Editorials
Science fiction fights the past as much as it faces the future.
doi: 10.1038/537137b
Procedures have rightly been tightened in response to the controversy surrounding surgeon Paolo Macchiarini — but the institute must take care not to restrict its science.
doi: 10.1038/537137a
doi: 10.1038/537138a
News
NASA must avoid spreading Earth microbes to suspected water in hillside streaks.
doi: 10.1038/537145a
Research begins at the unabashedly international Francis Crick Institute.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2016.20530
Controversial US guidelines attempt to rein in rogue stem-cell clinics.
doi: 10.1038/537148a
Samples of the cell line do not match its 50-year-old source ― but how the mix-up occurred is a mystery.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2016.20515
Likelihood of stopgap spending measure grows.
doi: 10.1038/537149a
News Features
A long-running investigation of exceptional children reveals what it takes to produce the scientists who will lead the twenty-first century.
doi: 10.1038/537152a
Advances in catalyst research could create a superhighway to clean energy sources and a more-sustainable chemical industry.
doi: 10.1038/537156a
News & Views
The development of a drug that mimics the pain-relieving activity of opioid compounds, but has fewer side effects, points to an effective strategy for the discovery of many types of drug. See Article p.185
doi: 10.1038/nature19424
An experimental technique has been developed to measure water flow through carbon nanotubes. Measurements reveal that flow can be almost frictionless, posing challenges for computer simulations of nanofluidics. See Letter p.210
doi: 10.1038/537171a
An analysis of direct human impacts across Earth's land surface using global satellite images and ground surveys reveals the scale of the 'human footprint' on the world and its changes between 1993 and 2009.
doi: 10.1038/537172a
Interactions between young stars and their parent molecular clouds are poorly understood. High-resolution observations of the Orion nebula now reveal these interactions, which have implications for star formation. See Letter p.207
doi: 10.1038/537174a
Spliceosome complexes remove non-coding sequences from RNA transcripts in two steps. A structure of a spliceosome after the first step reveals active-site interactions and evolutionary constraints on these non-coding regions. See Article p.197
doi: 10.1038/nature19422
There was thought to be little in common between fish fin bones and the finger bones of land-dwellers. But zebrafish studies reveal that hox genes have a surprisingly similar role in patterning the two structures. See Letter p.225
doi: 10.1038/nature19425
Articles
A light-actuated liquid crystal polymer material system precisely manipulates liquid drops through capillary forces, and can be formed into a variety of shapes.
doi: 10.1038/nature19344
Computational docking to the the μ-opioid-receptor identifies PZM21, a novel selective biased agonist that generates substantial affective analgesia in mice without altering respiration or inducing drug reinforcement.
doi: 10.1038/nature19112
The cryo-electron microscopy structure of the rabbit voltage-gated calcium channel Cav1.1 complex at a nominal resolution of 3.6 ångströms.
doi: 10.1038/nature19321
Cryo-EM reveals the configuration of substrate pre-mRNA within the active spliceosome and suggests how remodelling occurs prior to exon ligation.
doi: 10.1038/nature19316
The solution structure of SecB, a molecular chaperone that exhibits strong antifolding activity, in complex with alkaline phosphatase and maltose-binding protein captured in their unfolded states.
doi: 10.1038/nature18965
Letters
One-arcsecond-resolution millimetre-wave images enable the surface of the Orion Bar molecular cloud to be resolved, revealing a fragmented ridge of high-density substructures, photoablative gas flows and instabilities that suggest that the cloud edge has been compressed by a high-pressure wave expanding into the molecular cloud, in contrast to predictions from static equilibrium models.
doi: 10.1038/nature18957
The pressure-driven flow rate through individual carbon nanotubes is precisely determined from the hydrodynamics of emerging water jets, revealing unexpectedly large and radius-dependent surface slippage.
doi: 10.1038/nature19315
Two small-molecule iron catalysts are shown to be capable of facilitating the targeted C–H oxidative modification of amino acids and peptides with preservation of α-centre chirality (a challenging synthesis), producing a diverse range of amino acids and peptides.
doi: 10.1038/nature18941
A 1.3-million-year-long climate history from the Lake Malawi basin in eastern Africa displays a trend towards progressively wetter conditions superimposed on strong 100,000-year eccentricity cycles of temperature and rainfall since the Mid-Pleistocene Transition around 900,000 years ago.
doi: 10.1038/nature19065
Hoxa- and Hoxd-deficient zebrafish generated using Crispr/Cas with fate mapping have reduced fin rays and increased endochondral elements, establishing homology between the developmental programs that create fin rays and the wrists and digits of mammals.
doi: 10.1038/nature19322
A selective inhibitor of the kinetoplastid proteasome (GNF6702) is identified that is highly efficacious in vivo, clearing the parasites that cause leishmaniasis, Chagas disease and sleeping sickness from mice, highlighting the possibility of developing a single class of drugs for these neglected diseases.
doi: 10.1038/nature19339
Hypoxia in germinal centres regulates B cell class switching via its effects on mTOR complex 1 and activation-induced cytosine deaminase activity.
doi: 10.1038/nature19334
The long non-coding RNA Morrbid controls myeloid cell lifespan and regulates apoptosis by repressing the adjacent pro-apoptotic Bcl2l11 gene in cis.
doi: 10.1038/nature19346
Recognition of the X chromosome by the dosage compensation complex in Drosophila relies on the sequence and shape of PionX sites.
doi: 10.1038/nature19338
Biochemical reconstitution of a synthetic human kinetochore with 21 protein subunits and centromeric nucleosomal DNA unveils fundamental principles of kinetochore organization and function.
doi: 10.1038/nature19333