment for people with advanced colorectal cancer.

In 2009, Hans Clevers and Toshiro Sato (then a postdoc in Clevers' lab) demonstrated a powerful new model to study development and disease: a three-dimensional 'organoid' derived from adult stem cells that replicates the structure of cells lining the intestine. More than 100 labs worldwide are now working with different types of organoid to study cancer and other diseases. Clevers, at the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht, the Netherlands, discusses the potential of this approach.

Research is attacking colorectal cancer on many fronts, with varying degrees of success. But solving these five central puzzles is likely to be crucial.

Colorectal cancer is the world's fourth most deadly cancer, killing almost 700,000 people every year. And it is expected to become more common as more people adopt Western diets and lifestyles, which are implicated as risk factors. But research into screening, prevention and treatments is helping to fight the disease.