Contents
Vol 363, Issue 6426
Special Issue
Periodic Table Turns 150
Introduction to special issue
News
- The quest for superheavies
After stalling for nearly a decade, the hunt for new elements is set to resume this spring at a storied Russian lab.
Essays on Science and Society
- Ordering the elements
Elegant and intuitive, today's periodic table belies the hard-won discoveries hidden within
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
- Ancient Earth rock found on the moon
Four-billion-year-old fragment found in an Apollo sample could be as old as any on Earth.
- A room with a view—for three kinds of humans
Mysterious Denisovan people moved into Siberian cave 100,000 years earlier than thought.
- Windy season fails to revive fading Mars rover
Decision to end Opportunity mission could come in weeks.
- Algae suggest eukaryotes get many gifts of bacteria DNA
Analysis revives debate on "horizontal gene transfer."
- Shutdown ends, but not worry
Science agencies dig out amid fears of yet another closure.
- Seas are rising faster than believed at many river deltas
Tide gauges overlook compaction of shallow sediments.
Feature
- In hot water
Five years ago, a marine heat wave began to wash across Pacific ecosystems. Researchers fear it is a preview of the oceans' future.
- Invasion of the glowing sea pickles
Scientists rush to understand impact of tropical species arriving in Pacific Northwest.
- Saving the steppes
The exploding demand for cashmere wool is ruining Mongolia's grasslands. Scientists hope they can turn the tide.
Working Life
Letters
Books et al.
- The shaky science of recovery
Holistic workout recovery regimes often outperform touted tech, finds a writer who tried them all
- Lessons from the Little Ice Age
Citing 17th-century culture shifts, an author implicates climate in human destiny
Policy Forum
- Shadow health records meet new data privacy laws
How will research respond to a changing regulatory space?
Perspectives
- Hydrogels muscle their way into new territory
A double-network gel is designed to increase in mass and strength after mechanical stress
- Testing evolutionary predictions in wild mice
An experimental demonstration of a “simple” evolutionary path for camouflage in nature
- Membrane protein takes the brakes off
An enzyme family has evolved to distort membranes and diffuse quickly to find substrates
- Linking immunity and sickness-induced sleep
An antimicrobial peptide induces sleep after sleep deprivation or infection
- Taking a close look at ocean circulation
Ocean circulation patterns in the North Atlantic provide a benchmark for climate models
- Expanding the anti-TB arsenal
A new tuberculosis drug target reveals an additional antimicrobial resistance mechanism
Research Articles
- Rhomboid distorts lipids to break the viscosity-imposed speed limit of membrane diffusion
The rhomboid protein fold accelerates diffusion-limited intramembrane proteolysis by modulating membrane viscosity.
- Opposing reactions in coenzyme A metabolism sensitize Mycobacterium tuberculosis to enzyme inhibition
A small-molecule inhibitor selectively kills mycobacteria by targeting a pathway that a countering enzyme makes vulnerable.
- Linking a mutation to survival in wild mice
Deer mice experience selection for coat color that maps to variants in the Agouti gene.
- Mechanoresponsive self-growing hydrogels inspired by muscle training
Double-network hydrogels heal and strengthen in response to repetitive mechanical stress.
- A sleep-inducing gene, nemuri, links sleep and immune function in Drosophila
In Drosophila fruit flies, a peptide helps fight infection by killing bacteria and promoting sleep.
- A sea change in our view of overturning in the subpolar North Atlantic
Variability of overturning circulation in the North Atlantic depends on more than deep water formation in the Labrador Sea.
Reports
- Correlations in high-harmonic generation of matter-wave jets revealed by pattern recognition
Pattern recognition is used to extract preferred directions in atomic scattering.
- Identification of site-specific isotopic labels by vibrational spectroscopy in the electron microscope
Shifts in the C–O vibration of alanine with electron energy-loss spectroscopy enable nanoscale isotopic mapping.
- Quantum reference beacon–guided superresolution optical focusing in complex media
Nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamonds are used as quantum guidestars to enhance imaging in complex media.
- A loud quasi-periodic oscillation after a star is disrupted by a massive black hole
Quasi-periodic oscillations in x-ray observations of a tidal disruption event indicate a rapidly spinning supermassive black hole.
- A surface gravity traverse on Mars indicates low bedrock density at Gale crater
The Curiosity rover on Mars is used for gravimetry, determining the density of the rock beneath Gale crater.
- Intense threat switches dorsal raphe serotonin neurons to a paradoxical operational mode
When mice sense serious danger, serotonin neurons switch their activity from movement suppression to movement facilitation.
About The Cover

COVER This sculpture by Karol Lacko of Dmitri Mendeleev and the columns of his periodic table, radiating outward from his head, stands in front of the Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia. This year marks the 150th anniversary of Mendeleev's initial publication of the table as organizing principle and predictive tool. See the special section on page 464.
Photo: Vladimir Simicek/AFP