Volume 549 Issue 7672, 21 September 2017

Monuments to the ‘father of gynaecology’ cannot be defended as historical documents because they hide grave injustices, says Harriet A. Washington.

The week in science: 15–21 September 2017.

Researchers who worked with Florian Jaeger have filed a complaint with the US government after the university cleared his name.

Errors in past studies could undermine conservation plans.

Data from spacecraft could help determine the age of Saturn's rings and the persistence of its magnetic field.

Controversy over vessel's name may impede oceanographic collaboration.

Modelled on big physics projects, the International Brain Lab will bring together some of the world’s pre-eminent neuroscientists to probe a single behaviour.

Networks of nanotubes may allow cells to share everything from infections and cancer to dementia-linked proteins.

Treating cancer with the latest drugs and techniques is costly and will not improve survival globally, warn Richard Sullivan, C. S. Pramesh and Christopher M. Booth.

Stretchable sensors, circuits and batteries are about to change our relationships with electronics and each other, explain Bryant Chu and colleagues.

Robert P. Crease applauds the third volume of a thrilling guide to a special pursuit.

Maria Konnikova detects the fictional sleuth's inner researcher, 130 years on from his 'birth'.

The idea of nanometre-scale machines that can assemble molecules has long been thought of as the stuff of science fiction. Such a machine has now been built — and might herald a new model for organic synthesis. See Letter p.374

Some versions of the MC1R protein are associated with red hair and an increased risk of developing a skin cancer called melanoma. It emerges that a lipid that binds MC1R might provide a target to reduce this risk. See Letter p.399

Organic materials are potential substitutes for the costly transition-metal oxides used in battery electrodes, but their stability is often poor. A polymer design that uses intermolecular interactions solves this problem.

Mutations in embryonic blood-cell precursors called erythro-myeloid progenitors cause abnormal activation of their descendants — immune cells called microglia — leading to neurodegeneration in mice. See Letter p.389

3D printing could revolutionize manufacturing processes involving metals, but few industrially useful alloys are compatible with the technique. A method has been developed that might open up the 3D printing of all metals. See Letter p.365

Live imaging reveals that whether or not a daughter cell proliferates is influenced by two molecular factors inherited from its mother, providing insight into how the behaviour of a newly born cell can be predetermined. See Letter p.404

A rabies virus-based monosynaptic tracing method is used to show that the external globus pallidus plays a critical role in cocaine-induced behavioural plasticity.

Neuromedin receptor NMUR1 is specifically expressed by a subpopulation of type 2 innate lymphoid cells and promotes the inflammatory response of these cells in response to allergens, indicating the importance of neuro-immune crosstalk in allergic responses.

Analysis based on high-resolution observations from the Hubble Space Telescope shows that the asteroid 288P is a binary main-belt comet, with properties unlike any known binary asteroid.

Various fractional quantum Hall phases are observed in a new generation of bilayer-graphene-based van der Waals heterostructures, including an even-denominator state predicted to harbour non-Abelian anyons.

Zirconium nanoparticles introduced into aluminium alloy powders control solidification during 3D printing, enabling the production of crack-free materials with strengths comparable to the corresponding wrought material.

Electrochemical actuators based on exfoliated and restacked metallic MoS₂ nanosheet electrodes can generate mechanical force in electrolyte solution on intercalation and deintercalation of ions.

A molecular machine that can be programmed to position a substrate at one of two directing sites on a molecule, which control the stereochemistry of addition to the substrate, demonstrates complexity, precision and function previously only observed in nature.

WebComparing the whole genome sequence of Apostasia shenzhenica with transcriptome and genome data from five orchid subfamilies permits the reconstruction of an ancestral gene toolkit, providing insight into orchid origins, evolution and diversification.

Surface diffusion of AMPA receptors, from extra-synaptic to synaptic sites at the plasma membrane, is essential for full long-term potentiation in hippocampal neurons and for fear conditioning in living mice.

Braf ^V600E expression in resident macrophage progenitors leads to clonal expansion of ERK-activated microglia, which causes synaptic and neuronal loss in the brain and results in lethal neurodegenerative disease in adult mice.

A molecular mechanism for the sensitive detection of long and U-turn DNA by cyclic GMP–AMP synthase (cGAS) both in vitro and in human cells.

The protein modification palmitoylation increases the ability of variant forms of the melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R) to induce pigmentation, and this is linked to reduced development of melanomas.

Mother cells transmit mitogen-induced CCND1 mRNA and DNA damage-induced p53 protein to newly born daughter cells, where synthesized cyclin D1 and the p53-regulated CDK inhibitor p21 directly compete to decide between proliferation and quiescence.

Combining ancestral protein reconstruction with deep mutational scanning to characterize alternative histories in the sequence space around an ancient transcription factor reveals hundreds of alternative protein sequences that use diverse biochemical mechanisms to perform the derived function at least as well as the historical outcome.

The cryo-electron microscopy structure of the ten-subunit human transcription factor IIH, revealing the molecular architecture of the TFIIH core complex, the detailed structures of its constituent XPB and XPD ATPases, and how the core and kinase subcomplexes of TFIIH are connected.

Old photos, logbooks and papers are a gold mine for fields such as ecology and climatology.

It's in your make-up.

The political, cultural and scientific capital of the world's most populous nation is on the hunt for global talent.