Volume 616 Issue 7957, 20 April 2023

The plan to re-green a 7,000-kilometre swathe south of the Sahara is at risk of losing its pan-African vision and ambition.

Researchers should avoid the lure of proprietary models and develop transparent large language models to ensure reproducibility.

Ritually shorn strands suggest that people living some 3,000 years ago consumed plants with mind-altering properties.

Surface temperature drives emissions of chemicals that give a newly manufactured vehicle its signature aroma.

Eleven hikers died after weeks of unusually warm weather led to melting of the Marmolada Glacier in the Alps.

A daub of floral scent gives male orchid bees a leg-up on fathering offspring.

Prototype facility smashes record for converting solar power to hydrogen for its technology category.

Models and laboratory swings show the precise motions needed to maximize movement.

Approach could make it easier to scale up production of cultivated meat.

Technique pushes the instruments to beat the resolving power of multi-million-dollar machines.

International dismay after New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research funding suspended.

Studies in mice suggest that tumour growth is triggered by inflammation caused by tiny particles, rather than genetic mutations.

Europe’s JUICE spacecraft will study three of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.

Survey highlights experiences of dozens of climate researchers who have endured online harassment related to their work.

An embryo-like ball of cells offers a way to study pregnancy and its complications without the typical ethical dilemmas.

Descriptions of lunar eclipses by monks and other scholars help scientists to pinpoint effects of ancient eruptions.

The Environmental Protection Agency has released draft regulations that set the stage for a huge transition to electric vehicles.

A raft of commercial lunar missions are taking off in 2023. The first lander is set to touch down this month, signalling a new era for Moon science and exploration.

Perceptions have shifted dramatically in the past few years on the therapeutic value of illicit drugs such as ecstasy. But questions still linger about what FDA approval might look like.

Depictions of fetuses have helped to teach safer birthing practices and saved lives — but they can also be used to erase the person giving birth.

Andrew Robinson reviews five of the best science picks.

Don’t sell yourself short when talking about pay, annual leave and other benefits, say scientists who have made the move.

Multi-genome assemblies called pangenomes can capture genetic diversity in a species, but researchers are still working out how best to build and explore them.

Scent sculptor Michael Moisseeff simulates all manner of aromas from the everyday and historical to the extraterrestrial.

Assessing the genetic and cellular changes that underlie human lung cancer as it evolves could aid the development of treatments. The TRACERx project reports data from studies tracking the disease.

A strategy for deflecting asteroids on a path towards Earth has passed its first test. The results confirm predictions about how asteroids respond to impact — and offer useful insights.

The ability to separate the radioactive element americium from spent nuclear fuel would lower the long-term hazards of nuclear waste. An inorganic molecular cage that selectively binds to americium opens up a separation strategy.

Genome sequencing, combined with methods for deducing how genomic regions interact, have now provided insight into how the wings that give skates and rays their characteristic shapes evolved more than 200 million years ago.

A protein from Epstein–Barr virus called EBNA1 has been shown to bind to and break human chromosome 11, producing instability in the genome that might cause a predisposition to cancer.

The impact of the DART spacecraft on the asteroid Dimorphos is reported and reconstructed, demonstrating that kinetic impactor technology is a viable technique to potentially defend Earth from asteroids.

The 33 minute change in the orbital period of Dimorphos after the DART kinetic impact suggests that ejecta contributed a substantial amount of momentum to the asteroid compared with the DART spacecraft alone.

Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope reveal a complex evolution of the ejecta produced by the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft impacting Dimorphos.

The authors report on a determination of the momentum transferred to an asteroid by kinetic impact, showing that the DART kinetic impact was highly effective in deflecting the asteroid Dimorphos.

Optical observations of Dimorphos, a satellite of the asteroid 65803 Didymos, before, during and after the impact of the DART spacecraft, from a network of citizen science telescopes across the world are reported.

By using millikelvin scanning tunnelling microscopy to study atomically flat terraces on U-terminated surfaces of the heavy-fermion superconductor URu₂Si₂, the two-dimensional heavy fermions are shown to form quantum-well states on the surface.

A two-dimensional field-effect transistor made of indium selenide is shown to outperform state-of-the-art silicon-based transistors, operating at lower supply voltage and achieving record high transconductance and ballistic ratio.

Methane can be oxidized to methanol using N-heterocyclic carbene-ligated Fe^II complexes, in which the hydrophobic cavity captures the methane substrate from an aqueous solution and releases the hydrophilic methanol product back into the solution.

A new strategy to separate radioactive americium from lanthanides based on complexation with polyoxometalates and ultrafiltration technique is highly efficient and rapid, does not involve any organic components and requires minimal energy input.

A depolymerization method is described that uses electrified spatiotemporal heating to selectively generate monomers from the commodity plastics polypropylene and poly(ethylene terephthalate), allowing control over the pyrolysis of plastic waste and reducing the formation of side products.

Skate-specific changes in the epigenome and its three-dimensional organization contributed to the evolution of the batoid fin morphology.

Epstein–Barr Virus (EBV) nuclear antigen 1 is shown to induce breakage of a fragile site on chromosome 11 by binding to a cluster of EBV-like imperfect palindromic repeats.

Neurons in the central amygdala contribute to the reward prediction error responses of dopamine neurons to facilitate reward learning, but are not involved in aversive learning.

The impact of artificial intelligence in cardiac function assessment is evaluated by a blinded, randomized non-inferiority trial of artificial intelligence versus sonographer initial assessment of the left ventricular ejection fraction.

Analyses of multiregional tumour samples from 421 patients with non-small cell lung cancer prospectively enrolled to the TRACERx study reveal determinants of tumour evolution and relationships between intratumour heterogeneity and clinical outcome.

A longitudinal evolutionary analysis of 126 lung cancer patients with metastatic disease reveals the timing of metastatic divergence, modes of dissemination and the genomic events subject to selection during the metastatic transition.

Computational and machine-learning approaches that integrate genomic and transcriptomic variation from paired primary and metastatic non-small cell lung cancer samples from the TRACERx cohort reveal the role of transcriptional events in tumour evolution.

Measurements of subclonal expansion of ctDNA in the plasma before surgery may enable the prediction of future metastatic subclones, offering the possibility for early intervention in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer.

In lung adenocarcinoma, antibodies against endogenous retroviruses promote anti-tumour activity, and expression of endogenous retroviruses can predict outcomes of immunotherapy.

A proximity labelling-based approach for mapping nuclear protein–protein interactions is described that could advance epigenetic drug discovery.

A computational approach is used to design modular proteins that bind to synthetic peptides and disordered regions of human proteins with high affinity and specificity.

The authors report the cryogenic electron microscopy structures of human GSDMB in complex with Shigella IpaH7.8 and the GSDMB pore, shedding light on the molecular mechanisms of Shigella IpaH7.8 recognition and targeting of GSDMs and GSDMB pore formation.

The cryo-EM structure of the GSDMB pore reveals mechanisms by which GSDMB pore-forming activity is regulated by pathogenic bacteria and mRNA splicing.

A structure–function analysis of cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator shows its two nucleotide-binding domains dimerize before channel opening, and reveals a mechanism through which conformational changes in the channel regulate chloride conductance.