Gender imbalance in science journals is still pervasive p.435
The latest update on Nature’s sexism shows an increase in female contributors and referees since 2012, but there is a long way to go.doi: 10.1038/541435b
Volume 541 Issue 7638
Editorials
Scientists must fight for the facts p.435
President Trump’s unconventional stances cannot go unchallenged.doi: 10.1038/541435a
Vaccine initiative marks bold resolution p.436
Preparation against future epidemic threats is a welcome and essential move.doi: 10.1038/541436a
News
Trump’s next move? Scientists struggle with foggy future p.443
The US president reiterated his promise to roll back climate regulations on his first day in office.doi: 10.1038/nature.2017.21339
Billion-dollar project aims to prep vaccines before epidemics hit p.444
Massive effort plans to stockpile vaccines against future outbreaks.doi: 10.1038/nature.2017.21329
Plant biologists welcome their robot overlords p.445
Old-school areas of plant biology are getting tech upgrades that herald more detailed, faster data collection.doi: 10.1038/541445a
‘You never said my peer review was confidential’ — scientist challenges publisher p.446
Open-science advocate says journals should be clearer to peer-reviewers about terms and conditions.doi: 10.1038/nature.2017.21342
D-Wave upgrade: How scientists are using the world’s most controversial quantum computer p.447
Scepticism surrounds the ultimate potential of D-wave machines, but researchers are already finding uses for them.doi: 10.1038/541447b
Biotech firm backs controversial CRISPR challenger p.447
What Novozymes might do with the NgAgo protein, claimed by some to be a powerful gene editor, is still unclear.doi: 10.1038/nature.2017.21343
Controversial patient-consent proposal left out of research-ethics reforms p.449
US agency releases finalized ‘Common Rule’, which governs human-subjects research.doi: 10.1038/nature.2017.21330
News Features
Big science has a buzzword problem p.450
Moonshots, road maps, frameworks and more are proliferating, but few can agree on what these names even mean.doi: 10.1038/541450a
News & Views
Phages make a group decision p.466
It emerges that phage viruses, which infect bacteria, use small peptides to communicate with each other. This observation of intercellular communication also reveals how viruses make a key developmental decision. See Article p.488doi: 10.1038/nature21118
Optical transition seen in antihydrogen p.467
Precise measurements of antimatter systems might cast light on why the Universe is dominated by matter. The observation of a transition in an antihydrogen atom heralds the next wave of high-precision antimatter studies. See Letter p.506doi: 10.1038/541467a
Earth's building blocks p.468
Earth grew by the accretion of meteoritic material. High-precision isotopic data reveal how the composition of this material changed over time, forcing revision of models of our planet's formation. See Letters p.521 & p.525doi: 10.1038/541468a
Versatile gel assembly on a chip p.470
Materials called hydrogels have potential applications as scaffolds for tissue engineering, but methods are needed to assemble them into complex structures that mimic those found in nature. Just such a method has now been reported.doi: 10.1038/nature21491
Unconventional translation in cancer p.471
Translation of RNA into proteins is a fundamental process for all cells. Analysis of a mouse model of skin cancer uncovers an atypical RNA-translation program that has a vital role in tumour formation. See Article p.494doi: 10.1038/nature21115
Review
Chiral quantum optics p.473
doi: 10.1038/nature21037
Articles
Neurotoxic reactive astrocytes are induced by activated microglia p.481
A reactive astrocyte subtype termed A1 is induced after injury or disease of the central nervous system and subsequently promotes the death of neurons and oligodendrocytes.doi: 10.1038/nature21029
Communication between viruses guides lysis–lysogeny decisions p.488
Some phages—viruses that infect bacteria—encode peptides that are secreted from infected cells and that, beyond a certain threshold, stimulate other viruses to switch from the lytic (killing the host cell) to lysogenic (dormant) phase.doi: 10.1038/nature21049
Translation from unconventional 5′ start sites drives tumour initiation p.494
The translation of upstream open reading frames in skin tumour models protects some cancer-related mRNAs from global reductions in protein synthesis during the early stages of tumour initiation, suggesting that unconventional translation has a crucial role in tumorigenesis.doi: 10.1038/nature21036
Structure of a CLC chloride ion channel by cryo-electron microscopy p.500
Some CLC proteins are channels that conduct chloride ions passively, whereas others are active co-transporters, a difference that has been hard to understand given their high degree of sequence homology; now, cryo-electron microscopy is used to determine the structure of a mammalian CLC channel, shedding light on this question.doi: 10.1038/nature20812
Letters
Observation of the 1S–2S transition in trapped antihydrogen OPEN p.506
The 1S–2S transition in magnetically trapped atoms of antihydrogen is observed, and its frequency is shown to be consistent with that expected for hydrogen.doi: 10.1038/nature21040
High-spatial-resolution mapping of catalytic reactions on single particles p.511
The chemical conversion of N-heterocyclic carbene molecules attached to catalytic particles is monitored at high spatial resolution using synchrotron-radiation-based infrared nanospectroscopy.doi: 10.1038/nature20795
Compensatory water effects link yearly global land CO2 sink changes to temperature p.516
A study of how temperature and water availability fluctuations affect the carbon balance of land ecosystems reveals different controls on local and global scales, implying that spatial climate covariation drives the global carbon cycle response.doi: 10.1038/nature20780
The isotopic nature of the Earth’s accreting material through time p.521
The mantle signatures of elements with distinct affinities for metal isotopically record different stages of Earth’s accretion, revealing that the Moon-forming impactor had a similar composition to the other impactors that made the Earth.doi: 10.1038/nature20830
Ruthenium isotopic evidence for an inner Solar System origin of the late veneer p.525
All chondrites are shown to have Ru isotopic compositions that are more different from that of the Earth’s mantle the further from the Sun they formed; this means the Earth’s late veneer cannot derive from volatile-rich material formed in the outer Solar System.doi: 10.1038/nature21045
Breeding site sampling across the Arctic by individual males of a polygynous shorebird p.528
Nomadic movement across the breeding range enables male pectoral sandpipers to display and sire offspring at multiple sites within a single breeding season, with tenure depending on breeding female numbers at each site.doi: 10.1038/nature20813
A solution to the single-question crowd wisdom problem p.532
The wisdom of the crowd can be improved by using an algorithm that selects the answer that is more popular than people predict, rather than the answer that is most popular.doi: 10.1038/nature21054
Evolutionary genomics of the cold-adapted diatom Fragilariopsis cylindrus OPEN p.536
The genome of the Southern Ocean phytoplankton Fragilariopsis cylindrus differs markedly from the genomes of its more temperate relatives, with divergent alleles being differentially expressed in environmentally specific conditions such as freezing and darkness.doi: 10.1038/nature20803
The Hippo kinases LATS1 and 2 control human breast cell fate via crosstalk with ERα p.541
Cell fate perturbations underlie many human diseases, including breast cancer
doi: 10.1038/nature20829
Structural basis for ArfA–RF2-mediated translation termination on mRNAs lacking stop codons p.546
The structure of the bacterial ribosome stalled on a truncated mRNA in complex with ArfA and the release factor RF2 is presented, revealing how ArfA recruits RF2 to the ribosome and induces conformational changes within RF2 to enable translation termination in the absence of a stop codon.doi: 10.1038/nature20821
Mechanistic insights into the alternative translation termination by ArfA and RF2 p.550
The structure of the bacterial 70S ribosome in complex with ArfA, the release factor RF2, a short non-stop mRNA and a cognate P-site tRNA is presented, revealing how ArfA and RF2 facilitate alternative translation termination of the non-stop ribosomal complex using a stop-codon surrogate mechanism.doi: 10.1038/nature20822
Structural basis of co-translational quality control by ArfA and RF2 bound to ribosome p.554
The structure of the bacterial ribosome in complex with the ArfA and the release factor RF2 shows how ArfA recruits RF2 to terminate translation of messenger RNAs that lack a stop codon in the ribosome.doi: 10.1038/nature21053
