Editorials
Crippling the US National Institutes of Health might increase resistance to other attacks on science.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2017.21664
Trump’s pick for the US regulatory agency will bring experience and a clear vision — as well as ties to industry.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2017.21661
New Zealand parrots provide the latest support for a popular theory of crowd behaviour.
doi: 10.1038/543464a
News
The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institutes of Health are big losers — but planetary science at NASA stands to gain.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2017.21652
Immersive experience set to become accessible to all.
doi: 10.1038/543473a
President’s impeachment creates opportunity to shift how nation supports basic research.
doi: 10.1038/543474a
The indigenous people — known for their click languages — are the first in Africa to draft guidelines for researchers.
doi: 10.1038/543475a
Yves Meyer wins the Abel Prize for role in theory with data applications from digital cinema to pinpointing gravitational waves.
doi: 10.1038/543476a
News Features
Astronomers hope to grab the first images of an event horizon — the point of no return.
doi: 10.1038/543478a
News & Views
The standard dinosaur evolutionary tree has two key branches: the 'bird-hipped' Ornithischia and the 'reptile-hipped' Saurischia. A revised tree challenges many ideas about the relationships between dinosaur groups. See Article p.501
doi: 10.1038/543494a
Genome sequencing of Mycobacterium abscessus strains that infect the lungs suggests a possible shift in the bacterium's mode of infection from environmental acquisition to human transmission. This finding has clinical implications.
doi: 10.1038/543495a
The vibrational excitations of nanostructures have been mapped using state-of-the-art electron microscopy. The results improve our understanding of these excitations, which will aid the design of nanostructures. See Letter p.529
doi: 10.1038/543497a
A study showing the effects of land-use quality on the productivity of bumblebee colonies highlights the importance of resource availability across space and time in promoting survival over generations. See Letter p.547
doi: 10.1038/nature21897
doi: 10.1038/nature21899
Articles
Analysis of a wide range of dinosaurs and dinosauromorphs recovers a sister-taxon relationship between Ornithischia and Theropoda, calling for the redefinition of all the major clades within Dinosauria and the revival of the clade Ornithoscelida.
doi: 10.1038/nature21700
Increasing expression of the autism-associated gene Ube3a, either alone or in combination with seizures, not only impairs sociability in mice but also reduces expression of the synaptic organizer Cbln1 in the ventral tegmental area, thus weakening glutamatergic transmission.
doi: 10.1038/nature21678
In Arabidopsis thaliana, a genetic network that controls the phosphate stress response also influences the structure of the root microbiome community, even under non-stress phosphate conditions.
doi: 10.1038/nature21417
A technique called genome architecture mapping (GAM) involves sequencing DNA from a large number of thin nuclear cryosections to develop a map of genome organization without the limitations of existing 3C-based methods.
doi: 10.1038/nature21411
Letters
Simultaneous precise measurement of the non-commuting observables spin angle and spin amplitude is achieved by directing the error due to quantum measurement back-action into an unmeasured spin component.
doi: 10.1038/nature21434
Spatial mapping of optical and acoustic, bulk and surface vibrational modes in magnesium oxide nanocubes is demonstrated using a single electron probe.
doi: 10.1038/nature21699
Finite-element models are used to identify a material geometry that achieves the theoretical bounds on isotropic elastic stiffness—a combination closed-cell cubic and octet foam.
doi: 10.1038/nature21075
A method is described for selectively activating remote C–H bonds in heterocycles by using a catalytic template that binds by reversible coordination instead of a covalent linkage, removing the need for specific functional groups on which to attach the template.
doi: 10.1038/nature21418
The chemical composition of Earth’s lower mantle can be constrained by combining seismological observations with mineral physics elasticity measurements. However, the lack of laboratory data for Earth’s most abundant mineral, (Mg,Fe,Al)(Al,Fe,Si)O3 bridgmanite (also known as silicate perovskite), has hampered any conclusive result. Here we report single-crystal elasticity data on (Al,Fe)-bearing bridgmanite (Mg0.9Fe0.1Si0.9Al0.1)O3 measured using high-pressure Brillouin spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. Our measurements show that the elastic behaviour of (Al,Fe)-bearing bridgmanite is markedly different from the behaviour of the MgSiO3 endmember. We use our data to model seismic wave velocities in the top portion of the lower mantle, assuming a pyrolitic mantle composition and accounting for depth-dependent changes in iron partitioning between bridgmanite and ferropericlase. We find excellent agreement between our mineral physics predictions and the seismic Preliminary Reference Earth Model down to at least 1,200 kilometres depth, indicating chemical homogeneity of the upper and shallow lower mantle. A high Fe3+/Fe2+ ratio of about two in shallow-lower-mantle bridgmanite is required to match seismic data, implying the presence of metallic iron in an isochemical mantle. Our calculated velocities are in increasingly poor agreement with those of the lower mantle at depths greater than 1,200 kilometres, indicating either a change in bridgmanite cation ordering or a decrease in the ferric iron content of the lower mantle.
doi: 10.1038/nature21390
Analysis of three wild-caught bumblebee species shows that family lineage survival and persistence is significantly increased between successive colony cycle stages with the proportion of high-value foraging habitat near the natal colony.
doi: 10.1038/nature21709
Genomic analyses of KRAB-containing zinc-finger proteins and the transposable elements to which they bind show that a co-evolutionary arms race was not the only driver of their evolution.
doi: 10.1038/nature21683
Here, marine phytoplankton are shown to diversify their migratory strategy in response to turbulent cues through a rapid change in shape, thus challenging a fundamental paradigm in oceanography that phytoplankton are passively at the mercy of ocean turbulence.
doi: 10.1038/nature21415
Early administration of broadly neutralizing antibodies in a macaque SHIV infection model is associated with very low levels of persistent viraemia, which leads to the establishment of T-cell immunity and resultant long-term infection control.
doi: 10.1038/nature21435
CD32a expression is induced on the surface of HIV-1-infected quiescent CD4 T cells, and could thus be used as a biomarker to facilitate future study of how the virus persists in cellular reservoirs in infected hosts.
doi: 10.1038/nature21710
The vertebrate-conserved and germline-specific RNA-binding protein DND1 recruits the CCR4–NOT deadenylase complex to destabilize its mRNA targets and is required for the maintenance of germline stem cells.
doi: 10.1038/nature21690
Cell proliferation and survival require the faithful maintenance and propagation of genetic information, which are threatened by the ubiquitous sources of DNA damage present intracellularly and in the external environment. A system of DNA repair, called the DNA damage response, detects and repairs damaged DNA and prevents cell division until the repair is complete. Here we report that methylation at the 6 position of adenosine (m6A) in RNA is rapidly (within 2 min) and transiently induced at DNA damage sites in response to ultraviolet irradiation. This modification occurs on numerous poly(A)+ transcripts and is regulated by the methyltransferase METTL3 (methyltransferase-like 3) and the demethylase FTO (fat mass and obesity-associated protein). In the absence of METTL3 catalytic activity, cells showed delayed repair of ultraviolet-induced cyclobutane pyrimidine adducts and elevated sensitivity to ultraviolet, demonstrating the importance of m6A in the ultraviolet-responsive DNA damage response. Multiple DNA polymerases are involved in the ultraviolet response, some of which resynthesize DNA after the lesion has been excised by the nucleotide excision repair pathway, while others participate in trans-lesion synthesis to allow replication past damaged lesions in S phase. DNA polymerase κ (Pol κ), which has been implicated in both nucleotide excision repair and trans-lesion synthesis, required the catalytic activity of METTL3 for immediate localization to ultraviolet-induced DNA damage sites. Importantly, Pol κ overexpression qualitatively suppressed the cyclobutane pyrimidine removal defect associated with METTL3 loss. Thus, we have uncovered a novel function for RNA m6A modification in the ultraviolet-induced DNA damage response, and our findings collectively support a model in which m6A RNA serves as a beacon for the selective, rapid recruitment of Pol κ to damage sites to facilitate repair and cell survival.
doi: 10.1038/nature21671