Volume 594 Issue 7863, 17 June 2021

But a thriving relationship needs clearer rules around data ownership and intellectual property – and public trust in the process.

The pandemic and political tensions might slow the march towards more globalized science.

A city that faced a public-health emergency shows how collaborations with neighbourhood advocates can advance health equity.

In early 2020, a spontaneous global collaboration came together to design a new, urgent antiviral treatment. There are lessons in what happened next.

Team science suffers when junior researchers see their career-defining contributions to a paper downplayed. Here’s how to tackle disputes.

Scientists who plan to partner on a research project should identify pressure points and consider a team charter at the outset.

Villagers who know the land help Jason Paliau to survey the region’s insects.

A specialist in diversity and inclusion lays out the foundation’s plan for promoting equity.

‘Superscattering’ material is used to construct a mini-doorway that is invisible in the microwave portion of the spectrum.

The bulk of consumer food spending around the world ends up in the coffers of distributors, processors and other parties beyond the farm gate.

A highly invasive weed might owe some of its success to easier access to carbon, a key component of the weed’s toxin.

A journey stretching around 20,000 kilometres might be the world’s longest migration by ocean.

A new experiment efficiently distributes the highly secure keys to four parties instead of the typical two.

Rapid genomic sequencing on admission to hospital leads to more-precise care for sick infants.

The structure of faults beneath Salt Lake City, Utah, shows how the ground could liquefy during a shaking.

The latest science news, in brief.

Many scientists say there is not enough evidence that Biogen’s aducanumab is an effective therapy for the disease.

Eric Lander spoke to Nature during his first day as the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Mass vaccination drives in several countries are providing new data on the extent to which adult vaccination protects children — but the conclusions are mixed.

Nature examines arguments that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 escaped from a lab in China, and the science behind them.

Geneticists say a global Y-chromosome database holds profiles from men who are unlikely to have given free informed consent.

Mathematician overcame the gravitational pulls of gender and racial discrimination to play a key part in the space race.

A model of the world’s rivers and streams has been developed to predict which of these watercourses flow all year round and which go dry. The analysis shows that rivers and streams that run dry are ubiquitous throughout the world.

Digital contact tracing has the potential to limit the spread of COVID-19. A contact-tracing smartphone app that has been readily adopted by people in England and Wales has shown efficacy in reducing disease spread.

AMPA receptors are a class of protein complexes crucial for neuronal communication. Two complementary studies converge on structures of AMPA receptors found in a brain region called the hippocampus.

Malignant stem cells in the gut secrete factors that promote the differentiation of neighbouring stem cells, thereby aiding the replacement of normal stem cells by those with cancer-promoting mutations.

Examination of the molecular interactions that govern the assembly of neural circuits in a brain region called the hippocampus reveals that neuronal projections are guided to their targets by both attractive and repulsive cues.

Observations suggest that an unexpected dimming of the massive star Betelgeuse resulted from dust forming over a cold patch in the star’s southern hemisphere. This finding improves our understanding of such massive stars.

A review of the ancient human genomic record sheds light on the peopling processes of the Americas.

Inanimate matter is beginning to show some signs of basic intelligence—the ability to sense, actuate and use memory, as controlled by an internal communication network in functional materials.

The southern hemisphere of Betelgeuse during its Great Dimming was an order of magnitude darker than usual, owing to a cool patch on the photosphere and associated dust formation.

Cosmic-ray particles and γ-rays striking superconducting circuits can generate qubit errors that are spatially correlated across several millimetres, hampering current error-correction approaches.

Measurements on a chiral magnet show that non-symmorphic symmetries enforce topological crossings exactly at the Fermi level in certain materials; these crossings can be controlled by an applied magnetic field.

Ligand-protected gold nanoclusters are engineered to form complex arrangements of double and quadruple helices, which are based on the pairing of motifs on neighbouring enantiomers, akin to the base pairing seen in DNA double helices.

A localization algorithm is applied to datasets obtained with conventional and high-speed atomic force microscopy to increase image resolution beyond the limits set by the radius of the tip used.

Non-perennial rivers and streams are mapped globally, showing that more than half of rivers worldwide experience no flow for at least one day per year.

A genome-wide association study combined with single-cell epigenomics identifies risk loci for type 1 diabetes.

Distinct clusters of inhibitory neurons in the mouse amygdala perform opposing roles in fear extinction.

Statistical analysis of COVID-19 transmission among users of a smartphone-based digital contact-tracing app suggests that such apps can be an effective measure for reducing disease spread.

In young mice, antigens from the gut microbiota are trafficked by CX3CR1⁺ dendritic cells from the gut to the thymus, where they induce the expansion of T cells that are specific to commensal microorganisms.

The development, characterization and phase I clinical testing of the RAF inhibitor belvarafenib in cancer and a new resistance mechanism mediated by ARAF mutations are described.

A family of plant guanylate-binding protein-like GTPases controls phase separation and assembly of condensates, thereby forming a circuit that regulates transcriptional responses to biotic stress.

NOTUM from Apc-mutant cells acts as a key mediator during the early stages of mutation fixation and drives the formation of intestinal adenomas.

Using experiments in organoids and in vivo in mice, the authors show that Apc-mutant cells act as supercompetitors to initiate the formation of adenomas.

By inducing changes in surrounding tissue, mutant intestinal stem cells create an unfavourable niche environment that gives them a competitive advantage over non-mutant neighbours.

Analyses of hippocampal AMPA receptor–auxiliary subunit complexes provide insights into the predominant assemblies and organization of the AMPA receptor, TARP-γ8 and CNIH2/SynDIG4 and explain the mechanism of inhibition of a clinically relevant, brain-region-specific allosteric inhibitor.

Analyses of AMPA receptor–auxiliary subunit complexes provide insights into the gating and modulation of the AMPA receptor by TARP-γ8 and CNIH2.