Volume 536 Issue 7617

Editorial

Go forth and replicate! p.373

To make replication studies more useful, researchers must make more of them, funders must encourage them and journals must publish them.

doi: 10.1038/536373a

News

News Features

News & Views

Generation soft p.400

Meet the octobot, the first robot to be made entirely from soft materials. Powered by a chemical reaction and controlled by a fluidic logic circuit, it heralds a generation of soft robots that might surpass conventional machines. See Letter p.451

doi: 10.1038/536400a

Friendly neighbours feed tumour cells p.401

In pancreatic cancer, neighbouring non-cancerous cells degrade their own proteins through a process called autophagy and release amino acids that are then taken up and used by the cancer cells. See Letter p.479

doi: 10.1038/nature19420

Signal locked in p.402

A plant receptor protein interacts in an unusual way with the hormone it binds. The receptor cleaves the hormone, a fragment of which then binds covalently to the receptor and triggers a major receptor shape change. See Letter p.469

doi: 10.1038/nature19418

Fleeting glimpse of an elusive element p.404

A heroic effort to characterize the chemistry of actinium, a short-lived radioactive element, reveals surprising differences in behaviour compared with other elements in the actinide series.

doi: 10.1038/536404a

Memories linked within a window of time p.405

In mice, two fear-associated memories that are created close in time are represented in the brain's amygdala by the activation of overlapping ensembles of neurons. As a result, eliminating the fear of one memory also extinguishes fear of the other.

doi: 10.1038/536405a

Mitotic regulation comes into focus p.407

Structural studies provide insight into the mechanisms governing a checkpoint in cell division that prevents chromosomes from segregating before they are properly aligned on a structure called the mitotic spindle. See Article p.431

doi: 10.1038/nature19423

Earth-like planet around Sun's neighbour p.408

An Earth-mass planet has been discovered in orbit around Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our Sun. The planet orbits at a distance from the star such that liquid water and potentially life could exist on its surface. See Letter p.437

doi: 10.1038/536408a

Articles

Genomic insights into the origin of farming in the ancient Near East p.419

Analysis of DNA from ancient individuals of the Near East documents the extreme substructure among the populations which transitioned to farming, a structure that was maintained throughout the transition from hunter–gatherer to farmer but that broke down over the next five thousand years.

doi: 10.1038/nature19310

Uncovering Earth’s virome p.425

An integrated computational approach that explores the viral content of more than 3,000 metagenomic samples collected globally highlights the existing global viral diversity, increases the known number of viral genes by an order of magnitude, and provides detailed insights into viral distribution across diverse ecosystems and into virus–host interactions.

doi: 10.1038/nature19094

Letters

The TRPM2 ion channel is required for sensitivity to warmth p.460

The neuronal mechanism for the detection of non-painful warm stimuli has remained unclear; mammalian TRPM2 ion channel is shown to be required for warmth detection in the non-noxious range of 33–38 °C, and surprisingly to mediate responses to warmth in the autonomic nervous system.

doi: 10.1038/nature19074

DWARF14 is a non-canonical hormone receptor for strigolactone p.469

Structural, biochemical, mass spectrometry and genetic analyses define Arabidopsis thaliana AtD14 as a non-canonical hormone receptor for strigolactone, which hydrolyses strigolactone into a covalently linked intermediate molecule and undergoes an open-to-closed state transition for interaction with D3 to trigger strigolactone signalling.

doi: 10.1038/nature19073

Vaccine protection against Zika virus from Brazil p.474

The authors test several candidate vaccines for Zika virus in mouse models and show that single-shot DNA vaccines and inactivated virus vaccines provide complete protection against Zika virus isolates from Brazil and Puerto Rico.

doi: 10.1038/nature18952