Volume 597 Issue 7874, 2 September 2021

Here’s how Afghanistan’s scholars can be supported.

Facebook’s heavy-handedness could open a window for research in the public interest.

Crystal engineering produces sustained molecular glows at room temperature.

As the continents’ frozen burden dissipates, the ground deforms — not only in the immediate area, but also in far-flung locations.

Shifts in polar weather have accompanied the replenishment of the ozone layer.

A seized fossil reveals the full glory of a winged reptile from the age of the dinosaurs.

Human-made particles help the huge molluscs to achieve their massive size faster than their ancestors did.

Optical technique overcomes limitations of standard imaging methods.

During formation, the planets can draw a greater amount of hydrogen and helium around themselves, causing them to increase in size.

The latest science news, in brief.

For 20 years, science has blossomed in Afghanistan. Now many researchers are fleeing and those who remain face lost funding and the threat of persecution.

Massive study finds that genetic markers associated with same-sex encounters might aid reproduction. But some scientists question the conclusions.

A volunteer network helps to monitor aftershocks and illuminate the country’s earthquake hazards.

Study finds that the noxious pests have become so numerous, they’ve developed a taste for each other — as well as defences to ward off such attacks.

Faced with government suppression and limited resources, doctors and nurses are quietly working with research networks to report reliable data.

Researchers are now permitted to grow human embryos in the lab for longer than 14 days. Here’s what they could learn.

Was the government a primary cause of the US addiction to fossil fuel? An expert who testified gives evidence.

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

Co-discoverer of first comet known to collide with a planet in modern times.

Here’s how the United Nations should harness science and technology to improve nutrition and safeguard the environment.

Inventor teams with women represent 16% of filed patents, yet are more likely than male teams to create women’s health products.

Search engines that highlight key papers are keeping scientists up to date.

Wanda Diaz Merced analyses gravitational waves from explosions of massive stars by converting them into ‘chirps’.

Benzene rings are almost unbreakable in typical reaction conditions. Chemistry has now been developed that selectively breaks these rings open, highlighting their potential as building blocks for making open-chain molecules.

Aspects of how immune defence processes evolved remain mysterious. Studies of the fly Drosophila melanogaster reveal previously unknown details of a defence pathway with echoes of, but key differences from, a human pathway.

Future progress in computing calls for innovative ways to map the physical characteristics of materials to the logic functions needed by computing architectures. An electronic device called a molecular memristor provides a way forward.

In insects, odorant receptor proteins form membrane ion channels that open on binding to an odorant molecule. The structures of an inactive and an active channel lend insights into how insects detect and distinguish between odours.

Nature’s pages feature a look back at the life of Lawrence Bragg, and a call for London to erect a statue of Louis Pasteur.

In a brain structure called the hippocampus, sharp wave-ripples — oscillatory hallmarks of an ‘offline’ mode of cognitive processing — have been found to predict dips in glucose concentrations in the body.

An observed one-day difference between the peaks of emission of ultraviolet and optical light from the hot spot on GM Aurigae indicates that the hot spot has a radial density gradient.

A hybrid solid-state platform based on two strongly interacting dipolar species is used to study the emergence of the classical properties of a solid from its underlying microscopic quantum description.

Multiple redox transitions in a molecular memristor can be harnessed as ‘decision trees’ to undertake complex and reconfigurable logic operations in a single time step.

Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries produced in the form of metre-long fibres can be woven into sturdy, washable textiles on an industrial loom and used to power other fabric-based electronic components.

Common aromatic rings, such as anilines, arylboronic acids and aryl halides, can be opened up and converted to alkenyl nitriles through carbon–carbon bond cleavage using a copper catalyst.

Enantioselective supramolecular recognition allows for the asymmetric synthesis of nitrogen stereocentres, providing chiral ammonium cations in a dynamic crystallization process.

Multi-year field experiments across six continents suggest that insects have an important contribution to decomposition and carbon release from forest deadwood.

Sharp wave-ripples from the hippocampus are shown to modulate peripheral glucose homeostasis in rats, offering insights into the mechanism that links sleep disruption and blood glucose regulation in type 2 diabetes.

Computational modelling and mouse genetics approaches show that multipotent progenitor cells that have the potential to populate the hepato-pancreato-biliary lineage tree persist in the pancreato-biliary organ rudiment.

The heparan sulfate proteoglycan-binding cytokine APRIL has a protective role against atherosclerotic disease.

A survey of SARS-CoV-2 RBD antibodies identifies those with activity against diverse SARS-CoV-2 variants and SARS-related coronaviruses, highlighting epitopes and features to prioritize in antibody and vaccine development.

The human monoclonal antibody S2X259 cross-reacts with spike proteins from all clades of sarbecovirus, and provides prophylactic and therapeutic protection in vivo against parental SARS-CoV-2 and emerging variants of concern.

The authors identify Drosophila cGLR1 as a double-stranded RNA sensor and 3′2′-cGAMP as a nucleotide second messenger and activator of Drosophila STING signalling.

Two cGAS-like receptors, cGLR1 and cGLR2, identified in Drosophila melanogaster are shown to induce antiviral immunity in response to RNA or DNA virus infections through the production of 2′3′-cGAMP and 3′2′-cGAMP.

Multi-omics datasets are integrated to generate a unified and clinically informed molecular classification of meningiomas.

Structural and functional analysis of an insect olfactory receptor shed light on how receptors can be activated by diverse odorants.

A protein chaperone system is identified that consists of proteins with poly-Asp/Glu sequence, and may have an important role in diseases characterized by protein aggregation.