Volume 598 Issue 7879, 7 October 2021

International agencies need the mandate, funds and expertise to connect information — otherwise pandemics, hunger and unsustainability will go unsolved.

A constellation of congenital disabilities is traced to a single gene that affects tissue development.

Cleaving bonds can transform the abundant material lignin into renewable feedstocks.

Babies born in 2020 will face many more extreme events, such as heat waves, than will people born several generations earlier.

Archaeologists working in Tikal, Guatemala, discover a 30%-scale model of buildings in a superpower hundreds of kilometres away.

Researchers estimate that a 2018 outbreak of African swine fever virus led to the loss of at least 38 million more animals than officially acknowledged.

A tabletop device that can ‘inhale’ nicotine-laden vapour could help to explain why some e-cigarettes cause grave lung injury.

Gastropods that use photosynthetic apparatus stolen from algae increase their egg output.

The latest science news, in brief.

Satellite data confirm incursions on protected lands as Indigenous people fight for their rights — and recognition of their role in conserving forests.

Study aimed at collecting DNA from 10,000 autistic people and their families has drawn criticism for failing to consult the autism community.

Faculty members at the University of Tennessee Knoxville are demanding that nanotechnologist Anming Hu get his job back.

As part of a misconduct crackdown, Chinese funders are penalizing researchers who commission sham journal articles from ‘paper mills’, but some say the measures still don’t go far enough.

China’s promise to stop financing coal power abroad is a positive step, but researchers say the emissions savings pale in comparison to those from its domestic coal use.

Physicists have imaged elusive ‘Wigner crystals’ for the first time.

Scientists around the world are working together to catalogue and map cells in the brain. What have these huge projects revealed about how it works?

A former head of the European Research Council urges critical thinking about the algorithms that shape our lives and societies.

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

Cities need heat governance to plan for extreme temperatures and protect those most at risk.

Four group leaders with disabilities share their thoughts on how to make laboratories and fieldwork more accessible and inclusive.

Images can be made more accessible by choosing hues, shapes and textures carefully.

Ocean Mercier researches how Indigenous knowledge and Western science can help resolve environmental issues.

An atlas of the cell types found in the motor cortex of the brain has been built using various types of data. Two neuroscientists explain the technological feats involved in the project, as well as the utility of the resource for future research.

Rising temperatures are expected to increase the number of people exposed to tropical cyclones, but timing might prove crucial to the success of mitigation strategies.

The distance between the surface atoms of noble metals, such as platinum, affects the catalytic activity of these elements. An experimental approach using nanoparticles enables this effect to be systematically controlled and measured.

Certain cancers cause people to weaken and waste away. A mouse model of this points to tumour-induced blockade of molecules that normally protect muscle innervation and mass. Will the discovery lead to therapies for this deadly condition?

Computing approaches based on mechanical mechanisms are discussed, with a view towards a framework in which adaptable materials and structures act as a distributed information processing network.

The absence of fine regolith on the asteroid Bennu is due to the high porosity of its rocks, which compress rather than fragment after impacts and exhibit slow thermal cracking.

Bilayer graphene states are observed at anomalously small magnetic fields and show magnetic hysteresis, providing evidence for a quantum anomalous Hall effect driven by orbital magnetism.

Experiments using two coupled optical ring resonators and based on the concept of synthetic dimension reveal non-Hermitian energy band structures exhibiting topologically non-trivial knots and links.

Colour contrast is added to unstained histological samples by using surface plasmon polaritons whose properties depend on the sample’s dielectric constant.

A crystalline cluster exhibits thorium–thorium bonding, adding to our knowledge of actinide–actinide bonding.

By depositing platinum shells on palladium-based nanocubes, the strain can be controlled by through phosphorization and dephosphorization, making it possible to tune the electrocatalytic activity of the platinum shells.

Antarctic ice-core records and atmospheric transport modelling used here show that the 13th-century rise of Māori culture in New Zealand led to a threefold increase of atmospheric black carbon.

The BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network has constructed a multimodal cell census and atlas of the mammalian primary motor cortex in a landmark effort towards understanding brain cell-type diversity, neural circuit organization and brain function.

The authors describe an integrated atlas of the diverse cell types in the mouse primary motor cortex.

An examination of motor cortex in humans, marmosets and mice reveals a generally conserved cellular makeup that is likely to extend to many mammalian species, but also differences in gene expression, DNA methylation and chromatin state that lead to species-dependent specializations.

A comprehensive survey of the epigenome from 45 regions of the mouse cortex, hippocampus, striatum, pallidum and olfactory areas using single-nucleus DNA methylation sequencing enables identification of 161 cell clusters with distinct locations and projection targets and provides insights into the regulatory landscape underlying neuronal diversity and spatial regulation.

A comprehensive analysis of gene regulatory elements in 160 distinct cell types from the mouse cerebrum.

As part of the BICCN consortium, the authors used a single-cell transcriptomic imaging method to produce a highly defined atlas of cell types across the mouse primary motor cortex.

Single-cell transcriptomic, morphological and electrophysiological characteristics are combined to classify more than 1,300 neurons from mouse motor cortex.

Combined patch clamp recording, biocytin staining and single-cell RNA-sequencing of human neurocortical neurons shows an expansion of glutamatergic neuron types relative to mouse that characterizes the greater complexity of the human neocortex.

Multi-modal analysis is used to generate a 3D atlas of the upper limb area of the mouse primary motor cortex, providing a framework for future studies of motor control circuitry.

Quantitative analysis of the methylation of mouse cortical neurons that project to different cortical and subcortical target regions provides insight into genetic mechanisms that contribute to differences in cell function.

Sparse labelling and whole-brain imaging are used to reconstruct and classify brain-wide complete morphologies of 1,741 individual neurons in the mouse brain, revealing a dependence on both brain region and transcriptomic profile.

A combination of genetic strategies and tools is used to define and fate-map different subtypes of glutamatergic pyramidal neurons according to their developmental and molecular programs, providing insight into the assembly of cortical processing networks.

Mesoscale connectomic mapping of the cortico–basal ganglia–thalamic network reveals key architectural and information processing features.

RNA-sequencing analysis of the prenatal human brain at different stages of development shows that areal transcriptional signatures are dynamic and coexist with developmental and cell-type signatures.

Analysis of chromatin state at a single-cell level in samples of developing human forebrain demonstrate both cell-type-specific and region-specific changes during neurogenesis.

A comprehensive atlas of cell types and regional specializations in the mouse cerebellar cortex.