Contents
Vol 361, Issue 6409
Special Issue
Genes in Development
Introduction to special issue
Reviews
Contents
This Week in Science
Editorial
Editors' Choice
Products & Materials
- New Products
A weekly roundup of information on newly offered instrumentation, apparatus, and laboratory materials of potential interest to researchers.
In Brief
In Depth
- Classic wolf-moose study to be restarted on Isle Royale
Wolf airlift will reboot world's longest running predator-prey study, ended by climate change, inbreeding.
- NSF issues sexual harassment policy as NIH promises action
Funding agencies face challenge of sanctioning grantees found guilty without disrupting academic research.
- Atomic arrays power quantum computers
Neutral atoms rise as dark horse qubit candidate.
- ‘Old’ genome editors might treat mitochondrial diseases
In mice, disrupting mutant DNA appears to relieve its effects.
- Cool paint job fights solar warmth
New material could reduce cost of cooling buildings by reflecting light and shedding heat.
Feature
- Bridging the gap
In a bid to ease a history of mistrust, a summer workshop trains Indigenous scientists in genomics.
Working Life
Letters
Books et al.
- Stories of the sanguine
A meandering history of blood tackles transfusions, taboos, and trauma
- Me and you and everyone we know
From the Big Bang to our early ancestors, a philosopher probes human origins and identity
Policy Forum
- Cancer prevention: Molecular and epidemiologic consensus
Research in many fields emphasizes the value of prevention
Perspectives
- The making of a plankton toxin
A combined genetic and chemical study reveals the biosynthetic steps involved in making the toxin domoic acid
- Hox genes and body segmentation
An ancient gene cluster controls the formation of repetitive body parts in a sea anemone
- No strand left behind
Histone chaperones direct how epigenetic information is inherited in dividing cells
- Above and below the Maya forest
Advanced remote sensing technology raises questions about settlement and land use
- How dormant cancer persists and reawakens
Insights reveal possible avenues to prevent metastasis
- Electro-optic combs rise above the noise
Electro-optic modulation of light can have a precision equivalent to one optical-field cycle
Association Affairs
- AAAS EPI Center launch brings evidence to policy-makers
Communication will be key in sharing reliable scientific information, says center director
- Golden Goose prize recognizes serendipitous discoveries
Roots of the immune system, cell communication, and implicit bias are honored in the 2018 awards
Research Articles
- Ancient lowland Maya complexity as revealed by airborne laser scanning of northern Guatemala
Lidar data elucidate the demography, agriculture, and political economy of Classic Lowland Maya civilization.
- Allele-specific epigenome maps reveal sequence-dependent stochastic switching at regulatory loci
Genome-wide analyses of epigenetic markers in human cells identify allele-specific functions that affect gene expression in health and disease.
- Neutrophil extracellular traps produced during inflammation awaken dormant cancer cells in mice
In mice, neutrophil extracellular traps play a role in converting dormant cancer cells to actively growing metastases.
expression of concern
Reports
- Biosynthesis of the neurotoxin domoic acid in a bloom-forming diatom
Marine algae cluster genes involved in production of a toxin that causes neurological disorders.
- Ultrafast electro-optic light with subcycle control
Electro-optic modulation of a continuous-wave laser is used to produce ultrafast and ultrastable optical frequency combs.
- Interrupted carbonyl-olefin metathesis via oxygen atom transfer
An acid-catalyzed intramolecular rearrangement forms tricyclic compounds from unsaturated ketones through a transient oxetane.
- Arylsulfonylacetamides as bifunctional reagents for alkene aminoarylation
Photoredox catalysis activates alkenes to form adjacent C–C and C–N bonds through coupling with a single reagent.
- Predicting global killer whale population collapse from PCB pollution
Persistent polychlorinated biphenyls still contribute to killer whale declines three decades after having being banned.
- An axial Hox code controls tissue segmentation and body patterning in Nematostella vectensis
Genetic analysis of Hox gene function in a developing cnidarian reveals ancestral roles in tissue segmentation and axial patterning.
- Joint profiling of chromatin accessibility and gene expression in thousands of single cells
A technique termed sci-CAR can assess both chromatin accessibility and RNA transcription at the single-cell level.
- A mechanism for preventing asymmetric histone segregation onto replicating DNA strands
DNA polymerase subunits prevent asymmetric segregation of parental histones during DNA replication in yeast.
- MCM2 promotes symmetric inheritance of modified histones during DNA replication
A replicative helicase prevents asymmetric segregation of parental histones during DNA replication in mouse cells.
Technical Comments
From the AAAS Office of Publishing and Member Services
About The Cover

COVER In balloon art, the sculptor exerts precise forces at specific sites to make identifiable body parts. Likewise, choreographed molecular mechanisms, albeit at a complex and tightly controlled level, enable a few seemingly identical starting cells to transform into a whole animal. This special issue highlights the regulatory mechanisms controlling gene expression, depicted in the background here as a heat map. See page 1330.
Graphic: FOREAL