Volume 584 Issue 7821, 20 August 2020

The United Kingdom’s RECOVERY trial shows a way to benefit patients faster.

Cool calculation trumps the common good when it comes to adopting solar energy.

Images from space bolster the population count, but the birds remain vulnerable to climate change.

Precision medicine offers insight into a particular form of the disorder.

A composite material helps scientists to see the details in ‘acoustic images’ depicting numbers.

The latest science news, in brief.

Activists praise the actions, but now seek deeper cultural change.

Monoclonal antibodies are complex and expensive to produce, meaning poor countries might be priced out.

The immunization is the first approved for widespread use but could be dangerous because it hasn’t been tested in large trials, say researchers.

Promoting equity, diversity and inclusion at meetings requires more than a code of conduct, analysis finds.

Genomics could reveal details about the source of the country’s first outbreak in more than 100 days, says epidemiologist Amanda Kvalsvig.

Paratek Pharmaceuticals successfully brought a new antibiotic to the market. So why is the company’s long-term survival in question?

Rebecca Wragg Sykes’s book paints a vivid portrait of our adaptable ancient relatives.

Yeast is a staple of scientific experimentation. Some researchers have used the fungus — mixed with some entrepreneurial flair — to launch brewing and fermentation businesses.

Giuditta Beretta uses predatory mites to wage biowar on thrips, common pests that plague the beloved tulips of the Netherlands.

It is unclear why people’s immune response to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus varies so widely. Tracking patient responses over time sheds light on this issue, and has implications for efforts to predict disease severity.

Does the conversion of natural habitats to human use favour animals that harbour agents causing human disease? A global analysis of vertebrates provides an answer to this pressing question.

Bacteria with two membranes must regulate the production of a surface molecule known as lipopolysaccharide. The structure of an essential signal-transduction protein now reveals how lipopolysaccharide controls its own synthesis.

Diodes are devices that conduct electric current mainly in one direction. An electrically polar film that acts as a diode for superconducting current could lead to electronic devices that have ultralow power consumption.

The genome sequence of an unusual reptile called the tuatara sheds light on the species’ evolution and on conservation strategies. The work is a model of current best practice for collaborating with Indigenous communities.

The antibody-dependent enhancement of disease is reviewed, with an emphasis on implications for the prevention and treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Observations of a cold molecular gas associated with the atomic hydrogen outflow from the centre of our Galaxy indicate that this gas has a surprisingly high mass but unclear origin.

Quantum error correction of Gottesman–Kitaev–Preskill code states is realized experimentally in a superconducting quantum device.

A superconducting diode that has zero resistance in only one direction is realized in an artificially engineered superlattice without inversion symmetry, enabling directional charge transport without energy loss.

A built-in electric field at the interface of metals and centrosymmetric semiconductors is shown to induce polar structures in the semiconductors and generate substantial piezoelectric and pyroelectric effects.

Under high pressure, elemental sulfur shows a sharp density discontinuity that evolves with pressure and temperature and terminates at a critical point, indicating a first-order liquid–liquid phase transition.

A direct ink writing protocol for silica aerogels enables 3D printing of lightweight, miniaturized objects with complex shapes, with the possibility to easily add functionality by incorporating nanoparticles.

Observed global-mean sea-level rise since 1900 is reconciled with estimates based on the contributing processes, revealing budget closure within uncertainties and showing ice-mass loss from glaciers as a dominant contributor.

Wildlife communities in human-managed ecosystems contain proportionally more species that share human pathogens, and at a higher abundance, than undisturbed habitats, suggesting that landscape transformation creates increasing opportunities for contact between humans and potential hosts of human disease.

The approximately 5-Gb tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) genome assembly provides a resource for analysing amniote evolution, and highlights the imperative for meaningful cultural engagement with Indigenous communities in genome-sequencing endeavours.

A systematic analysis of the proteostasis network of secreted proteins in Caenorhabditis elegans identifies numerous regulators of protein homeostasis outside the cell, and highlights the contribution of extracellular proteostasis to host defence.

High levels of the sexually dimorphic hormone ecdysone, produced by active ovaries in Drosophila, promote the proliferation of stem cells in the female gut and maximize reproductive fitness, but also increase female susceptibility to age-dependent dysplasia and tumorigenesis.

Analysis of the full-spectrum transmission dynamics of COVID-19 in Wuhan reveals that multipronged non-pharmaceutical interventions were effective in controlling the outbreak, and highlights that covert infections may pose risks of resurgence when reopening without intervention measures.

The authors describe the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection, viral load and the frequency of symptomatic versus asymptomatic and presymptomatic infection in an Italian town, before and after a strict 14-day lockdown.

OpenSAFELY, a new health analytics platform that includes data from over 17 million adult NHS patients in England, is used to examine factors associated with COVID-19-related death.

Although rare, antibodies against the receptor-binding domain of SARS-CoV-2 that showed potent antiviral activity were obtained from all tested convalescent individuals, suggesting that a vaccine designed to elicit such antibodies could be broadly effective.

An analysis identifies human monoclonal antibodies that potently neutralize wild-type SARS-CoV-2 and protect animals from disease, including two that synergize in a cocktail, suggesting that these could be candidates for use as therapeutic agents for the treatment of COVID-19 in humans.

A diverse collection of potent neutralizing antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein have been isolated from five patients with severe COVID-19 and high serum neutralization titres.

SARS-CoV-2-reactive T cells were found in individuals who had recovered from SARS or COVID-19 and in unexposed donors, although with different patterns of immunoreactivity.

A longitudinal analysis of immune responses in patients with moderate or severe COVID-19 identifies a maladapted immune response profile linked to severe disease.

A model of sequential flux bottlenecks explains a universal trade-off between steady-state growth and physiological adaptation time in bacteria exposed to fluctuating growth conditions.

The cryo-electron microscopy structure of the ER membrane complex provides insight into its overall architecture, evolution and function in co-translational protein insertion.

Structural and physiological studies show that the inner membrane protein PbgA is a crucial sensor of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and regulates the activity of the LPS biosynthesis enzyme LpxC.