Volume 575 Issue 7781, 7 November 2019

An analysis of the archive shows how the contributors and content have varied over the decades.

Research cannot fulfil its social contract and reach new horizons by advancing on the same footing into the future, argues Philip Ball in the last essay of a series on how the past 150 years have shaped today’s science system, to mark Nature’s anniversary.

A scientific paper today is inspired by more disciplines than ever before, shows a new analysis marking the journal’s 150th anniversary.

In the early 1950s, the identity of genetic material was still a matter of debate. The discovery of the helical structure of double-stranded DNA settled the matter — and changed biology forever.

In 1947, scientists found a previously unseen particle, which is now called a neutral kaon. This work led to the discovery of elementary particles known as quarks, and ultimately to the establishment of the standard model of particle physics.

Originally developed to record currents of ions flowing through channel proteins in the membranes of cells, the patch-clamp technique has become a true stalwart of the neuroscience toolbox.

Nearly 30 years ago, a simple chemical principle was reported that enabled the synthesis of a plethora of porous materials — some of which might enable applications ranging from biomedicine to petrochemical processing.

In 1925, a Nature paper reported an African fossil of a previously unknown genus called Australopithecus. This finding revolutionized ideas about early human evolution after human ancestors and apes split on the evolutionary tree.

In 1995, astronomers detected a blisteringly hot Jupiter-mass planet orbiting closer to its host star than Mercury is to the Sun. This discovery recast our thinking of how planets form and led to a new era of exoplanetary exploration.

The discovery that cell differentiation can be reversed challenged theories of how cell identity is determined, laying the foundations for modern methods of reprogramming cell identity and promising new regenerative therapies.

The unexpected discovery of a hole in the atmospheric ozone layer over the Antarctic revolutionized science — and helped to establish one of the most successful global environmental policies of the twentieth century.

A 1975 Nature paper reported how cell lines could be made that produce an antibody of known specificity. This discovery led to major biological insights and clinical successes in treating autoimmunity and cancer.

In 1985, scientists reported the discovery of the cage-like carbon molecule C₆₀. The finding paved the way for materials such as graphene and carbon nanotubes, and was a landmark in the emergence of nanotechnology.

Aphorisms by Goethe — the opening article of the first issue of Nature, 4 November 1869.

Image-making, research and visual technologies have shaped each other over the past century and a half, argues Geoffrey Belknap, marking Nature’s anniversary.

The contest for 18–25-year-olds received more than 660 entries from 68 countries.

The composer wished for a cure for his hearing loss. Soon, research could make it a reality for my twin brother − and millions more. Winner of the Young Scientist Essay Competition 2019.

Nuclear-fusion power plants could be part of a solution to the climate crisis. Runner-up in the Young Scientist Essay Competition 2019.

Same-sex partners should one day be able to raise a biological descendant together. Runner-up in the Young Scientist Essay Competition 2019.

Women’s contributions to science were played down for decades after Nature’s 1869 launch, by both the journal and wider society.

After the First World War, female scientists gained footholds in academia as well as industrial and government research, despite facing prejudice and many other barriers.

With better questions, many reproducibility problems will fall away, says Paul Smaldino.

A high temperature allows fast charging of the lithium batteries used in electric and hybrid vehicles.

Researchers manage to make inherently unstable carbon materials that could have quantum applications.

A whisky’s country of origin can be gleaned from the residue of an evaporated droplet.

Emissions from maritime shipping between the two world powers affect health in many nations.

Bacteria that infect rice are thwarted by changes to rice genes involved in sugar transport.

Bats that shared blood and groomed each other preserved their ties even after a change of residence.

Tweaks to a widely used scientific tool allow it to detect spin, a fundamental quality of atoms and subatomic particles.

The latest science news, in brief.

As fires rage in the Bay Area, scientists launch study to track long-term effects of smoke on the heart, lungs and immune system.

Blackouts and blazes prompt university closures and uncertainty about when life can return to normal.

The 20-day-old monkey embryos could reopen the debate about how long the human variety should be allowed to grow in a dish.

Former slaves left on St Helena were probably taken from west-central Africa, finds genome study.

The San and Khoi communities welcome the decision, which could have implications for other Indigenous groups — and biodiversity researchers.

Andrew Robinson reviews five of the week’s best science picks.

Container platforms let researchers run each other’s software — and check the results.

As a scientific glassblower, Terri Adams commands a workshop that is filled with tools for crafting bespoke scientific glass apparatus.

Compounds have been found that reduce levels of the harmful protein present in Huntington’s disease, without affecting the normal version. The compounds interact with the mutated protein and the cell’s protein-clearance machinery.

Arrays of nanoscale magnets have been constructed to form the magnetized panels of microscopic robots — thus allowing magnetic fields to be used to control the robots’ shape and movement.

A better understanding of the genetic changes that enable cancers to spread is crucial. A comprehensive study of whole-genome sequences from metastatic cancer will help researchers to achieve this goal.

Atomic physicists and nuclear physicists have each made a refined measurement of the radius of the proton. Both values agree with a hotly debated result obtained by spectroscopy of an exotic form of hydrogen called muonic hydrogen.

Structural metals enable improved energy efficiency through their reduced mass, higher thermal stability and better mechanical properties; here, methods of improving the sustainability of structural metals, from recycling to contaminant tolerance, are described.

Processes for dismantling and recycling lithium-ion battery packs from scrap electric vehicles are outlined.

Genetic strategies for improving the yield and sustainability of agricultural crops, and the resilience of crops in the face of biotic and abiotic stresses contingent on projected climate change, are evaluated.

An overview of the effects of vaccines on global morbidity and mortality, vaccine safety issues, and the hurdles involved in proceeding from vaccine discovery to successful implementation.

We need to integrate the knowledge and skills from different disciplines and from communities all over the world to enable effective responses to future epidemics.

Ten pathways for the utilization of carbon dioxide are reviewed, considering their potential scale, economics and barriers to implementation.

This Perspective examines the global production ecosystem through the lenses of connectivity, diversity and feedback, and proposes measures that will increase its stability and sustainability.

The authors discuss the potential for sex and gender analysis to foster scientific discovery, improve experimental efficiency and enable social equality.

A magnetic-spectrometer-free method for electron–proton scattering data reveals a proton charge radius 2.7 standard deviations smaller than the currently accepted value from electron–proton scattering, yet consistent with other recent experiments.

A carrier-resolved photo-Hall technique is developed to extract properties of both majority and minority carriers simultaneously and determine the critical parameters of semiconductor materials under light illumination.

Transport and scanning tunnelling microscopy studies of freestanding monolayers of an unconventional layered copper oxide establish that the superconducting properties of copper oxides are not changed in the 2D limit.

A micromachine less than 100 micrometres across, made of arrays of nanomagnets on hinged panels, is encoded with multiple shape transformations  and actuated with a magnetic field.

A new strong, biocompatible and biodegradable double-sided tape can adhere to wet tissues and devices through a mechanism involving rapid water removal from the surface, swift hydrogen and electrostatic interactions, and covalent bonding.

Slice-and-view scanning electron microscopy tomography is used to characterize a double-gyroid block copolymer, finding mesoatomic distortions that break the symmetry of these soft-matter crystals across multiple scales.

Emission of methane from ‘point sources’—small surface features or infrastructure components—is monitored with an airborne spectrometer, identifying possible targets for mitigation efforts.

Analyses of mitochondrial genomes from populations in southern Africa provide evidence of a southern African origin of anatomically modern humans and a sustained occupation of the homeland before the first migrations of people appear to be driven by regional climate shifts.

A model demonstrates that people who eventually succeed and those who do not may initially appear similar, but are characterized by fundamentally distinct failure dynamics in terms of the efficiency and quality of each subsequent attempt to succeed.

Using mouse lines in which subsets of neurons are genetically labelled, the authors provide generalized anatomical rules for connections within and between the cortex and thalamus.

Compounds that interact with mutant huntingtin and an autophagosomal protein are able to reduce cellular levels of mutant huntingtin by targeting it for autophagic degradation, demonstrating an approach that may have potential for treating proteopathies.

The mutational landscape of metastatic cancer genomes is analysed in a large-scale, pan-cancer study of metastatic solid tumours that includes whole-genome sequencing of 2,520 tumour–normal tissue pairs.

Treatment of KRAS^G12C-mutant cancer cells with the KRAS(G12C) inhibitor AMG 510 leads to durable response in mice, and anti-tumour activity in patients suggests that AMG 510 could be effective in patients for whom treatments are currently lacking.

An interbacterial defence strategy, involving clusters of immunity genes against toxins released by the type VI secretion system of the same or different species, is widespread among Bacteroides species, and transfer of these gene clusters confers resistance to toxins in vitro and in the mammalian gut.

Gastrointestinal stromal tumours can be initiated by gain-of-function mutations of the KIT or PDGFRA oncogenes but also by loss of the metabolic complex succinate dehydrogenase (SDH), which leads to DNA hypermethylation; this study shows that in SDH-deficient tumours, displacement of CTCF insulators by DNA methylation activates oncogene expression, illustrating how epigenetic alterations can drive oncogenic signalling in the absence of kinase mutations.

The structure of the multiprotein Fanconi anaemia core complex, determined using cryo-electron microscopy and mass spectrometry, shows that the complex adopts an extended asymmetric structure and highlights the structural and functional asymmetry of the RING finger domains.