Contents
Vol 367, Issue 6479
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
- Scientists in Indonesia fear political interference
French researcher is deported after publishing unwelcome data on wildfires.
- Trump's new budget cuts all but a favored few science programs
NIH, NSF, NASA, and energy research again take hits in 2021 request, but "industries of the future" on the rise.
- Big telescopes join the hunt for flashes in the sky
Automated networks aim to catch "transients" such as comets, supernovae, and colliding neutron stars.
- NIH hopes ‘cluster hiring’ will improve diversity
Hiring faculty in batches could help erase racial gap in NIH awards.
- Labs scramble to produce new coronavirus diagnostics
Lack of antibody tests obscures impact of the novel virus.
- AI shortcuts speed up simulations by billions of times
With little training, neural networks create accurate emulators for physics, astronomy, and earth science.
Feature
- The health carer
WHO's empathetic head confronts the threat of a new virus—and the tricky diplomacy it brings.
Working Life
Letters
Books et al.
- The art of misleading the public
A government insider exposes the industry playbook for undermining evidence-based policy
- Physics meets Bohemia
A historian dives deep into Einstein's brief, often overlooked time in Prague
Policy Forum
- When health tech companies change their terms of service
Consumers may have limited control over their data
Perspectives
- Resilience to trauma: Just a matter of control?
Deficits in memory control may facilitate posttraumatic stress disorder
- Rectifying ionic current with ionoelastomers
A solvent-free polyanion-polycation heterojunction creates ionic diodes and transistors
- Fewer defects, better catalysis?
Defect-free magnesium oxide provides a better route for carbon dioxide conversion
- “Breaking” news for the ocean's carbon budget
Fragmentation of particle aggregates helps regulate carbon sequestration in the ocean
- Crossing thresholds on the way to ecosystem shifts
Meshing evidence from multiple datasets unveils Earth's mechanisms for adapting to environmental changes
- Marching to another clock
Robust daily rhythms of RNA and protein expression occur in “clockless” cells
- Translating preclinical models to humans
Computational models for cross-species translation could improve drug development
Research Articles
- Resilience after trauma: The role of memory suppression
A brain imaging study of survivors of the 2015 Paris terror attacks suggests that memory suppression shields against posttraumatic stress disorder.
- Lineage tracing on transcriptional landscapes links state to fate during differentiation
Single-cell barcoding allows the tracking of gene expression states over time as blood cells differentiate during hematopoiesis.
- Transcription factor AP2 controls cnidarian germ cell induction
A single transcription factor commits adult stem cells to germ cell fate and induces gonad development in Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus.
- The pan-genome effector-triggered immunity landscape of a host-pathogen interaction
Effector-triggered immunity in plants contributes to broad-spectrum pathogen resistance in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.
Reports
- Pascal conductance series in ballistic one-dimensional LaAlO3/SrTiO3 channels
Transport measurements coupled with calculations suggest the existence of phases with bound states of three or more electrons.
- Ionoelastomer junctions between polymer networks of fixed anions and cations
Liquid-free, stretchable, non-faradaic ionic diodes, transistors, and transducers are developed using ionoelastomer junctions.
- Dry reforming of methane by stable Ni–Mo nanocatalysts on single-crystalline MgO
Attachment of nickel nanocatalysts to step edges of fumed magnesium oxide suppressed deactivation by coking and sintering.
- Helical quantum Hall phase in graphene on SrTiO3
Transport measurements in graphene indicate edge states similar to those in 2D topological insulators.
- Global ecosystem thresholds driven by aridity
Increasing aridity promotes sequential, systemic, and abrupt thresholds in drylands worldwide.
- Major role of particle fragmentation in regulating biological sequestration of CO2 by the oceans
Robotic measurements show that fragmentation of sinking particles exerts a major control on ocean CO2 storage.
- Twisted bulk-boundary correspondence of fragile topology
A better understanding of fragile topological phases could lead to the development of materials with exotic properties.
- Experimental characterization of fragile topology in an acoustic metamaterial
A better understanding of fragile topological phases could lead to the development of materials with exotic properties.
- Circadian rhythms in the absence of the clock gene Bmal1
Mouse liver and fibroblast cells retain 24-hour biochemical oscillations without a key circadian clock component.
- Structural basis of second-generation HIV integrase inhibitor action and viral resistance
Single-particle cryo–electron microscopy shows how inhibitors that bind the intasome may allow the development of better drugs against HIV.
- Structural basis for strand-transfer inhibitor binding to HIV intasomes
Single-particle cryo–electron microscopy shows how inhibitors that bind the intasome may allow the development of better drugs against HIV.
- Tropical snake diversity collapses after widespread amphibian loss
The loss of amphibians caused by a fungal disease has decreased diversity and worsened body condition in a neotropical snake community.
Erratum
About The Cover

COVER A satiny parrot snake (Leptophis depressirostris) preys on a frog. Tropical snake diversity declined after a fungal pathogen led to mass mortality of amphibians, a key food source. Snakes are generally rare and difficult to detect, but researchers estimate a high probability that the snake community is now smaller and more homogeneous, with lower occurrence rates and poorer body conditions for many species. See page 814.
Photo: Bence Mate/Minden Pictures