Volume 587 Issue 7835, 26 November 2020

As positive results emerge at last, researchers must help the world to address vaccine hesitancy, supply logistics and pricing.

World league tables for higher education are flawed, poorly used and entrench inequity.

Dead fish drifting into the Mariana and Kermadec trenches carry mercury pollution with them.

A molecule on the surface of a common gut microbe helps to activate genes involved in the immune response.

Older people with ‘young’ sleep patterns have more robust cognition than those whose rest is typical for their age.

A sunlight-powered device equipped with an a lightweight gel makes steam hot enough to kill dangerous microbes.

The latest science news, in brief.

New satellite image reveals the damage that shut down the facility, ending an era in astronomical observation.

Canines seem to detect coronavirus infections with remarkable accuracy, but researchers say large-scale studies are needed before the approach is scaled up.

Debate continues over controversial report of phosphine in the planet’s atmosphere, as researchers reanalyse data and find a fainter signal.

Methods that are routine in computation-heavy fields could lead to more reliable pandemic predictions.

People without symptoms can pass on the virus, but estimating their contribution to outbreaks is challenging.

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine will receive billions in state funding — but some scientists oppose the plan.

The tiny island nation brought huge scientific heft to its attempts to contain and study the coronavirus. Here’s what it learnt.

A book traces the shifting lines between sadness and illness, but not who gets to draw them.

Andrew Robinson reviews five of the week’s best science picks.

There is a huge global market, and exciting tools are ready to help develop what women want.

Going back to normal is not enough. A revamp is required.

Long hours and a lack of job security, combined with workplace bullying and discrimination, are forcing many to consider leaving science, finds Nature’s inaugural survey of postdoctoral researchers.

Fire-safety researcher Luke Bisby investigates which materials can take the heat.

An innovative approach has been used to link genetics to behaviour in mice. The analysis reveals that the gene Gpr12 underpins the role of the brain’s thalamus region in maintaining short-term memory.

The first detection of neutrinos produced by the Sun’s secondary solar-fusion cycle paves the way for a detailed understanding of the structure of the Sun and of the formation of massive stars.

A genetic analysis reveals that some people who have severe reactions to the SARS-CoV-2 virus inherited certain sections of their DNA from Neanderthals. However, our ancestors can’t take all the blame for how someone responds to the virus.

Many receptor proteins of the GPCR family exist in multiple isoforms. A comprehensive analysis of different combinations of GPCR isoforms that produce diverse signalling patterns in cells has implications for drug development.

This review discusses how single-cell profiling and other technological advances are increasing our understanding of the mechanisms of fibrosis, thereby accelerating the discovery, development and testing of new treatments.

This Review summarizes developments in the field of mechanically activated ion channels, which have been driven by the increasing breadth of structural studies.

Direct experimental evidence of the carbon–nitrogen–oxygen fusion cycle in the Sun is provided by the detection of neutrinos emitted during this process.

An atomic simulator formed of a few ultracold fermionic atoms trapped in a two-dimensional harmonic potential exhibits precursors of a quantum phase transition, revealing the onset of collective quantum many-body phenomena in a few-body system.

Lateral-flow in vitro diagnostic assays based on fluorescent nanodiamonds, in which microwave-based spin manipulation is used to increase sensitivity, are demonstrated using the biotin–avidin model and by the single-copy detection of HIV-1 RNA.

Optically dark (non-emitting) triplet excitons on organic molecules may be rendered bright by coupling the molecules to lanthanide-doped nanoparticles, providing a way to control such excitons in optoelectronic systems.

Changes in Northern Hemisphere ice-sheet size during ice-age cycles enhance the advance and retreat of the grounding line of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, owing to interhemispheric sea-level forcing.

Human-generated noise and night lighting affect breeding habits and fitness in birds, implying that sensory pollutants must be considered alongside other environmental factors in assessing biodiversity conservation.

Risk of severe COVID-19 is conferred by a genomic segment that is inherited from Neanderthals and is carried by around 50% and 16% of people in south Asia and Europe, respectively.

In neonatal mice, scar-free healing after spinal cord injury is organized by microglia, and transplantation of neonatal microglia or peptidase-inhibitor-treated adult microglia into adult mice after injury improves healing and axon regrowth.

Expression profiling on 75,000 single cells creates a comprehensive cell atlas of the human lung that includes 41 out of 45 previously known cell types and 14 new ones.

Mouse models of muscle injuries and ageing characterized by low levels of intra-tissue glutamine are ameliorated by macrophage-specific deletion or systemic pharmacological inhibition of glutamate dehydrogenase 1, which results in constitutively high activity of glutamine synthetase.

Argonaute protein from the bacterium C. butyricum targets multicopy genetic elements and functions in the suppression of plasmid and phage propagation, and there appears to be a DNA-mediated immunity pathway in prokaryotes.

Structural and biochemical studies of influenza virus RNA polymerase in complex with host acidic nuclear phosphoprotein 32 (ANP32) show how ANP32-mediated polymerase dimerization enables the replication of influenza viral RNA in a host-dependent manner.

Analysis of cis-regulatory chromatin interactions, open chromatin and transcriptomes for different cell types isolated from mid-gestational human cortex samples provides insights into gene regulation during development.

Transcriptomics, proteomics, single-cell RNA sequencing, population-wide genetic association studies and structure–function analyses provide a picture of how the differential expression of G-protein-coupled receptor isoforms can diversify signalling in different tissues.

Biochemical, structural and functional studies on the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) papain-like protease PLpro reveal that it regulates host antiviral responses by preferentially cleaving the ubiquitin-like interferon-stimulated gene 15 protein (ISG15) and identify this protease as a potential therapeutic target for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

A methyltransferase ribozyme, along with the small-molecule cofactor O⁶-methylguanine, is shown to catalyse the site-specific installation of 1-methyladenosine in various RNAs, providing insights into the catalytic abilities of RNA.

Using cryo-electron microscopy, the authors determine the structure of cGAS bound to nucleosomes and present evidence for the mechanism by which nucleosome binding to cGAS prevents cGAS dimerization and its binding to free double-stranded DNA.

Structural studies show that cyclic GMP–AMP synthase binds to nucleosomes through its DNA-binding site, which maintains it in an inactive conformation and prevents self-DNA binding.

Biochemical and structural analyses show how tethering of the nucleotidyltransferase cGAS to chromatin prevents autoimmune recognition of nuclear DNA.

Studies of five cryo-electron microscopy structures reveal the composition and conformational progression in the final maturation events of human 40S ribosomal subunit assembly.