The main science news: from laboratories to first prototypes.
Updated
A study in The Innovation, based on a century of observations and model experiments, links the Atlantic Niño's effect on winter ENSO to tropical sea surface temperature gradients.
Teams from Shanghai and Westlake University encoded data in spatiotemporal topological states of ultrafast pulses, a proof-of-concept for turbulence-tolerant optical links.
With Run 1 and 2 data the significance is 3.2σ. The most precise Bs0→μ+μ– branching fraction and effective lifetime to date also agree with the Standard Model.
Archaeologists at Bournemouth University reinterpret the name, coin title and coin imagery of Verica, a ruler of the Atrebates in Iron Age Britain, as evidence of a female ruler.
Cryo-EM showed phage protein L05 assembles into a 9.5-megadalton particle, which could give researchers a simpler way to study vaults in human cells.
Researchers at Cardiff University and the National Museum of Wales determined the four-letter combination without touching the lock, using micro-CT imaging.
The California Insect Barcode Initiative reports that only about two-thirds of the state's insect species are described; over one million specimens were DNA barcoded.
The orbiter's spectrometers recorded hydrogen chloride in a season when it is normally absent; the team links it to fissures, but active volcanism is not proven.
Sequencing of ancient DNA revealed a previously elusive population that entered Sweden by about 4,000 years ago, roughly 800 years later than the traditional date for Germanic's arrival.
Authors found that specific codon pairs cause −1 ribosomal frameshifting mainly in cancer cells and used it to switch on a pyroptosis gene in mouse tumour models.
Chemists at the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry isolated copper–heteroaryl sulfone complexes that cleave a C–S bond under visible light, producing alkyl radicals.
Models of mantle flow over the past billion years predict long uplift, then subsidence, of Laurentia, Baltica and North China. The authors say this fits the gap in the geological record.
University of Vienna researchers combined genomes with cave sediment DNA and found long-distance gene flow alongside regional continuity through the Last Glacial Maximum.
Authors analysed genome-wide data from 4,587 ancient individuals against four models of Celtic origin and favour a movement from eastern central Europe as the most parsimonious.
A study in The Astrophysical Journal found that dwarf galaxies retain only a small fraction of the oxygen their stars produce, far less than simulations predict.
Two Nature studies by a team from Copenhagen and Leiden analysed DNA of over 4,500 ancient individuals; the authors tie migrations to the spread of Germanic and Celtic languages.
Italian teams (Niguarda, IFOM, INGM) linked early-onset colorectal cancer to reactivated HERVH sequences; in organoids, ATR inhibitors reduced viability. The result is preclinical.
Spanish researchers placed 219 engineered circuits of four types in bacteria and found that chromosomal position alone modulates performance and switches dynamics, via expression noise.
Satellite records since 2001 show planted forests in temperate regions burned more often and over larger areas, but the effect varied by biome, from a near-threefold rise to an 18% drop.
Aluminum projectiles hit a diamond composite at up to Mach 8.45; parts of it turned to graphite within microseconds, dispersing impact energy, the authors report.
