A roundup of weekly science policy and related news.

Little confidence that biggest WIMP detector ever will find hypothesized particles.

Viral genomes suggest ordinary travel brought the disease to Brazil in late 2013.

Videos of captive marine creatures unexpectedly show jellies defecate from pores, not via their mouth.

One-third of 473 genes in microbe have unknown functions.

Three of Meral Camcı's fellow academics are imprisoned for criticizing the government; more arrests may follow.

Blueprint gives few details, but scientists foresee more generous grants and new facilities.

Grisly find suggests Bronze Age northern Europe was more organized-and violent-than thought.

Advances in genetic research prompt a pair of scientists to update the "selfish gene" metaphor

A new collection of essays takes a fresh look at Thomas Kuhn's classic text

Ad hoc approaches mix and match existing components

3D snapshots reveal dynamics of the spliceosome on the mRNA splicing pathway [Also see Research Article by Agafonov et al.]

Tropical species may be highly vulnerable to climate change [Also see Report by Chan et al.]

Material properties can now be predicted reliably from first-principles calculations [Also see Research Article by Lejaeghere et al.]

Restacked exfoliated sheets create interconnected nanofluidic channels for ion transport

Surface effects play a key role in cloud droplet formation [Also see Report by Ruehl et al.]

Disruptions in 3D genomic architecture allow cancer genes to evade transcriptional silencing [Also see Report by Hnisz et al.]

Lead halide materials have the properties needed to reach the highest photovoltaic efficiencies [Also see Report by Pazos-Outón et al.]

The structure of the largest human spliceosome subcomplex reveals substantial differences from the equivalent yeast complex. [Also see Perspective by Cate]

A survey of recent density functional theory methods shows a convergence to more accurate property calculations. [Also see Perspective by Skylaris]

Cycles of design, building, and testing produced a 531-kilobase genome comprising 473 genes.

Metal catalysts in cyclohexane solvent append boron substituents to methane selectively through C-H bond scission at 150°C.

Metal catalysts in cyclohexane solvent append boron substituents to methane selectively through C-H bond scission at 150°C.

The turbulent solar magnetic field is simulated on many scales at high resolution.

Exceptionally long charge-extraction lengths are enabled by multiple cycles of photon absorption and emission. [Also see Perspective by Yablonovitch]

By several metrics, economics experiments do replicate, although not as often as predicted.

Daily and seasonal variation influence the temperature tolerance of land vertebrates differently. [Also see Perspective by Perez et al.]

Sleep replay combines preexisting firing patterns of fast-firing neurons and a small fraction of responsive, slow-firing neurons.

In vivo fluorescence labeling reveals neuron-specific primordial transcriptional programs as they dynamically unfold.

Organic molecules can form a surface layer around nucleating cloud droplets. [Also see Perspective by Noziere]

The functional consequences of amino acid substitutions in transcription factors that bind to DNA are predicted and verified.

Disrupting the boundaries between three-dimensional neighborhoods in the genome can activate cancer-promoting genes. [Also see Perspective by Wala and Beroukim]

People that have not been infected with HIV can harbor HIV-1 broadly neutralizing antibody B cell precursors.

Analysis of the cellular ancestry of tumor neoantigens can predict which are most likely to induce an immune response.

Single-molecule experiments reveal inactive and leaky states that define the activity and the regulation of a proton pump.

A weekly roundup of information on newly offered instrumentation, apparatus, and laboratory materials of potential interest to researchers.