Volume 579 Issue 7798, 12 March 2020

Some countries want to replicate the ‘high-risk, high-reward’ US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. But freedom comes with responsibility.

Locusts are causing a food crisis that can no longer be ignored.

When science is viewed in isolation from the past and politics, it’s easier for those with bad intentions to revive dangerous and discredited ideas.

Almost one-third of the water used in the western United States goes to crops that feed cattle.

Genomic analysis finds a match between poultry trading patterns and the spread of avian influenza.

After a regimen combining carbohydrates and sucralose, the body’s ability to regulate blood sugar falters.

Levels of smoke-related chemicals rise sharply during age-restricted action films, but less so during a children’s flick.

Ageing transmission electron microscopes get a new lease of life from an add-on.

Complexes that are central to nerve-cell function might predate the split between bacteria and the lineage that led to more-complex organisms.

Sea-level rise and coastal shifts could wipe out nearly half of Earth’s sandy seashores by the end of the century.

The latest science news, in brief.

As cases in Washington state soar, virologists are working around the clock to diagnose cases, reveal routes of transmission and test treatments.

Mice originally bred for SARS research are in high demand.

Researchers have identified microscopic features that could make the pathogen more infectious than the SARS virus — and serve as drug targets.

Despite recent defeats, activists are optimistic that courts will provide relief from climate change.

Experiment tests a gene-editing therapy for a hereditary blindness disorder.

After decades of slow progress, researchers are exploring better treatments for kidney failure — which kills more people than HIV or tuberculosis.

For three years, part of DARPA has funded two teams for each project: one for research and one for reproducibility. The investment is paying off.

Non-scientists feel shut out and confused by articles that use technical language — even if it’s defined.

A move from Germany taught Deb Raj Aryal how to acclimatize to a new research culture.

Rose A. Marks abseils down South African cliffs to understand how the ‘resurrection’ plant stays alive for years during droughts.

Identifying Earth’s building blocks from terrestrial rocks is challenging because these ingredients have become mixed as the planet evolved. Evidence of an unknown building block in ancient rocks provides fresh insight.

Blood cells called myeloid cells can facilitate metastasis — the spread of a tumour to distant organs. Taming these cells with drugs that alter the chemical structure of their DNA limits metastasis in mice.

A key DNA-repair enzyme has a surprising role during the early steps in the assembly of ribosomes — the molecular machines that translate the genetic code into protein.

A tiny skull trapped in 99-million-year-old amber suggests that some of the earliest birds evolved to become miniature. The fossil illustrates how ancient amber can act as a window into the distant past.

Bits of a logic gate can be encoded by differently magnetized regions. A method has been developed in which the walls between these domains are manipulated electrically, rather than magnetically, to produce a logic gate.

A brain structure called the cerebellum has mostly been associated with learning from errors. The discovery that the cerebellum is also involved in reward-driven learning in monkeys implies a previously unappreciated role in cognition.

Coherent quantum control of a single ¹²³Sb nucleus using electric fields produced within a silicon nanoelectronic device is demonstrated experimentally, validating a concept predicted theoretically in 1961.

The existence of the Kondo cloud is revealed by the spatially resolved characterization of the oscillations of the Kondo temperature in a Fabry–Pérot interferometer and its extent is shown to be several micrometres.

Chiral coupling between neighbouring magnetic domains is used in domain-wall racetracks to realize various all-electric logic operations by cascading the gates.

The epitaxial growth of single-crystal hexagonal boron nitride monolayers on a copper (111) thin film across a sapphire wafer suggests a route to the broad adoption of two-dimensional layered semiconductor materials in industry.

Real-time nuclear magnetic resonance studies of electrolyte decomposition and self-discharge in redox flow batteries provide insights into the underlying mechanisms of the reactions, such as radical formation and electron transfer.

Graphene is shown to be impermeable to helium and several other gases, except for hydrogen, which is attributed to the strong catalytic activity of ripples in the graphene sheet.

Three techniques for estimating mass losses from the Greenland Ice Sheet produce comparable results for the period 1992–2018 that approach the trajectory of the highest rates of sea-level rise projected by the IPCC.

Ruthenium isotope compositions of the oldest preserved mantle rocks from Greenland imply that volatile-rich outer Solar System material was not delivered to Earth until very late in the planet’s formation.

Oculudentavis khaungraae—a newly discovered theropod from the Cretaceous period of Myanmar—reveals a previously unknown bauplan and ecology associated with miniaturization, highlighting the potential for recovering small-bodied vertebrates from amber deposits.

Analyses of microbial communities that live 10–750 m below the seafloor at Atlantis Bank, Indian Ocean, provide insights into how these microorganisms survive by coupling energy sources to organic and inorganic carbon resources.

Computational modelling, imaging and single-cell ablation in layer 2/3 of the mouse vibrissal somatosensory cortex reveals that recurrent activity in cortical neurons can drive input-specific amplification during behaviour.

In response to infection with Staphylococcus aureus in vitro and in vivo, host cells increase their secretion of exosomes containing ADAM10—vesicular structures that can provide protection by sequestering bacterial toxins.

Phylogenetic and metagenomic analyses of the complete viral genome of a new coronavirus from the family Coronaviridae reveal that the virus is closely related to a group of SARS-like coronaviruses found in bats in China.

Characterization of full-length genome sequences from patients infected with a new coronavirus (2019-nCoV) shows that the sequences are nearly identical and indicates that the virus is related to a bat coronavirus.

Large-scale single-cell sequencing of RNA and T cell receptors in samples from patients with cancer shows clonotypic expansion of effector-like T cells not only in tumour tissue but also in normal adjacent tissues and peripheral blood, which associates with clinical response to cancer immunotherapy.

A role and mechanism of action are identified for INSP3R1 in the stimulation of hepatic gluconeogenesis and mitochondrial oxidation by glucagon, suggesting that INSP3R1 may be a target for ameliorating dysregulation of hepatic glucose metabolism.

In mouse models of pulmonary metastasis, adjuvant epigenetic therapy targeting myeloid-derived suppressor cells disrupts the premetastatic microenvironment after resection of primary tumours and inhibits the dissemination of residual tumour cells.

The catalytic subunit of DNA-PK autophosphorylates and contributes to ribosome biogenesis and haematopoiesis by binding to the U3 small nucleolar RNA.

A cryo-electron microscopy structure of β-arrestin 1 in complex with the M2 muscarinic receptor reconstituted in lipid nanodiscs is reported.

A cryo-electron microscopy structure of the neurotensin receptor 1 in complex with β-arrestin 1 is reported.