Volume 574 Issue 7776, 3 October 2019

Parental guidance

The cover shows a strawberry poison frog (Oophaga pumilio), a species found in Central America that displays a range of different skin colours. In this week’s issue, Yusan Yang and her colleagues reveal how maternal influence shapes both mating preferences and male competition among these frogs — and how this can potentially drive the formation of new species. In imprinting, offspring learn traits from their parents that later in life help to shape their behaviours. The researchers found that among the frogs, female offspring preferred to mate with male frogs that were the same colour as their mother. Similarly, males are more aggressive towards males that are the same colour as their mother. The overall result, the teams suggests, is that this is likely to reduce gene flow between frogs that bear divergent mating traits, thereby setting the stage for speciation to occur by sexual selection.

Cover image: Chris Stenger/Minden Pictures/FLPA

This Week

Editorial

Editorial | 01 October 2019

The Chinese Academy of Sciences at 70

Over the past few decades, the academy’s investments have made it one of the world’s richest. Could its financial autonomy be a model for others?
Editorial | 01 October 2019

A kinder research culture is possible

Wellcome is right to call out hyper-competitiveness in research and question the focus on excellence. But other funders must follow its move.
Editorial | 02 October 2019

Let fishers in Africa and Asia keep more of their catches

Fish farms are depriving children of essential micronutrients.

World View

World View | 01 October 2019

We are all complicit in harassment and abuse

To combat bad behaviour, researchers must collectively create ways to take responsibility, says Virginia Valian.
- Virginia Valian

Research Highlights

Research Highlight | 27 September 2019

Catastrophic landslides had a surprising cause: rice farming

Crop irrigation saturated soil, helping to set off Indonesian slides that killed thousands of people.
Research Highlight | 25 September 2019

Bones reveal a jumbo crocodile hiding in plain sight

Analysis reveals that specimens of New Guinean freshwater crocodile belong to two species rather than one.
Research Highlight | 24 September 2019

The child’s toy that helps to make valuable electronic circuits

Balloon technique throws circuit manufacturers a curve.
Research Highlight | 25 September 2019

Why minnows offer hope in battling ‘stomach flu’ virus

Small and easy to keep, zebrafish larvae provide a useful system for studying norovirus.
Research Highlight | 27 September 2019

Staid to showy: galaxies undergo ultra-quick makeovers

Sedate objects ‘change their look’ after the abrupt awakening of their black holes.
Research Highlight | 24 September 2019

Cats truly bond to their people

A test shows that a majority of felines are well attached to their caregivers.
Research Highlight | 25 September 2019

Maths tackles an eternal question: where to park?

Two strategies for choosing a parking spot save far more time than a third, according to researchers’ estimates.

Seven Days

Seven Days | 02 October 2019

Telescope windfall, genius grants and Arctic ice loss

The week in science: 27 September–3 October 2019.

News in Focus

News

News | 24 September 2019

How US sanctions are crippling science in Iran

Besieged researchers say that currency collapse, scientific isolation and psychological strain are hindering almost every aspect of their work.
- Declan Butler
News | 24 September 2019

CRISPR might be the banana’s only hope against a deadly fungus

Researchers are using the gene-editing tool to boost the fruit’s defences and prevent the extinction of a major commercial variety.
- Amy Maxmen
Collection:
- Genome Editing
News | 01 October 2019

India pushes for alternatives to animals in biomedical research

Organs-on-a-chip and other technologies are becoming reliable models for testing drug efficacy and toxicity.
- Gayathri Vaidyanathan
News | 24 September 2019

Gigantic Chinese telescope opens to astronomers worldwide

FAST has superior sensitivity to detect cosmic phenomena, including fast radio bursts and pulsars.
- Elizabeth Gibney
News | 25 September 2019

World’s oceans are losing power to stall climate change

United Nations report predicts more powerful storms, increased risk of flooding and dwindling fisheries if greenhouse-gas output doesn’t fall.
- Jeff Tollefson

Features

News Feature | 02 October 2019

Beyond quantum supremacy: the hunt for useful quantum computers

Researchers search for ways to put today’s small noisy quantum systems to work.
- Michael Brooks
News Feature | 02 October 2019

Quantum gold rush: the private funding pouring into quantum start-ups

A Nature analysis explores the investors betting on quantum technology.
- Elizabeth Gibney

Opinion

Comment

Comment | 01 October 2019

China: How science made a superpower

Shellen Wu traces the rise of the dominant force in science, in the second of a series of essays on the ways in which the past 150 years have shaped today’s research system, marking Nature’s anniversary.
- Shellen Wu
Collection:
- Essay series: Lessons from 150 years of science
Comment | 01 October 2019

Face masks could raise pollution risks

People can get a false sense of security from flimsy gauze, and linger too long outdoors in toxic air, argue Wei Huang and Lidia Morawska.
- Wei Huang
- & Lidia Morawska

Books & Arts

Books & Arts | 02 October 2019

Raging robots, hapless humans: the AI dystopia

Stuart Russell’s latest book examines how artificial intelligence could spin out of control. David Leslie critiques it.
- David Leslie
Books & Arts | 01 October 2019

Menopause: life after reproduction

Julia Prague investigates a book that draws on evolutionary theories to explore post-reproductive strategies in society.
- Julia Prague
Books & Arts | 02 October 2019

Fighting for food, penguin sex, and sewers on display: Books in brief

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

Opinion

Correspondence

Correspondence | 01 October 2019

Could offshore groundwater rescue coastal cities?
- Christian Berndt
- & Aaron Micallef
Correspondence | 01 October 2019

Ousting a condition’s odious moniker
- Eric Altschuler
- , M. Talha Kaner
- & Monir Mohar
Correspondence | 01 October 2019

Early US immigrants were tested for cognitive impairment, not IQ
- Steve Blinkhorn
Correspondence | 01 October 2019

Darwin and Nature’s 150th anniversary
- Yongsheng Liu
Correspondence | 01 October 2019

Giant fish bucks population decline
- João Vitor Campos-Silva

Work

Toolbox

Toolbox | 30 September 2019

Deep learning powers a motion-tracking revolution

A surge in the development of artificial-intelligence technology is driving a new wave of open-source tools for analysing animal behaviour and posture.
- Roberta Kwok
Collection:
- NatureTech

News

Career News | 25 September 2019

Funders pledge career support for UK researchers

Agreement between funding agencies, universities and other stakeholders builds on an earlier document to address new concerns and challenges in science.
- Chris Woolston
Collection:
- Funding science

Feature

Career Feature | 01 October 2019

Four ways scientists band together outside the lab

Social networking tools, opportunities to share resources and creatively capitalizing on regional differences can give researchers an edge.
- Tracy Staedter
Collection:
- Life in the lab

Futures

Futures | 02 October 2019

You will remember this

Can you pass the test?
- Justen Russell

Research

News & Views

News & Views | 02 October 2019

Leapfrog to speciation boosted by mother’s influence

It has now been found that mothers of a species of frog affect the behaviour of their offspring — influencing female mating preferences and aggression between males. Such behaviours might lead to the formation of new species.
- Machteld Verzijden
News & Views | 02 October 2019

Two-dimensional semiconductors host high-temperature exotic state

The phenomenon of Bose–Einstein condensation is typically limited to extremely low temperatures. The effect has now been spotted at much higher temperatures for particles called excitons in atomically thin semiconductors.
- Andrey Chaves
- & David Neilson
News & Views | 25 September 2019

How the global fish market contributes to human micronutrient deficiencies

Analysis of the nutrient composition of fish caught around the globe reveals locations where the retention of fish for consumption by local populations could help to tackle human disease caused by nutrient deficiencies.
- Daniel Pauly
News & Views | 02 October 2019

Double-click enables synthesis of chemical libraries for drug discovery

Operationally simple chemical reactions, termed click reactions, are widely used in many scientific fields. A streamlined synthesis of compounds called azides looks set to expand the role of click chemistry still further.
- Joseph J. Topczewski
- & En-Chih Liu
News & Views | 18 September 2019

Flies’ colour preferences depend on the time of day

Behavioural and genetic experiments have revealed that fruit flies prefer green light over other colours in the morning and evening, and always avoid blue. These colour preferences rely on different mechanisms.
- Charlotte Helfrich-Förster

Matters Arising

Matters Arising | 02 October 2019

One neuron versus deep learning in aftershock prediction
- Arnaud Mignan
- & Marco Broccardo
Matters Arising | 02 October 2019

Reply to: One neuron versus deep learning in aftershock prediction
- Brendan J. Meade

Reviews

Review Article | 02 October 2019

Harnessing innate immunity in cancer therapy

The authors review recent developments in our understanding of the antitumour effects of the innate immune system and how this system could be harnessed in the clinic.
- Olivier Demaria
- , Stéphanie Cornen
- & Eric Vivier

Articles

Article | 18 September 2019

FPR1 is the plague receptor on host immune cells

The receptor FPR1 on human immune cells interacts with Yersinia pestis, mutations in this receptor provide resistance against plague in humans and Fpr1 deficiency enhances survival in mice.
- Patrick Osei-Owusu
- , Thomas M. Charlton
- & Olaf Schneewind
Article | 25 September 2019

Treatment of type 2 diabetes with the designer cytokine IC7Fc

The chimeric cytokine IC7Fc combines the beneficial effects of the cytokines IL-6 and CNTF on weight loss and metabolism in mice, with no obvious side effects in mice and non-human primates.
- Maria Findeisen
- , Tamara L. Allen
- & Mark A. Febbraio

Letters

Letter | 02 October 2019

Two major accretion epochs in M31 from two distinct populations of globular clusters

There are two distinct kinematic populations of globular clusters in Messier 31 (M31, the Andromeda galaxy) with rotation axes perpendicular to each other, suggesting that they arose from merger events separated by billions of years.
- Dougal Mackey
- , Geraint F. Lewis
- & Zhen Wan
Letter | 23 September 2019

Constraints on the superconducting order parameter in Sr₂RuO₄ from oxygen-17 nuclear magnetic resonance

¹⁷O nuclear magnetic resonance measurements on Sr₂RuO₄ reveal a drop of the Knight shift in the superconducting state, contradicting previous work and imposing tight constraints on the order parameter symmetry of the system.
- A. Pustogow
- , Yongkang Luo
- & S. E. Brown
Letter | 02 October 2019

Evidence of high-temperature exciton condensation in two-dimensional atomic double layers

Condensation of interlayer excitons at temperatures above 100 kelvin is demonstrated in a van der Waals heterostructure consisting of two-dimensional atomic double layers of transition metal chalcogenides.
- Zefang Wang
- , Daniel A. Rhodes
- & Kin Fai Mak
Letter | 25 September 2019

PdMo bimetallene for oxygen reduction catalysis

PdMo bimetallene, a highly curved and sub-nanometre-thick nanosheet of a palladium–molybdenum alloy, is an efficient and stable electrocatalyst for the oxygen reduction and evolution reactions under alkaline conditions.
- Mingchuan Luo
- , Zhonglong Zhao
- & Shaojun Guo
Letter | 02 October 2019

Modular click chemistry libraries for functional screens using a diazotizing reagent

A ‘click’ reaction is developed for the simple and rapid formation of azides from primary amines, and is used to prepare a library of over 1,200 azides for subsequent use in the existing triazole annulation click reaction.
- Genyi Meng
- , Taijie Guo
- & Jiajia Dong
Letter | 02 October 2019

Environmental flow limits to global groundwater pumping

Estimates for when critical environmental streamflow limits will be reached—with potentially devastating economic and environmental effects—are obtained using a global model that links groundwater pumping with the groundwater flow to rivers.
- Inge E. M. de Graaf
- , Tom Gleeson
- & Marc F. P. Bierkens
Letter | 25 September 2019

Harnessing global fisheries to tackle micronutrient deficiencies

Nutrient content analyses of marine finfish and current fisheries landings show that fish have the potential to substantially contribute to global food and nutrition security by alleviating micronutrient deficiencies in regions where they are prevalent.
- Christina C. Hicks
- , Philippa J. Cohen
- & M. Aaron MacNeil
Letter | 02 October 2019

Imprinting sets the stage for speciation

Tadpoles of strawberry poison frogs (Oophaga pumilio) are shown to imprint on adult coloration, affecting both male aggression biases and female preferences and setting the stage for speciation by sexual selection.
- Yusan Yang
- , Maria R. Servedio
- & Corinne L. Richards-Zawacki
Letter | 11 September 2019

Early Pleistocene enamel proteome from Dmanisi resolves Stephanorhinus phylogeny

Palaeoproteomic analysis of dental enamel from an Early Pleistocene Stephanorhinus resolves the phylogeny of Eurasian Rhinocerotidae, by enabling the reconstruction of molecular evolution beyond the limits of ancient DNA preservation.
- Enrico Cappellini
- , Frido Welker
- & Eske Willerslev
Letter | 18 September 2019

Daytime colour preference in Drosophila depends on the circadian clock and TRP channels

Innate colour preference in adult fruit flies changes with the time of day, and depends on rhodopsins 1 and 7, TRP channels and the circadian clock.
- Stanislav Lazopulo
- , Andrey Lazopulo
- & Sheyum Syed
Letter | 25 September 2019

Modelling human hepato-biliary-pancreatic organogenesis from the foregut–midgut boundary

Juxtaposition of region-specific gut spheroids derived from human pluripotent stem cells in the absence of extrinsic factors results in development of segregated hepato-biliary-pancreatic anlages that recapitulate early morphogenetic events.
- Hiroyuki Koike
- , Kentaro Iwasawa
- & Takanori Takebe
Collection:
- Stem cells from development to the clinic
Letter | 18 September 2019

Stunted microbiota and opportunistic pathogen colonization in caesarean-section birth

Delivery via caesarean section, maternal antibiotic prophylaxis and colonization by opportunistic pathogens associated with the hospital environment affect the composition of the gut microbiota of children from birth until infancy.
- Yan Shao
- , Samuel C. Forster
- & Trevor D. Lawley
Letter | 25 September 2019

Analysis of the B cell receptor repertoire in six immune-mediated diseases

An analysis of the B cell receptor repertoire in six immune-mediated diseases reveals that there are substantial differences in clonality, isotype use, class switching and use of the IGHV genes between diseases.
- R. J. M. Bashford-Rogers
- , L. Bergamaschi
- & K. G. C. Smith
Letter | 30 September 2019

The Drug Rediscovery protocol facilitates the expanded use of existing anticancer drugs

Clinical benefit was observed in 34% of a cohort of 215 patients with cancer who received treatment with anticancer drugs outside of their approved label, in the Drug Rediscovery protocol trial.
- D. L. van der Velden
- , L. R. Hoes
- & E. E. Voest
Letter | 25 September 2019

Crystal structure of heliorhodopsin

A crystal structure of Thermoplasmatales archaeon heliorhodopsin at 2.4 Å resolution shows that it adopts a similar fold to that of type I rhodopsin—despite the low sequence identity—but there are also several marked differences that provide insights into heliorhodopsin function.
- Wataru Shihoya
- , Keiichi Inoue
- & Osamu Nureki