Science

SummarySixteen pandemic months have felt disorienting and arduous—but along the arc of human history, COVID-19 marks just another inflection point. Epidemics have punctuated humanity's timeline for centuries, sowing panic and killing…

Model for the structure of the putative SARS-CoV-2 transmembrane ion channel dimer ORF3A at 2.1 ÅPHOTO: NAT. STRUCT. MOL. BIOL. 10.1038/S41594-021-00619-0 (2021)." data-icon-position="" data-hide-link-title="0">…

A small-spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicular) embryo within its translucent egg casePHOTO: INGO ARNDT/MINDEN PICTURES" data-icon-position="" data-hide-link-title="0"> A small-spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus…

Sitting at the interface of human societies and the natural environment are sentinels tracking environmental change. Across the globe, field stations and marine laboratories (FSMLs) amass crucial information about climate, biodiversity,…

Ice goes bendyOne well known characteristic of ice is that it fractures instead of bending when strained. This characteristic is caused by the inevitable defects introduced into the ice structure during solidification. Xu et al. show that…

Long-established microbial symbioses tend toward genome erosion and increasing host dependence. Some relationships are so pivotal to host survival that maintaining a stable partnership is crucial. Koga et al. have investigated the stable…

The effect of respiration on brain activity is much discussed. Neuronal activity is fundamentally rhythmic, so are breathing rhythms entrained by typical neuronal oscillation patterns? Tort et al. hypothesized that breathing frequency aids…

The topological features of band structures provide robust propagation paths for classical and quantum states of light. Another ingredient of band structure is the valley degree of freedom, in which the propagation path of light is…

Satellite view of the East Troublesome Fire in Grand County, Colorado, on 20 October 2020PHOTO: NASA EARTH OBSERVATORY IMAGE BY LAUREN DAUPHIN; (DATA) THE U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY" data-icon-position="" data-hide-link-title="0">…

Millions of people worldwide suffer from neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). By gradually destroying motor abilities, communication skills, memory, and clear…

SummaryThe biomedical research ecosystem has delivered advances that not long ago would have been inconceivable, exemplified by highly effective COVID-19 vaccines developed by global partners and approved in less than a year. The United…

Richard Ernst, professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich), Nobel laureate, and groundbreaking scientist, died on 4 June. He was 87. By working at the interfaces between chemistry, physics, and biology,…

The basic reproduction number, R0 (the number of infections caused by a case in a homogeneously susceptible population), for a particular infection is dependent on the epidemiological triad of the biological characteristics of the pathogen,…

SummarySuperconductivity is one of the most fascinating, macroscopically observable quantum phenomena. A notable aspect of its description is the existence of an attractive interaction, a “glue,” between electrons. This can bind them into…

When I saw the black bear emerge from the trees, I knew I shouldn't turn around and flee. So I held my ground in spite of my fear. It was a moment I'd been dreading for months. I'd been hired as an undergraduate field assistant to do…

SummarySensory systems evolve to enable organisms to detect cues pertinent to survival. The diversification of these systems is a critical aspect of the adaptative radiation of animals—that is, how an ancestral species rapidly diversifies…

This year marks the start of the United Nations' Decade of Ecological Restoration. Restoration of damaged habitats to a self-sustaining state (which may not necessarily be identical to their original state) requires close collaboration…

The human microbiota is a complex microbial community living on and in our bodies. Its impact on a host's health is immense, affecting digestion (1), the immune system (2), behavior (3), metabolic diseases (4), and responses to drugs (5–7).…

SummaryLike the 51 enslaved people of African descent whose bodies were dug up in Cuba in 1840 for anthropologist Samuel Morton's collection, the 36 people buried in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, were nameless. No record of the…

One day, in the before-COVID times, I was traveling to deliver a seminar. As I walked down to breakfast in the hotel lobby, another guest waylaid me with a complaint: “The oatmeal is out.” The tone was arrogant, demanding, and dismissive.…

Localizing gene expressionSingle-cell RNA sequencing can provide information about cellular relationships based on shared transcriptomes, but most methods lose spatial information. Those methods that do retain spatial information can be…

SummaryPeople often grumble that plastics are too durable. Water bottles, shopping bags, and other trash litter the planet, from Mount Everest to the Mariana Trench, because plastics are ubiquitous and don't break down easily. But some…

SummaryAs the world struggles with how to dispose of plastic, some scientists hope microorganisms might hold part of the answer. Researchers are scouring hot springs, trash dumps, beaches, and forests for microbes whose enzymes can break…

Plastics have become an essential material of the modern global consumer economy, yet many of the properties that make them useful in so many applications also make them a serious environmental threat. As for much new technology, their…

ILLUSTRATION: DAVIDE BONAZZI/SALZMANARTAs we look toward post-pandemic life, we wanted to take a moment to think back on how this experience affected scientists. We gave young scientists this challenge: Write a haiku describing your career…

T cells are thought to integrate information from multiple encounters with antigen-presenting cells to become activated. To explore how the dynamics of T cell receptor signaling influence such a process, Harris et al. developed an optically…

In May, as our institution began to open back up and whispers about in-person lab meetings started to float around, I panicked. In the months preceding the pandemic, I had cochlear implants surgically placed to address steadily worsening…

The environmental effects of the Chicxulub impact, the trigger of the mass extinction event at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, can be seen clearly in the geological record on time scales of hundreds of thousands to millions of years.…

The 47th class of Mass Media Science & Technology Fellows heading out to newsrooms around the country this summer is part of one of the oldest ongoing science communication initiatives by the American Association for the Advancement of…

SummaryKarl Deisseroth's Projections: A Story of Human Emotions is a memoir about his life in psychiatry, the patients he has met, and his efforts as a scientist to solve the mysteries of mental illness. Like many doctors, scientists, and…