| | Compare voting systems to improve them
Research is needed on how groups make choices in real situations, write Guruprasad Madhavan, Charles Phelps and Rino Rappuoli.
Guruprasad Madhavan, Charles Phelps, Rino Rappuoli | Chemistry: The hidden war
Paul A. Lombardo applauds a shocking study detailing the Allies' Second World War experimentation with chemical weapons on their own troops.
Paul A. Lombardo | Books in brief
Barbara Kiser reviews five of the week's best science picks.
Barbara Kiser | Neuroscience: The risks of reading the brain
Russell Poldrack assesses a primer on the implications of advances in brain imaging.
Russell Poldrack | | | | |
| | Human behaviour: Shoppers like what they know
Faced with ever-changing products, consumers can benefit from trying new items. But data collected over almost five years show that, the longer shoppers have been buying a favourite product, the more likely they are to stick with it. | Genomic hallmarks of localized, non-indolent prostate cancer
Genomic analyses of localized, non-indolent prostate cancer identify recurrent aberrations that can predict relapse, and also highlight differences between early prostate cancer and metastatic, castration-resistant disease. | Kinetically E-selective macrocyclic ring-closing metathesis
Ring-closing metathesis is a widely used chemical transformation that can generate organic macrocycle compounds; here, an approach is described by which the E-stereoisomer of a macrocycle is generated selectively, exemplified by synthesizing the antibiotic recifeolide and the anti-cancer drug pacritinib. | The Hippo kinases LATS1 and 2 control human breast cell fate via crosstalk with ERα
Ablation of the large tumour suppressor kinases 1 and 2 promotes a luminal breast cell phenotype through stabilization of oestrogen receptor-α, thereby changing human breast cell fate. | Breeding site sampling across the Arctic by individual males of a polygynous shorebird
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. | | | | 
To celebrate the continuing rise to fame of the CRISPR system, the Nature Reviews Genetics 2017 CRISPR calendar highlights the underlying biology of CRISPR, as well as its diverse range of exciting potential applications in genetic research, biotechnology and therapeutics.
Download the calendar free online
Produced with support from
OriGene | | | | | | | | | | | Integrated genomic characterization of oesophageal carcinoma OPEN
The Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network report integrated genomic and molecular analyses of 164 squamous cell carcinomas and adenocarcinomas of the oesophagus; they find genomic and molecular features that differentiate squamous and adenocarcinomas of the oesophagus, and strong similarities between oesophageal adenocarcinomas and the chromosomally unstable variant of gastric adenocarcinoma, suggesting that gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma is a single disease entity.
The Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network | Piezo2 senses airway stretch and mediates lung inflation-induced apnoea
The mechanoreceptor Piezo2 is required for both the Hering–Breuer inflation reflex in adult mice and the inflation of the lungs of newborn mice.
Keiko Nonomura, Seung-Hyun Woo, Rui B. Chang et al. | Wnt/β-catenin promotes gastric fundus specification in mice and humans
Wnt signalling is shown to be required for specification of the gastric fundus in mice, and was used to develop human gastric organoids with functional fundic cell types.
Kyle W. McCracken, Eitaro Aihara, Baptiste Martin et al. | | A symmoriiform chondrichthyan braincase and the origin of chimaeroid fishes
The chimaeroids are one of the four principal divisions of the living jawed vertebrates and their evolutionary origins have been hard to discern; here, the study of a skull of the extinct shark Dwykaselachus shows that the chimaeroids nest among the once fairly common and widespread symmoriiforms.
Michael I. Coates, Robert W. Gess, John A. Finarelli et al. | Penitentes as the origin of the bladed terrain of Tartarus Dorsa on Pluto
Simulations of Pluto suggest that the sharp ridges in the Tartarus Dorsa region of Pluto are penitentes that formed over the past tens of millions of years.
John E. Moores, Christina L. Smith, Anthony D. Toigo et al. | Sideband cooling beyond the quantum backaction limit with squeezed light
Squeezed light is used to sideband cool the motion of a macroscopic mechanical object below the limit imposed by quantum fluctuations.
Jeremy B. Clark, Florent Lecocq, Raymond W. Simmonds et al. | Lasing action from photonic bound states in continuum
Lasing action from an optically pumped bound state in the continuum cavity is demonstrated, of both fundamental interest and with applications from optical trapping to biological sensing and quantum information.
Ashok Kodigala, Thomas Lepetit, Qing Gu et al. | Aromatic and antiaromatic ring currents in a molecular nanoring
By investigating ring currents, a six-porphyrin nanoring molecule is shown to be antiaromatic in its 4+ oxidation state and aromatic in its 6+ oxidation state.
Martin D. Peeks, Timothy D. W. Claridge, Harry L. Anderson | Hydroclimate changes across the Amazon lowlands over the past 45,000 years
Oxygen isotope records derived from stalagmites in the eastern Amazon reveal that rainfall was about half of today’s during the Last Glacial Maximum but half again as much during the mid-Holocene, broadly coinciding with global changes in temperature and carbon dioxide.
Xianfeng Wang, R. Lawrence Edwards, Augusto S. Auler et al. | Genome sequence and genetic diversity of European ash trees OPEN
The genome sequence and genetic diversity of European ash (Fraxinus excelsior) trees reveals the species’ varying susceptibility to ash dieback.
Elizabeth S. A. Sollars, Andrea L. Harper, Laura J. Kelly et al. | Structural variation in amyloid-β fibrils from Alzheimer's disease clinical subtypes
Structural differences in 40- and 42-residue-long amyloid-β fibrils seeded in vitro from the cortical tissue of patients with different clinical subtypes of Alzheimer’s disease suggest that different fibril structures form in different disease variants and with different peptide lengths.
Wei Qiang, Wai-Ming Yau, Jun-Xia Lu et al. | Hypoxia induces heart regeneration in adult mice
A pathway triggered by chronic severe hypoxia boosts regeneration of injured hearts in adult mice.
Yuji Nakada, Diana C. Canseco, SuWannee Thet et al. | mTORC1 and muscle regeneration are regulated by the LINC00961-encoded SPAR polypeptide
The polypeptide SPAR is encoded by a long non-coding RNA, localizes to the late endosome and lysosome, and regulates muscle regeneration by inhibiting mTORC1.
Akinobu Matsumoto, Alessandra Pasut, Masaki Matsumoto et al. | Genome-wide in vivo screen identifies novel host regulators of metastatic colonization
Screening mutant mouse lines using a genome-wide in vivo assay identifies microenvironmental regulators of metastatic colonization and defines SPNS2 as an important mediator of lung colonization.
Louise van der Weyden, Mark J. Arends, Andrew D. Campbell et al. | Variable chromatin structure revealed by in situ spatially correlated DNA cleavage mapping
The first genome-wide map of human chromatin conformation at the 1–3 nucleosome (50–500 base pair) scale, obtained using ionizing radiation-induced spatially correlated cleavage of DNA with sequencing (RICC-seq), which identifies spatially proximal DNA–DNA contacts.
Viviana I. Risca, Sarah K. Denny, Aaron F. Straight et al. | Structures of riboswitch RNA reaction states by mix-and-inject XFEL serial crystallography
Femtosecond XFEL crystallography is used to identify dynamic changes in the adenine riboswitch aptamer domain, with at least four states identified in real time, two in the apo form before binding and two with the ligand bound.
J. R. Stagno, Y. Liu, Y. R. Bhandari et al. | | | | |
