Concerns over AI are not simply fear-mongering. Progress in the field will affect society profoundly, and it is important to make sure that the changes benefit everyone.
doi: 10.1038/532413a
The United Nations has chosen to keep the war on drugs going — but it can’t win.
doi: 10.1038/532413b
The US vice-president’s cancer project is winning hearts and minds.
doi: 10.1038/532414a
Scientists race to determine origin of Bangladesh outbreak, which they warn could spread farther afield.
doi: 10.1038/532421a
Google, Facebook and other tech firms are changing how artificial-intelligence research is done.
doi: 10.1038/532422a
Fears rise that US government and private funders are working at cross purposes.
doi: 10.1038/532424a
Enthusiasm comes amid worries that the therapy may prove too complex to manufacture.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2016.19801
Third European Union flagship will be similar in size and ambition to graphene and human brain initiatives.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2016.19796
Drug company aims to pool genomic and medical data in hunt for rare genetic sequences associated with disease.
doi: 10.1038/nature.2016.19797
土砂災害や雪崩を引き起こして甚大な被害をもたらしたネパール地震から1年、地震計を使って地すべりの前兆音を検出する、早期警戒システムの開発研究が進められている。
doi: 10.1038/532428a
CRISPR–Cas9技術の開発によってEmmanuelle Charpentierの人生は急変したが、この技術開発を可能にした彼女の研究意欲とスタイルは変わっていない。
doi: 10.1038/532432a
リザリアと呼ばれる大型のアメーバ様真核生物は、海洋生物学や生物地球化学の研究では見過ごされることが多かった。今回、水中画像化法と生態学的ネットワーク解析によって、リザリアが果たす役割が明らかになってきた。
doi: 10.1038/nature17892
低湿度条件下で乾燥してしまうのを防ぐために、ひびの入ったコーティングを施した膜が作られた。これは燃料電池のような、その機能に水を含む膜を必要とする機器にとっての朗報である。
doi: 10.1038/532445a
化石の精密な検討からは、予想外の系統関係が明らかになることが多い。3億年前の謎の生物Tullimonstrumの化石について新たな解析が行われ、これが脊椎動物の一種であることが明らかになった。
doi: 10.1038/nature17885
テトラニュートロンと呼ばれる、4つの中性子からなる系は核物理学における仮想上の状態である。この状態が一瞬だけ存在したことの証拠が報告された。これは中性子星に関する研究に関わってくる。
doi: 10.1038/nature17884
マウスでは、片側の脳半球で神経回路に蓄積されている情報が消去されると、失われたデータがもう一方の半球から取り出されることが分かった。この知見は、脳で保護機構が働いていることを明らかにするものだ。
doi: 10.1038/nature17886
時間的不確実性が非常に高い時間依存データに内在する動態を明らかにする数学的手法が今回考案された。これはさらに別の費用の掛かる装置を使う必要がない。
doi: 10.1038/532450a
It has been proposed that language meaning is represented throughout the cerebral cortex in a distributed ‘semantic system’, but little is known about the details of this network; here, voxel-wise modelling of functional MRI data collected while subjects listened to natural stories is used to create a detailed atlas that maps representations of word meaning in the human brain.
doi: 10.1038/nature17637
In mouse cortex, ‘preparatory’ activity that encodes future movements is remarkably robust against large-scale perturbations; this robustness is achieved by corrective signals from unperturbed parts of the network.
doi: 10.1038/nature17643
Plankton communities in the top 150 m of the nutrient-depleted, oligotrophic global ocean that are most associated with carbon export include unexpected taxa, such as Radiolaria, alveolate parasites, and Synechococcus and their phages, and point towards potential functional markers predicting a significant fraction of the variability in carbon export in these regions.
doi: 10.1038/nature16942
A data-analytical approach that can extract the history and dynamics of complex systems from noisy snapshots on timescales much shorter than the uncertainty with which the data were recorded is described; the approach is demonstrated by extracting the dynamics on the few-femtosecond timescale from experimental data recorded with 300-femtosecond timing uncertainty.
doi: 10.1038/nature17627
The simplest form of the Hubbard model includes only on-site interactions, but by placing an optical lattice filled with ultracold rubidium atoms into an optical cavity the Hubbard model is implemented with competing long- and short-range interactions; four phases emerge, namely, a superfluid phase, a Mott insulating phase, a supersolid phase and a charge density wave phase.
doi: 10.1038/nature17409
Nanometre-scale cracks in a hydrophobic surface coating applied to hydrocarbon proton-exchange fuel-cell membranes work as tiny valves, delaying water desorption and maintaining ion conductivity in the membrane on dehumidification.
doi: 10.1038/nature17634
A modification to the classic Diels–Alder [4 + 2] cycloaddition reaction, termed the pentadehydro-Diels–Alder reaction, is reported; this reaction generates a highly reactive intermediate, an α,3-dehydrotoluene, that can be captured using various trapping agents to produce structurally diverse products.
doi: 10.1038/nature17429
Aircraft measurements, laboratory photolysis experiments and modelling calculations reveal a mechanism for the recycling of nitric acid into nitrogen oxides; this enables observations to be reconciled with model studies, and suggests that particulate nitrate photolysis could be a substantial tropospheric nitrogen oxide source.
doi: 10.1038/nature17195
Here, the authors model the fluid dynamics that controls the transport of the magmatic volatile phase (MVP) in crystal-rich and crystal-poor magmas; they find that the MVP tends to migrate efficiently in crystal-rich parts of a magma reservoir but to accumulate in crystal-poor parts—possibly explaining why crystal-poor silicic magmas are particularly prone to erupting.
doi: 10.1038/nature17401
The Tully monster (Tullimonstrum), a problematic fossil from the 309–307-million-year-old Mazon Creek biota of Illinois, is shown to be not only a vertebrate but also akin to lampreys, increasing the morphological disparity of that group.
doi: 10.1038/nature16992
The eyes of the Tully monster (Tullimonstrum) possess ultrastructural details indicating homology with vertebrate eyes.
doi: 10.1038/nature17647
An in situ imaging technique has been used to show that large rhizarian plankton represent a much larger biomass than previously thought, meaning that they are likely to make an important contribution to ocean ecosystems.
doi: 10.1038/nature17652
The RNA-binding protein Musashi-2 increases the self-renewing abilities of human haematopoietic stem cells, which have the potential to be used for regenerative therapies.
doi: 10.1038/nature17665
The immune system of laboratory mice raised in an ultra-hygienic environment resembles that of newborn humans, but can be induced to resemble the immune system of adult humans or 'dirty' mice by co-housing with pet store-bought mice.
doi: 10.1038/nature17655
The CRISPR-associated protein Cpf1 from Francisella novicida is a novel enzyme with specific, dual-endoribonuclease–endonuclease activities in precursor crRNA processing and crRNA-programmable cleavage of target DNA.
doi: 10.1038/nature17945
The crystal structure of monomeric Lachnospiraceae bacterium Cpf1 protein bound to CRISPR RNA is presented, establishing a framework for engineering LbCpf1 to improve its efficiency and specificity for genome editing.
doi: 10.1038/nature17944
The X-ray crystal structures of the human σ1 receptor bound to two different ligands are reported, revealing the overall architecture, oligomerization state, and molecular basis for ligand recognition by this protein.
doi: 10.1038/nature17391
