Volume 534 Issue 7605, 2 June 2016

The United States is overhauling its chemicals law; now it must tackle carbon emissions.

Our fascination with telescopes and the worlds they reveal spreads beyond science into culture.

The establishment of an agency in Indonesia that will support 'frontier research' is a welcome development, argues Dyna Rochmyaningsih.

Good grades for international nuclear-fusion project; EU ministers lend support to open-access movement; and US study raises doubts about mobile-phone safety.

Satellites and research aeroplanes could offer a better, broader view of coral health.

Biology's big funders announce investment will continue to 2022.

Launch in July will test new way to explore the Solar System — and beyond.

The Department of Energy says the US should fund ITER until 2018, and then re-evaluate its progress.

A computer cracks the Boolean Pythagorean triples problem — but is it really maths?

A rare bipartisan compromise endorsed by industry and the White House will give the US government new authority to ensure that chemicals are safe.

The Asian nation is spending big in the hope of winning a Nobel prize, but it will need more than cash to realize its ambitions.

Mathematician Lydia Bourouiba uses high-speed video to break down the anatomy of sneezes and coughs — and to understand infectious disease.

John L. Tucker and Margaret M. Faul describe how they transformed their company to save time and money by making drugs sustainably.

The marine arm of UNESCO's World Heritage Convention needs secure funding to realize its vast potential to protect the ocean, argues Fanny Douvere.

Bernie Fanaroff surveys a study that probes telescopes in history and across the electromagnetic spectrum.

Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week's best science picks.

Ann Finkbeiner delves into a collection reappraising the hippy tech-heads, agronomic groovers and far-out ecodesigners of the 'long 1970s'.

Condensed-matter physicist who revolutionized quantum chemistry.

The Sputnik Planum basin of Pluto contains a sheet of nitrogen ice, the surface of which is divided into irregular polygons tens of kilometres across. Two studies reveal that vigorous convection causes these polygons. See Letters p.79 & 82

The finding that antibiotics are pumped out of drug-tolerant bacterial cells by the TolC protein complex provides insight into how some cells, known as persisters, survive in the face of antibiotic treatments.

In photosynthesis, the plant photosystem II uses the energy in sunlight to oxidize water. The high-resolution structure of this crucial supercomplex has now been obtained using cryo-electron microscopy. See Article p.69

The finding of 175,000-year-old structures deep inside a cave in France suggests that Neanderthals ventured underground and were responsible for some of the earliest constructions made by hominins. See Letter p.111

Measurements of the electrical resistance and thermal conductivity of iron at extreme pressures and temperatures cast fresh light on controversial numerical simulations of the properties of Earth's outer core. See Letters p.95 & 99

Whole-genome sequencing of tumours from 560 breast cancer cases provides a comprehensive genome-wide view of recurrent somatic mutations and mutation frequencies across both protein coding and non-coding regions; several mutational signatures in these cancer genomes are associated with BRCA1 or BRCA2 function and defective homologous-recombination-based DNA repair.

Quantitative mass-spectrometry-based proteomic and phosphoproteomic analyses of genomically annotated human breast cancer samples elucidates functional consequences of somatic mutations, narrows candidate nominations for driver genes within large deletions and amplified regions, and identifies potential therapeutic targets.

X-ray crystallography, single-particle electron cryomicroscopy and electrophysiology were used to study the conformational changes that take place during the activation and inhibition of a mammalian GluN1b–GluN2B N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor.

A high-resolution structural study sheds light on processes of energy transfer within the photosynthetic water-splitting machinery of plants.

A sustained, neutral wind from the outer accretion disk is observed in the transient black hole V404 Cygni during a violent outburst; this unusual wind, which expands at one per cent of the speed of light and triggers a nebular phase once accretion drops sharply and the ejecta become optically thin, probably regulates the outburst evolution of the black hole.

A parameterized convection model and observations of the puzzling polygons of the Sputnik Planum region of Pluto are used to compute the Rayleigh number of its nitrogen ice and show that it is vigorously convecting, kilometres thick and about a million years old.

The volatile-ice-filled basin informally named Sputnik Planum is central to Pluto’s geological activity; this ice layer is organized into cells or polygons, and it is now shown that convective overturn in a several-kilometre-thick layer of solid nitrogen can explain both the presence of the cells and their great width.

Petahertz-bandwidth metrology is demonstrated in the measurement of nonlinear polarization in silica.

The evaporation and atmospheric oxidation of low-volatility organic vapours from mined oil sands material is shown to be responsible for a large amount of secondary organic aerosol mass—which affects air quality and climate change—observed during airborne measurements in Canada.

Using a laser-heated diamond-anvil cell to measure the electrical resistivity of iron under the high temperature and pressure conditions of the Earth’s core yields a value that means Earth’s core has high thermal conductivity, suggesting that its inner core is less than 0.7 billion years old, much younger than thought.

The thermal conductivity of solid iron at the pressure and temperature conditions that prevail in the cores of planets is measured directly using a dynamically laser-heated diamond-anvil cell, yielding values that support findings from ancient magnetized rocks that suggest Earth’s magnetic field has persisted since the Earth’s earliest history.

The mutation responsible for the black carbonaria morph of the peppered moth is identified as a transposable element within the cortex gene.

Wing colour patterning of multiple species in the butterfly genus Heliconius is controlled by differential expression of the gene cortex, a member of a conserved family of cell cycle regulators.

Two ring-like structures made of low walls of broken stalagmite pieces, deep in a cave in France, are described and dated to around 176,000 years ago, suggesting human-made construction within the period of early Neanderthals, although the function of the structures remains conjectural.

A similar neural ensemble participates in the encoding of two distinct memories, resulting in the recall of one memory increasing the likelihood of recalling the other, but only if those memories occur very closely in time—within a day rather than across a week.

The transcription factor Pitx2 is upregulated in injured neonatal and Hippo-deficient mouse hearts, where it interacts with the Hippo effector protein Yap to activate reactive oxygen species scavengers, thus preventing the heart from oxidative damage.

The activation of lipid X receptors (LXRs) in mouse liver not only promotes cholesterol efflux but also inhibits cholesterol synthesis simultaneously; this is mediated by the lipid-responsive long non-coding RNA LeXis, which is induced by a Western diet and orchestrates crosstalk between LXRs and the cholesterol biosynthetic pathway.

An allosteric inhibitor, EAI045, is reported that is selective for certain drug-resistant EGFR mutants, but spares the wild-type receptor; combination therapy of EAI045 with EGFR-dimerization-blocking antibodies is effective in mouse models of lung cancer driven by mutant versions of EGFR that are resistant to all previously developed inhibitors.

The cryo-electron microscopy structures of yeast nucleoplasmic pre-60S ribosomal particles give insight into the function of multiple assembly factors in ribosome biogenesis.

Archivists are borrowing and adapting techniques used in criminal investigations to access data and files created in now-obsolete systems.

You can keep spirits up when the research doldrums hit.

An Arab scientist in Israel has global reach.

Be prepared.