Volume 619 Issue 7969, 13 July 2023

As UN negotiations on eliminating plastic pollution enter a crucial phase, researchers must play their part in designing adequate measurement, monitoring and compliance systems.

Nations with large volumes of outgoing air traffic accounted for a high proportion of variant exports.

Analysis suggests that three types of primate made the transoceanic journey to South America from Africa millions of years ago.

A flat metal structure printed with an innovative copper-based ink turns into a 3D spider.

Coverage of wispy cirrus clouds is linked to episodes of electrical activity.

Decision to make the previously illicit drugs available is dogged by suggestions that it was rushed.

Researchers talk to Nature about how halting race-conscious admissions will affect STEM employment, university applications and more.

The European craft could help to investigate why the Universe’s expansion is accelerating, along with other cosmic questions.

The month’s sharpest science shots — selected by Nature’s photo team.

Extreme heat across land and sea has led to disastrous consequences in some regions.

The vaccine was inspired by COVID jabs, but if it is approved, it will be delivered in edible bait.

First primate studies to show cognitive benefits of the protein klotho could be a step towards clinical applications.

Digital art techniques can now devise custom, working biomolecules on demand.

Ideological differences threaten to muddy the definition of death in the United States — with potentially negative consequences for clinicians and people awaiting organ transplants.

Physicist Athene Donald’s research was dismissed as ‘cookery’. Now she’s written a primer on how to fight back.

Analysis of which researchers publish, get credit, move around, get funding, collaborate and receive citations shows how deeply ingrained the bias against women is.

Andrew Robinson reviews five of the best science picks.

Materials scientist and Nobel laureate who invented the rechargeable lithium batteries used in electric cars and phones.

Rare-earth elements that are crucial for clean-energy technologies are jealously fought over. Policies and programmes to encourage recycling and recovery could reduce tensions.

Workshops and training programmes tackle failure and how to recover from it.

Armed with DNA sequencers and powerful computational tools, archaeogeneticists are turning their attention towards ancient microbes to give bacteria their due in human history.

Cave ecologist Fernando Calderón Gutiérrez is studying the resilience of cave-adapted species in the face of climate change and other stressors.

Avian influenza A viruses that can cross the species barrier could cause the next pandemic. Mutations in the viral genome have now been found that can overcome a newly discovered antiviral protein, BTN3A3, in human cells.

Ambitious campaigns to sample plastic pollution in coral-reef and freshwater ecosystems demonstrate the value of international cooperation in assessing contamination to identify drivers and inform management.

Using a quantum computer to speed up one step in a textbook approach to generating random numbers proves to be a savvy strategy, and one that could make good use of quantum computers that will be available in the near future.

Snippets from Nature’s past.

It turns out that commitment to cell division is not an irreversible switch. In the absence of sustained stimulation by growth factor proteins during DNA replication, cells can quit the cell cycle before cell division occurs.

This Perspective reviews the utility and interpretation of circulating tumour DNA for the detection of residual and recurrent cancers and provides recommendations regarding its clinical application for a variety of solid tumours.

We show that void galaxies have had slower star formation histories than galaxies in denser large-scale environments and find two main types of star formation history in all environments.

This study presents high-resolution imaging of the ultracool dwarf LSR J1835 + 3259 at 8.4 GHz, demonstrating that its quiescent radio emission is spatially resolved and traces a double-lobed and axisymmetrical structure with properties consistent with radiation belt observations and modelling.

Spectroscopic measurements of individual rare-earth ion electron spins are performed by detecting their microwave fluorescence, with the method coming close to practical single-electron spin resonance at millikelvin temperatures.

A quantum algorithm is introduced that performs Markov chain Monte Carlo to sample from the Boltzmann distribution of Ising models, demonstrating, through experiments and simulations, a polynomial speedup compared with classical alternatives.

By moving to a substrate that better stabilizes conditions, the doping series of Nd_1–xSr_xNiO₂ is synthesized free from extended defects, resulting in enhancement of superconductivity in terms of transition temperature and range of doping.

Covalent organic molecules can be combined with ionic inorganic molecules to create a hybrid material demonstrating paradoxical mechanical properties in a bottom-up manner, enabling the manufacture of an ‘elastic ceramic plastic’.

Using a heralded single-photon source along with coincidence counting, we establish time correlation functions for B800 excitation and B850 fluorescence emission and demonstrate that both events involve single photons.

The recent and projected future increase in rainfall extremes in high-elevation areas of the Northern Hemisphere is due to a warming-induced shift from snow to rain.

Plastics were found in 77 out of 84 coral reefs surveyed in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans, including in deeper reefs and remote and near-pristine reefs, such as in uninhabited central Pacific atolls.

Analysis of plastic debris found in surface waters shows that lakes and reservoirs in densely populated and urbanized regions, as well as those with elevated deposition areas, are particularly vulnerable to plastic contamination.

A genome-wide association study including 22,389 cases of multiple sclerosis finds an association with disease progression at the DYSF–ZNF638 and DNM3–PIGC loci and identifies a potential of higher educational attainment in slowing disease progression.

CRISPR–Cas9 mutagenesis studies in mice demonstrate co-release of a neurotransmitter and a neuropeptide with opposing signals that stimulate the ventral tegmental area dopamine system through coordinated actions on different cells at different time scales.

A protein that evolved in primates, BTN3A3, is expressed in human airways and shows antiviral activity against avian IAVs but not against human IAVs.

Manipulation of TIM-1-expressing B cells enables engagement of the second arm of adaptive immunity to promote anti-tumour immunity and inhibit tumour growth.

A clinical language model trained on unstructured clinical notes from the electronic health record enhances prediction of clinical and operational events.

We uncover the mechanism underlying the restriction point phenomenon, suggest a role for cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and 6 activity in S and G2 phases, and explain the behaviour of cells following loss of mitogen signalling.

An inhibitor of the ferroptosis-suppressing FSP1 induces phase separation of FSP1, thereby impairing its function and reducing tumour growth.

Binding of the human pioneer transcription factor OCT4 to nucleosomes containing endogenous DNA sequences causes changes to the nucleosome structure and facilitates the cooperative assembly of multiple pioneer transcription factors, a property that can be affected by histone modifications.

Cryo-EM structures and analysis provide insight into the mechanisms by which basic helix–loop–helix transcription factors access E-box DNA sequences that are embedded within nucleosomes, and cooperate with other transcription factors.

Of the two types of Argonaute proteins produced by animals, AGO and PIWI, PIWI proteins can bind RNAs with less complementarity, enabling efficient silencing of transposons without the need to produce new RNA guides.

The SARS-CoV-2 spike internal fusion peptide forms a hairpin-like wedge that spans almost the entire lipid bilayer and the transmembrane segment wraps around the fusion peptide at the last stage of membrane fusion.

Interactions between the endoplasmic reticulum membrane protein complex (EMC) and the high-voltage-activated calcium channel Ca_Vα₂δ are mutually exclusive, and EMC-to-Ca_Vα₂δ hand-off involves a divalent ion-dependent step and Ca_V1.2 element ordering.