Volume 556 Issue 7700, 12 April 2018

New observations could help us understand discrepancies in measurements of the expansion of the Universe.

Prizes will reward outstanding scientific discovery and exceptional efforts to engage girls and young women in science.

Drug regulators and trial designs should assess benefits that actually matter to people with cancer, says Ajay Aggarwal.

While one sits bright and quiet, the other creates stars behind a dusty veil.

Goals set by the Paris climate agreement to limit warming would preserve ice during summers.

Nanostructures and a binding protein create a shell strong enough to protect a chick but soft enough for it to hatch.

Compound’s variations could spawn catalysts that favour certain chiral forms.

Patterning allows stretchy polymer to hide from heat sensors.

Formula predicts speed at which dry material soaks up water.

Marine reptiles hold onto their dinners with their paddle-like forelimbs.

Cells in two brain regions underlie maternal behaviour.

Timing of hormone fluctuations influences fat cells’ development.

The week in science: 6–12 April 2018.

China’s much-anticipated brain initiative finally starts to take shape.

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite is designed to spot planets orbiting nearby bright stars.

Pay disparities at science employers outpace national average for all firms.

The reorganization could jeopardize reliable, independent data about the island, critics say.

Physicians struggle to identify which patients are likely to respond to a recently approved therapy.

With the first detections behind them, researchers have set their sights on ambitious scientific quarry.

Legislation on the testing of self-driving cars does not address liability and safety concerns, warn Ashley Nunes, Bryan Reimer and Joseph F. Coughlin.

Anil Ananthaswamy examines Alan Lightman’s reflections on the tensions between empiricism and experience.

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

Advances in gene editing are allowing researchers to create mouse models that more closely mirror the disease in humans.

As big pharma downsizes, contract research organizations are reaping the benefits.

Work out what you really enjoy doing, and pitch your skills accordingly, says Lia Paola Zambetti.

Communication systems rely on random-number generators for the encryption of information. A method for producing truly random numbers even from untrustworthy devices could lead to improvements in security.

Researchers have demonstrated that atomically thin materials can be highly reflective, contrary to general thinking. This finding could have technological implications for nanophotonics, optoelectronics and quantum optics.

It is thought that plants sense water availability in the soil as a way of anticipating drought. The identification of a peptide expressed when water is scarce offers a chance to unravel the underlying molecular mechanism.

Evidence suggests that the circulation system of the North Atlantic Ocean is in a weakened state that is unprecedented in the past 1,600 years, but questions remain as to when exactly the decline commenced.

Cell-tracing analysis reveals that a disperse group of cells in the mouse liver express the enzyme telomerase, which preserves chromosome ends. These cells contribute to liver maintenance and regeneration.

The evolutionary history of viruses is largely unknown. Large-scale discovery of vertebrate RNA viruses shows that, although viruses often jump between hosts, most have co-evolved with their hosts over millions of years

Lithium-rich cathode materials in which manganese undergoes double redox could point the way for lithium-ion batteries to meet the capacity and energy density needs of portable electronics and electric vehicles.

A characteristic ‘fingerprint’ of sea-surface temperatures suggests that the Atlantic overturning circulation has slowed substantially since the mid-twentieth century, as predicted by climate models in response to increasing carbon dioxide emissions.

Around 200 new vertebrate-specific viruses are discovered, and every vertebrate-specific viral family known to infect mammals and birds is also present in amphibians, reptiles or fish, suggesting that evolution of vertebrate viruses mirrors that of vertebrate hosts.

A cryo-electron microscopy structure of the light-harvesting–reaction centre (LH1–RC) complex of the photosynthetic bacterium Blastochloris viridis suggests factors that underlie the large redshift in the absorption spectrum of bacteriochlorophyll in the complex and that promote quinone–quinol translocation across the LH1 ring.

The structure of the Thermochromatium tepidum calcium-ion-bound light-harvesting–reaction centre (LH1–RC) supercomplex, which performs the primary reactions of photosynthesis in purple photosynthetic bacteria, is resolved to the atomic level.

Crystal structures of the gastric proton pump in complex with two inhibitory drugs reveal the mechanism that generates the steep acidic gradient across the membranes of parietal cells.

Single-pulse radio observations of a glitch in the Vela pulsar show sudden changes in the pulse shape coincident with the glitch, indicating that the glitch could affect the pulsar’s magnetosphere.

1,024 random bits that are uniformly distributed to within 10−12 and unpredictable assuming the impossibility of superluminal communication are generated and certified using a loophole-free Bell test.

Palaeoclimate records show that the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation weakened substantially at the end of the Little Ice Age, probably in response to enhanced freshwater fluxes from the Arctic and Nordic seas.

Analysis of changes in plant species richness on mountain summits over the past 145 years suggests that increased climatic warming has led to an acceleration in species richness increase.

In an Arabidopsis model, the CLE25 peptide acts as a root-to-shoot signalling molecule that modulates abscisic acid expression to close stomata and enhance resistance to dehydration.

A tissue culture system that provides an increasing intensity of electromechanical stimulation over time enables an in vitro model of cardiac tissue derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells to develop many of the characteristics of adult cardiac tissue.

A population of hepatocytes expressing high levels of telomerase are distributed throughout the liver and regenerate the liver during homeostasis and after injury.

The glycolytic enzyme PFKFB4 directly phosphorylates and regulates binding of the coactivator SRC-3 to ATF4 and thereby increases the transcriptional activity of this complex, leading to increased expression of metabolic genes, and enhancing tumour growth and metastasis.

Analysis of viral samples from deceased piglets shows that a bat coronavirus was responsible for an outbreak of fatal disease in China and highlights the importance of the identification of coronavirus diversity and distribution in bats in order to mitigate future outbreaks of disease.