Volume 572 Issue 7767, 1 August 2019

Painting Native Hawaiian culture as against modern science is a false dichotomy, explains Rosie Alegado.

Canned laughter helps people see the humour in bad jokes.

Inventories sharply underestimate the quantity of methane wafting from six large US cities.

Decades of data from the Milky Way’s black hole bear out predictions of general relativity.

A diverse array of interventions that increase longevity activate the same genes.

Lasers take ultra-accurate measurements of the gap between twin satellites more than 200 kilometres apart.

Time-honoured methods of raising vanilla orchids are friendliest for native plants.

Water droplets skitter across a surface ‘printed’ with patterns of negative charge.

The week in science: 26 July–1 August 2019.

The next UK prime minister is a controversial character — and his stance on Brexit concerns researchers.

Jo Johnson is back at the science ministry while hard-line Brexiters take leading roles.

Scientists struggle to detect the unauthorized sale of gene-edited crops whose altered DNA can mimic natural mutations.

Violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has interrupted clinical trials and forced scientists to change how they immunize people.

Labs are being encouraged to sequence their remaining samples of the devastating livestock virus — and then get rid of them for good.

Electrical stimulation has promised huge gains for people with paralysis. Now comes the hard part — getting beyond those first steps.

As scientists from myriad fields rush to perform algorithmic analyses, Google’s Patrick Riley calls for clear standards in research and reporting.

Frank Close’s chronicle of atomic physicist Klaus Fuchs and his betrayal is a gem, finds Ann Finkbeiner.

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

Researchers often find themselves coding algorithms in one programming language, only to have to rewrite them in a faster one. An up-and-coming language could be the answer.

Seven researchers from African nations discuss the career implications of developing their research at home or abroad.

A set of lymphatic vessels that wrap around the base of the mouse brain have been shown to drain fluid from the brain into the peripheral lymphatic system, and to exhibit a decline in function with ageing.

Human activities produce tiny airborne particles called aerosols. The discovery that the average impact of these aerosols on the water content of low-level clouds is minimal will lead to more-reliable models of future climate.

Organ damage is often detected late, when treatment options are limited. The use of artificial intelligence to continuously monitor a patient’s medical data can identify people at risk of imminent kidney injury.

A goal of tissue engineers is to use 3D printers to assemble living filaments into tissues that then transform into more-mature forms through predictable shape changes. A study of single living filaments provides a basis for this approach.

A fresh approach to suppressing the Asian tiger mosquito, a highly invasive species that transmits disease-causing viruses, has been used to nearly eradicate these insects from two test sites in China.

When two graphene sheets are stacked so that there is a specific angle between them, fascinating properties reminiscent of high-temperature superconductors emerge. Spectroscopy now provides insights into this behaviour.

A Review of advances in memory-editing techniques in humans suggests that these techniques are advancing beyond science fiction and could hold promise for translation into clinical practice.

Satellite data for cloud tracks downwind of major pollution sources show a relatively small global average decrease in cloud water caused by anthropogenic aerosols, invalidating claims that aerosol-induced effects contribute substantially to climate cooling.

A field trial succeeded in eliminating populations of the mosquito Aedes albopictus through inundative mass release of incompatible Wolbachia-infected males, which were also irradiated to sterilize any accidentally-released females, and so prevent population replacement.

Clearance of macromolecules from the cerebrospinal fluid in mice takes place via meningeal lymphatic vessels at the base of the skull; both drainage and the integrity of these vessels deteriorate with age.

Sequencing data from the developing cerebellum are compared with bulk sequencing data from paediatric tumours, providing insights into their potential origins and suggesting that many cerebellar tumours have their origins early in utero.

Characterization of medulloblastoma tissues using single-cell transcriptomics shows that the different molecular subtypes consist of distinct developmental phenotypes.

Cryo-electron microscopy structures of human neurotensin receptor 1 in complex with G_i1 protein and the agonist JMV449 reveal a non-canonical state that may represent an intermediate form in G-protein activation.

Number-state superpositions of the harmonic motion of a trapped beryllium ion are used to measure the oscillation frequency with quantum-enhanced sensitivity, achieving a mode-frequency uncertainty of about 10⁻⁶.

Nonlinear optical measurements in a two-dimensional electron system embedded in an optical cavity show enhanced polariton–polariton interactions in the fractional quantum Hall regime.

Scanning tunnelling spectroscopy is used to map the atomic-scale electronic structure of magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene, finding multiple signatures of electron correlations and thus providing insight into the sought-after mechanism behind superconductivity in graphene.

Scanning tunnelling spectroscopy and extended-Hubbard-model cluster calculations reveal that magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene is a strongly correlated electron system, similar to other unconventional superconductors.

The ‘Tianjic’ hybrid electronic chip combines neuroscience-oriented and computer-science-oriented approaches to artificial general intelligence, demonstrated by controlling an unmanned bicycle.

Trace-element analysis of teeth from the hominin Australopithecus africanus, dated to 2.6–2.1 million years ago, sheds light on the weaning sequence of this species and its responses to seasonal food scarcity

A deep learning approach that predicts the risk of acute kidney injury may help to identify patients at risk of health deterioration within a time window that enables early treatment.

Single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis reveals functions of lineage-specifying transcription factors underlying congenital defects in heart development.

When Lama1 was upregulated using CRISPR and a catalytically inactive Cas9 in a mouse model of congenital muscular dystrophy type 1A, apparent hindlimb paralysis, muscle fibrosis and nerve myelination defects were ameliorated in symptomatic mice.

The cyclic nucleotide-gated channel proteins CNGC2 and CNGC4 form a calcium channel in Arabidopsis; this channel is blocked by calmodulin in the resting state but is phosphorylated and activated upon pathogen attack, triggering an increase in cytosolic calcium levels.

ORBIT (origami-rotor-based imaging and tracking) is used to track the DNA rotation that results from DNA unwinding by RecBCD helicase and transcription by RNAP at a single-molecule scale and millisecond time resolution.