Volume 610 Issue 7930, 6 October 2022

The United Kingdom and Italy need to renew their commitments to banish these major infectious killers from the world.

Funders must make pragmatism prestigious; the current obsession with novelty risks making science irrelevant.

A method that adds a heat treatment after 3D printing of titanium alloys could allow for fast fabrication of strong parts.

Although the marine ‘carbon sink’ is bigger than expected, it is still inadequate to keep global warming at bay.

Astronomers pin down a strange object in the sky as an outbursting star.

The rise in electric-vehicle ownership could overload the electric grid unless charging becomes a daytime activity.

Island settlements called crannogs served as larders, abattoirs — and perhaps feasting sites.

An absent copy of one gene results in brain-cell changes that greatly improve a mouse’s ability to distinguish between tones of different frequency.

The algorithms in a wearable device mean better blood-sugar control and less fuss for people with type 1 diabetes.

The latest science news, in brief.

Researchers are cautiously optimistic following companies’ announcement of positive results for lecanemab.

Svante Pääbo has made stunning discoveries about human evolution using ancient DNA — and his work helped to spawn the competitive field of palaeogenomics.

Science-friendly candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is leading the election polls ahead of current President Jair Bolsonaro.

But urgent progress is needed to secure the global deal to save the environment.

A new centre will invest in shots for a range of infectious diseases so the country is ready for future outbreaks.

Judge acquits Feng ‘Franklin’ Tao on three of four charges — another blow for the US government’s former China Initiative programme.

Drug runners, gold miners and loggers are rapidly invading the remote Peruvian Amazon, home to isolated people and a wealth of biodiversity. Nature met the researchers and Indigenous communities fighting to stop the destruction.

From firearm suicide and homicide to unintended harm, a public-health approach can establish the knowledge and know-how needed to reduce suffering.

To mark the launch of Nature’s 2022 #ScientistAtWork photo competition, three experts offer tips on how to best capture your science on camera.

Despite agreeing to make raw data available, some authors fail to comply. The right strategies and platforms can ease the task.

Hatchery manager Cyril Barbier farms fish on land to conserve water and electricity and protect the oceans.

Oscillations in the light emanating from three Sun-like stars reveal the presence of strong magnetic fields deep in their interiors. The discovery could explain a quirk of stellar dynamics that has so far eluded understanding.

The acidity of the Arctic Ocean currently peaks in winter. A modelling study suggests that this peak could shift to the summer in the future — this is bad news for ecosystem functions, food webs and Indigenous communities.

An analysis of faculty members employed at academic institutions in the United States reveals that most employees were trained at just a few universities. The finding provides insights into how hiring perpetuates inequalities.

Two groups have grown self-organizing models of mouse embryos from stem cells in vitro. The models mimic mid-gestation embryos, providing an unparalleled opportunity to study early embryonic development.

The ozonolysis reaction is a classic of organic synthesis, but involves the formation of potentially explosive reaction intermediates. A modern, safer spin on this process makes use of previously overlooked chemistry.

Magnetic fields of 30 to 100 kilogauss are measured in the cores of three giant red stars observed with the Kepler satellite.

A reinforcement learning approach based on AlphaZero is used to discover efficient and provably correct algorithms for matrix multiplication, finding faster algorithms for a variety of matrix sizes.

 Fully integrated photonics at submicrometre wavelengths is realized by a heterogeneous integration technology.

Clean van der Waals contacts of high-work-function metals have been demonstrated on few- and single-layered MoS₂ and WSe₂, leading to p-type characteristics on single-layer MoS₂ and purely p-type characteristics on WSe₂.

A compositionally complex (high-entropy) doping strategy is proposed to fabricate zero-strain high-Ni and Co-free layered cathodes with superior structural and mechanical stabilities and long cycle life.

An air purification strategy is presented that moves air in the form of bubbles through an ion-doped conjugated polymer-coated matrix, which captures larger particulate matter, infiltrated with a selected functional liquid, which captures smaller particulate matter.

Oxidative cleavage of alkenes is achieved using nitroarenes and light irradiation as an alternative to using ozone to break the carbon–carbon bonds, avoiding the explosive intermediates formed with ozone.

A unified catalytic remote-directing template strategy enabled precise differentiation of remote and adjacent C6–H and C7–H bonds, and similar C3–H and C7–H bonds of a pharmaceutically relevant bicyclic aza-arene scaffold.

Simulations suggest that the partial pressure of carbon dioxide in the Arctic Ocean will shift from a winter to a summer maximum owing to enhanced summer sea surface warming from earlier sea-ice retreat.

Investigations of the effect of aerosol emissions from shipping on cloud properties when both visible and invisible ship tracks are considered implies a large negative radiative effect (and associated cooling) from liquid water path adjustments.

Using palaeohistology and geochemistry, the placental-like life history of a pantodont species 62 million years of age is determined.

Archaeogenetic study of ancient DNA from medieval northwestern Europeans reveals substantial increase of continental northern European ancestry in Britain, suggesting mass migration across the North Sea during the Early Middle Ages.

An analysis of the academic employment and doctoral education of faculty members at all PhD-granting US universities from 2011 to 2020 shows that a small minority of universities (20.4%) supply a large majority of faculty members (80.0%).

Computational modelling and functional imaging of awake, active mice show that behaviour directly changes neuronal tuning in the visual cortex through pupil dilation.

Distinct activity patterns in the primary visual cortex distinguish movement in the environment from motion caused by eye movements.

Synthetic mouse embryos assembled from embryonic stem cells, trophoblast stem cells and induced extraembryonic endoderm stem cells closely recapitulate the development of wild-type and mutant natural mouse embryos up to embryonic day 8.5.

Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 genomes from around the world show that following initial importation largely from India, Delta spread in England was driven first by inter-regional travel and then by local population mixing.

Binding of the PD1-IL2v immunocytokine to PD-1 and IL-2Rβγ on the same cell leads to an alternative differentiation of stem-like CD8⁺ T cells into better effectors rather than exhausted T cells in models of both chronic infection and cancer.

PD-1⁺TCF1⁺ stem-like CD8⁺ T cells—precursors of exhausted CD8⁺ T cells—are not fate-locked into the exhaustion program; their differentiation trajectory can be changed by IL-2 signals.

Membrane-bound E3 ubiquitin ligases RNF43 and ZNRF3 are overexpressed in colorectal cancer, and can be repurposed using proteolysis-targeting antibodies (PROTABs) to selectively degrade cell-surface receptors in tumours.

A hierarchical model of melanoma tumour growth mirrors the cellular and molecular logic of cell-fate specification and differentiation of the underlying embryonic neural crest, and suggests that the ability to support growth and metastasis are limited to distinct pools of cells.

Using genome mining, a dedicated pathway for the production of selenosugars and selenoneine is uncovered, thereby expanding the use of biological selenium.

Cryo-electron tomography is used to reveal the structural dynamics and functional diversity of translating ribosomes in Mycoplasma pneumoniae, providing insight into the translation elongation cycle inside cells and how it is reshaped by antibiotics.

The structure of the complete dynein–dynactin complex and its interaction with microtubules and cargo adaptors are visualized using cryo-electron microscopy.