Volume 568 Issue 7750, 4 April 2019

The disastrous process of leaving the European Union is creating casualties of science and communities.

US$112.5-million settlement concerning fraudulent data is a casualty of a culture that prizes impact over robustness, says Arturo Casadevall.

An extra ingredient reroutes reaction, creating a sturdy plastic instead of a sticky liquid.

Vortex extends deep into the atmosphere of the blue planet.

Researchers have finally identified a reliable way to edit the genes of blood stem cells.

Ice absorbs near-infrared light more efficiently than does water, triggering the formation of intricate patterns.

Amphibians can burrow to depths of more than 1.5 metres in the damp sand underlying dry waterways.

Ancient city’s streets are paved with volcanic rock, studded with hundreds of repairs.

Infectious bacteria extend a homegrown tube to tap nutrients in nearby human cells.

The week in science: 29 March–4 April 2019.

Reforms made by the military junta mean science is likely to remain a priority for whoever forms a government.

Researchers from the isolated state get a chance to study neuroscience at prestigious institution.

Top EPA adviser attacks agency decision-making ahead of major review of air pollution standards.

Detailed data on space-time ripples are set to pour in from LIGO and Virgo’s upgraded detectors.

Reports allege that environmental researchers on trial for spying are being denied legal rights.

Scientists are optimistic that innovative techniques can pinpoint the true origin of timber.

Decades after weapons testing stopped, researchers are still struggling to decipher the health impacts of radiation exposure around Semipalatinsk.

Plans to triple the area of plantations will not meet 1.5 °C climate goals. New natural forests can, argue Simon L. Lewis, Charlotte E. Wheeler and colleagues.

Li Gong lauds a study of software developers and their intricate work.

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

Anil Ananthaswamy savours a history of the mathematics used to track changes in everything from DNA to machine learning.

Geochemist who transformed understanding of the climate system.

Hard-drive failures are inevitable, but data loss doesn’t have to be.

Three researchers share lessons they’ve learnt from presenting at TED conferences.

Speak up early when misunderstandings arise, says Jamie Sugrue, or risk their snowballing into something you never prepared for.

A spectroscopic imaging method has reached a resolution 1,000 times better than the limits of standard optical imaging techniques — and reveals vibrational modes of molecules previously seen only in computational models.

Experiments have revealed an attractive interaction between pairs of particles that is mediated by a surrounding quantum gas. The finding paves the way for a detailed study of the properties of such mediated interactions.

A detailed biological assessment of Africa’s highest mountain explores how climate modulates the effects of human land use on plants, animals, microorganisms and a diverse array of ecosystem functions.

A microorganism that consumes ethane in the absence of environmental oxygen has been discovered. In the depths of the sea, this microbe, which oxidizes ethane, partners with another that reduces sulfate to sulfide.

DNA analysis and microscopy reveal a third organism in the symbiosis that forms coral. The finding underscores the functional and evolutionary complexity of the symbiotic relationships that support many ecosystems.

The authors systematically characterize structural variation in the genomes of gut microbiota and show that they are associated with bacterial fitness and with host risk factors, and that examining genes coded in these regions facilitates investigation of mechanisms that may underlie these associations.

Optical reconstruction of chromatin architecture and multiplex RNA labelling traces the DNA path in single cells and its relationship to transcription.

Observations of asteroid (101955) Bennu with NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft reveal an unexpected surficial diversity that poses a challenge to the success of the sample-return mission.

Embedding a Bose–Einstein condensate of caesium atoms in a degenerate Fermi gas of lithium atoms gives rise to fermion-mediated attractive boson–boson interactions, which can lead to the formation of a train of Bose–Fermi solitons.

A cavity optomechanical scheme produces robust nonreciprocal coupling between phononic resonators and is used to control the resonators’ thermal fluctuations.

Ultraclean van der Waals bonds between gold-capped indium and a monolayer of the two-dimensional transition-metal dichalcogenide molybdenum disulfide show desirably low contact resistance at the interface, enabling high-performance field-effect transistors.

Simulation and measurement of the photoionization of atomic hydrogen at attosecond resolution confirm that the tunnelling of the ejected electron is instantaneous.

The vibrational normal modes in a single molecule are imaged using tip-enhanced Raman spectromicroscopy performed in the atomistic near-field.

A reduced gradient in temperatures between low and high latitudes during the Holocene led to drier mid-latitudes.

Elevational trends in biodiversity and ecosystem functions across natural and anthropogenic habitats on Mount Kilimanjaro show that the effects of land use are strongly mediated by climate.

Sodium appetite in mice is driven by a neural circuit that is focused on neurons of the pre-locus coeruleus and integrates the sensory detection of sodium and internal signals.

Drinking behaviour in mice is regulated by a signal derived from the water and salt content of the gastrointestinal tract that is transmitted to forebrain neurons that control thirst via the vagus nerve.

A newly identified lineage of apicomplexans, named corallicolids, are intracellular symbionts of many coral species, and possesses a plastid that retains genes for chlorophyll biosynthesis despite lacking photosystem genes.

An archaeon, ‘Candidatus Argoarchaeum ethanivorans’, which is involved in the oxidation of ethane observed in anoxic marine habitats, is identified and metabolically characterized.

Chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) promote antigen loss in tumour cells by trogocytosis, which results in T cell fratricide killing and exhaustion but can be counteracted by cooperative killing and combinatorial targeting.

Exogenous pyruvate is needed for breast cancer cells to form metastases, and the inhibition of pyruvate metabolism impairs collagen hydroxylation and the growth of lung metastases in different mouse models.

Enzymatic catalysis of pericyclic [6+4] cycloaddition reactions to form ten-membered rings is observed during biosynthesis of the macrocyclic antibiotic streptoseomycin, and the mechanism of these transformations is established.

The cryo-EM structure of the LAT1–4F2hc complex, a heteromeric amino acid transporter, is characterized, providing insights into its function and the mechanisms through which mutations of this complex could cause disease.