Volume 559 Issue 7712, 5 July 2018

It’s time researchers got to grips with the formidable challenge of rapidly growing urbanization.

Magdalena Skipper explains what readers can expect from the journal under her stewardship.

To make cities better for people and the planet, the approach must become more systemic and pragmatic, and include the global south, says Xuemei Bai.

Airborne sensors find early signs of lethal infection.

Gene-editing molecules ride gold nanoparticles into the brain.

Youngsters take sanctuary in protected reefs in the Gulf of Mexico.

Results in Vermont suggest mandatory labelling improves reputation of GE foods.

Waterways branch in patterns similar to those of the US Southwest.

Laser-based technique offers means to manipulate molecular gases in new ways.

Knitted nylon fabric validates a model of the material’s behaviour under tension.

Red blood cells harbour key ingredients for polymerization.

Developing mice control organs’ pace of growth to ensure symmetry.

The week in science: 29 June–5 July 2018.

Early results from birth-cohort have public-health implications, as other groups use the data to investigate the microbiome and mental health.

Death rates in later life flatten out and suggest there may be no fixed limit on human longevity, countering some previous work.

Proposed science institute will focus on the Mediterranean and Middle East, regions that will be hard hit by global warming.

The James Webb Space Telescope won't launch until 2021 — and threatens to crowd out other big astronomy missions.

The practice of conducting ethically dubious research in foreign countries is under fresh scrutiny.

New techniques are providing unprecedented views into human development — and raising ethical questions.

Funders Jean Lebel and Robert McLean describe a new tool for judging the value and validity of science that attempts to improve lives.

Support from mainstream diversity initiatives would create a virtuous circle of visibility and benefit science for all, urges Jon Freeman.

Andrew Robinson admires an exploration of the agency’s highs and lows.

Chris Lowe lauds a study of vertebrates that brings us up to date with a shifting field.

Some computer scientists turn to voice-command tools to avoid the pain of typing.

Doctoral students can use writing meet-ups to overcome isolation and depression — and boost their motivation, says Karra Harrington.

Mountain erosion is thought to have sped up globally over the past few million years as the climate cooled and glaciers grew. A reassessment of the data suggests that this acceleration was limited to just a few regions.

The assembly of polymerized actin with motor proteins at DNA breaks in the nucleus supports the mobility and repair of DNA. This finding reveals a layer of regulation that helps to preserve genome integrity.

Proteins called GABA_A receptors have a pivotal role in neuronal inhibition, and are targets of several drugs. Structures of the most abundant GABA_A receptor in humans are now reported, and will aid future drug discovery.

Extended social isolation causes debilitating effects in social mammals such as humans. A study in mice shows that the gene Tac2 is upregulated throughout the brains of socially isolated animals, driving massive behavioural changes.

Einstein’s theory of gravity — the general theory of relativity — is based on the principle that all objects accelerate identically in an external gravitational field. A triple-star system provides a stringent test of this principle.

Single-cell transcriptional profiling of stem and progenitor cells in fat tissue identifies distinct cell subpopulations, one of which inhibits fat growth by signalling to neighbouring cells.

Bioengineered heart valves are a promising treatment for heart-valve disease, but often undergo mechanical failure when implanted. Computational modelling of the initial valve design has now improved their performance in sheep.

High-resolution structural studies of GPCRs have led to insights into the role of allostery in GPCR-mediated signal transduction.

Relocalization of heterochromatic double-strand breaks to the nuclear periphery in Drosophila cells occurs via directed motions driven by nuclear actin filaments and myosins activated by the Smc5/6 complex.

Polymerization of actin in the cell nucleus, promoted by the ARP2/3 complex, drives the clustering of double-strand DNA breaks into nuclear compartments where they can undergo homology-directed repair.

The cryo-electron microscopy structure of the type A GABA receptor bound to GABA and the benzodiazepine site antagonist flumazenil reveals structural mechanisms that underlie intersubunit interactions and ligand selectivity of the receptor.

The accelerations of a pulsar and a white dwarf in a three-star system differ by at most a few parts per million, providing a much improved constraint on the universality of free fall.

By infusing a ferrofluid into a microstructured matrix and applying a magnetic field, dynamic, multiscale topographical reconfigurations emerge, enabling functions such as colloidal self-assembly, switchable adhesion and friction, and biofilm removal.

The synergistic combination of copper catalysis and photoredox catalysis forms sp³ C–N bonds in a rapid, room-temperature coupling protocol with high efficiencies and regioselectivities and a broad substrate scope.

Reported acceleration of erosion in mountainous landscapes during the late Cenozoic is the result of combining thermochronology data with disparate exhumation histories, thereby converting spatial variations in erosion rates into temporal increases.

Thermobarometry and diffusion modelling in quartz crystals show that some granites may crystallize at much lower temperatures than we had thought, possibly explaining observations of cold magma storage.

Adult neurogenesis in the hippocampus confers resilience to chronic stress in mice by inhibiting the activity of mature granule cells in the ventral dentate gyrus.

Single-cell transcriptomics reveals that, in mice and humans, a population of cells in the stromal vascular fraction of adipose tissue regulates adipogenesis by suppressing adipocyte formation in a paracrine manner.

Larvae of the parasitic helminth Heligmosomoides polygyrus induce granuloma formation and a fetal-like developmental program in granuloma-associated crypts of infected adult mice.

The microRNAs miR-221 and miR-222 regulate the reprogramming of macrophages during the development of lipopolysaccharide tolerance, and increased expression of these microRNAs is associated with immunosuppression and poor prognosis in patients with sepsis.

OTULIN, which removes ubiquitin chains deposited by LUBAC, promotes LUBAC activity by preventing its auto-ubiquitination, thereby supporting normal mouse embryo development and preventing pro-inflammatory cell death in adult mice.

A new mechanism of acquired clinical resistance in two patients with acute myeloid leukaemia driven by mutant IDH2 is described, in which a second-site mutation on the wild-type allele induces therapeutic resistance to IDH2 inhibitors.

The helicase Ded1p associates with the pre-initiation complex and influences translation from near-cognate initiation codons by controlling the levels of mRNA secondary structure in 5′ untranslated regions.

Structural studies show that conserved residues in Plasmodium vivax reticulocyte-binding protein 2b determine interactions with transferrin receptor 1 that are essential for host invasion, suggesting avenues for designing vaccines that work across P. vivax strains.