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Productivity coaches, boot camps and online meet-ups teach researchers to avoid distractions and negative thoughts to get their writing projects done. Productivity coaches, boot camps and online meet-ups teach researchers to avoid distractions and negative thoughts to get their writing projects done.

Transparency in reporting benefits scientific communication on many levels. While specific needs and expectations vary across fields, the effective interpretation and use of research findings relies on the availability of core information about research materials, study design, data, and experimental and analytical methods. For preclinical research, transparency in reporting is a key focus in response to concerns of replication failure. The inconsistent reporting of key elements of experimental and analytical design, alongside ambiguous description of reagents and lack of access to underlying data and code, has been shown to impair replication (1) and raise doubt about the robustness of results (2, 3). In response to early concerns about replication of published results, funders, publishers, and other stakeholders have called for improvements in reporting transparency (4⇓⇓–7). Several initiatives ensued, including journal policies and joint efforts by journals, funders, and other stakeholders (8⇓–10). One of these initiatives, the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) guidelines (11), outlines a policy framework at the journal level that over 1,000 journals and publishers have adopted. The National Academies have focused on reproducibility and replicability* challenges through several recent initiatives leading to consensus reports, including Reproducibility and Replicability in Science (12), Open Science by Design: Realizing a Vision for 21st Century Research (13), and Fostering Integrity in Research (14). Each of these reports concludes that lack of reporting transparency is one factor which contributes to these systemic problems. Building on these findings, the National Academies convened a public workshop in September 2019 titled “Enhancing Scientific Reproducibility in Biomedical Research Through Transparent Reporting.” The workshop was designed to discuss the current state of transparency in reporting biomedical research and to explore the possibility of improving the harmonization of guidelines across journals and funding agencies. During this workshop, we provided … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed: Email: Malcolm.Macleod{at}ed.ac.uk (correspondence regarding the development and evaluation of the guideline) or mellor.david{at}gmail.com (for further information about implementation and stewardship). [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

Papers should be published according to the merit of their scientific contribution, not the polish of their presentation, says Michael White. Papers should be published according to the merit of their scientific contribution, not the polish of their presentation, says Michael White.

The systems of science must reward honesty about mistakes to speed progress. The systems of science must reward honesty about mistakes to speed progress.

New policy tackles perverse incentives that drive ‘publish or perish’ culture and might be encouraging questionable research practices. New policy tackles perverse incentives that drive ‘publish or perish’ culture and might be encouraging questionable research practices.

No Internet technology is safe, secure or reliable for voting, find the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. No Internet technology is safe, secure or reliable for voting, finds National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

I was hired to ferret out errors and establish routines that promote rigorous research, says Catherine Winchester. I was hired to ferret out errors and establish routines that promote rigorous research, says Catherine Winchester.

Ali Kaya says he used science to stay sane during his incarceration. Ali Kaya says he used science to stay sane during his incarceration.

The Pulitzer prizewinner shares his advice for pleasing readers, editors and yourself. The Pulitzer prizewinner shares his advice for pleasing readers, editors and yourself.

Papers from 2015 are a tougher read than some from the nineteenth century — and the problem isn't just about words, says Philip Ball.

In recent years, a number of different technologies have been proposed for use in reflective displays1,2,3. One of the most appealing applications of a reflective display is electronic paper, which combines the desirable viewing characteristics of conventional printed paper with the ability to manipulate the displayed information electronically. Electronic paper based on the electrophoretic motion of particles inside small capsules has been demonstrated1 and commercialized; but the response speed of such a system is rather slow, limited by the velocity of the particles. Recently, we have demonstrated that electrowetting is an attractive technology for the rapid manipulation of liquids on a micrometre scale4. Here we show that electrowetting can also be used to form the basis of a reflective display that is significantly faster than electrophoretic displays, so that video content can be displayed. Our display principle utilizes the voltage-controlled movement of a coloured oil film adjacent to a white substrate. The reflectivity and contrast of our system approach those of paper. In addition, we demonstrate a colour concept, which is intrinsically four times brighter than reflective liquid-crystal displays5 and twice as bright as other emerging technologies1,2,3. The principle of microfluidic motion at low voltages is applicable in a wide range of electro-optic devices.

Researchers say the policy could intensify existing issues with research quality and misconduct. Researchers say the policy could intensify existing issues with research quality and misconduct.

The European Union's (EU) new research commissioner, Philippe Busquin, has promised to publish a white paper (policy document) early next year outlining his plans for the creation of a European Research Area (see Nature 401, 837; 1999).

Biodiversity is essential to the viability of ecological systems. Species diversity in ecosystems is promoted by cyclic, non-hierarchical interactions among competing populations. Such non-transitive relations lead to an evolution with central features represented by the `rock-paper-scissors' game, where rock crushes scissors, scissors cut paper, and paper wraps rock. In combination with spatial dispersal of static populations, this type of competition results in the stable coexistence of all species and the long-term maintenance of biodiversity. However, population mobility is a central feature of real ecosystems: animals migrate, bacteria run and tumble. Here, we observe a critical influence of mobility on species diversity. When mobility exceeds a certain value, biodiversity is jeopardized and lost. In contrast, below this critical threshold all subpopulations coexist and an entanglement of travelling spiral waves forms in the course of temporal evolution. We establish that this phenomenon is robust, it does not depend on the details of cyclic competition or spatial environment. These findings have important implications for maintenance and evolution of ecological systems and are relevant for the formation and propagation of patterns in excitable media, such as chemical kinetics or epidemic outbreaks., Comment: Final submitted version; the printed version can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature06095 Supplementary movies are available at http://www.theorie.physik.uni-muenchen.de/lsfrey/images_content/movie1.AVI and http://www.theorie.physik.uni-muenchen.de/lsfrey/images_content/movie2.AVI

Apparently creationist research prompts soul searching over process of editing and peer review.

Moscow biology department among the first to require that all manuscripts comply with law on state secrets.

Collective efforts are a trademark of both insect and human societies. They are achieved through relatedness in the former and unknown mechanisms in the latter. The problem of achieving cooperation among non-kin has been described as the 'tragedy of the commons', prophesying the inescapable collapse of many human enterprises. In public goods experiments, initial cooperation usually drops quickly to almost zero. It can be maintained by the opportunity to punish defectors or the need to maintain good reputation. Both schemes require that defectors are identified. Theorists propose that a simple but effective mechanism operates under full anonymity. With optional participation in the public goods game, 'loners' (players who do not join the group), defectors and cooperators will coexist through rock-paper-scissors dynamics. Here we show experimentally that volunteering generates these dynamics in public goods games and that manipulating initial conditions can produce each predicted direction. If, by manipulating displayed decisions, it is pretended that defectors have the highest frequency, loners soon become most frequent, as do cooperators after loners and defectors after cooperators. On average, cooperation is perpetuated at a substantial level.

Conference proceedings are often overlooked when it comes to indexing and availability on databases. A shame. They can be the source of new ideas from the likes of Boris Belousov (of the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction) and Nobel winners such as Abdus Salam and Koichi Tanaka.

A jury in Arizona is to decide whether the authors of a peer-reviewed paper challenging another scientist's results are guilty of defamation.

Carbohydrate Letters. Editor-in-chief Pierre G. Sinay Harwood Academic. 6/yr. ECU54, $65. Cellulose. Editor-in-chief John C. Roberts Chapman and Hall 4/yr. USA and Canada $230, Europe £135, elsewhere £145.

An unrivalled archive of Sir Isaac Newton's scientific writings could be created if the University of Cambridge succeeds in its bid to buy a collection of documents and letters owned by the ninth Earl of Macclesfield.

T. S. McRoberts, Director of the Wolfson Recycle Unit, Queen Mary College, London, describes the background to the unit's work.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

AI can decide which papers are worth reading, and condenses them to make the literature more accessible. AI can decide which papers are worth reading, and condenses them to make the literature more accessible.

Some scientists welcome government vetting because it could stop poor-quality COVID-19 papers being published – others fear it is an attempt to control information. Some scientists welcome government vetting because it could stop poor-quality COVID-19 papers being published – others fear it is an attempt to control information.

An Amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

It has been known for decades that the observed number of baryons in the local universe falls about 30-40% short of the total number of baryons predicted by Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis, as inferred from density fluctuations of the Cosmic Microwave Background and seen during the first 2-3 billion years of the universe in the so called Lyman-alpha Forest. A theoretical solution to this paradox locates the missing baryons in the hot and tenuous filamentary gas between galaxies, known as the warm-hot intergalactic medium. However, it is difficult to detect them there because the largest by far constituent of this gas - hydrogen - is mostly ionized and therefore almost invisible in far-ultraviolet spectra with typical signal-to-noise ratios. Indeed, despite the large observational efforts, only a few marginal claims of detection have been made so far. Here we report observations of two absorbers of highly ionized oxygen (OVII) in the high signal-to-noise-ratio X-ray spectrum of a quasar at redshift >0.4. These absorbers show no variability over a 2-year timescale and have no associated cold absorption, making the assumption that they originate from the quasar's intrinsic outflow or the host galaxy's interstellar medium implausible. The OVII systems lie in regions characterized by large (x4 compared to average) galaxy over-densities and their number (down to the sensitivity threshold of our data), agrees well with numerical simulation predictions for the long-sought warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM). We conclude that the missing baryons have been found., Appeared in Nature (Volume 558, Issue 7710) on 21 June 2018. The posted PDF version is the pre-editorial-change version and includes the main paper, its Methods section and the Extended Data section. A link to the (view-only) PDF of the final published version of the paper, is available here: https://rdcu.be/1eak

The country’s artificial-intelligence research is growing in quality, but the field still plays catch up to the United States in terms of high-impact papers, people and ethics. The country’s artificial-intelligence research is growing in quality, but the field still plays catch up to the United States in terms of high-impact papers, people and ethics.

COMMENT OBITUARY F. Sherwood Rowland hlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were a triumph of the chemical industry and a mere curiosity in atmospheric science when Sherwood (Sherry) Rowland, with his postdoc Mario Molina, recognized in 1973 that these seemingly inert gases posed a threat to Earth’s ozone layer. Return- ing home one evening, Rowland remarked to his wife Joan that the research “is going very well, but it may mean the end of the world”. In their laboratory at the University of California, Irvine, Molina and Rowland had discovered that CFC-11 (CFCl 3 ) and CFC-12 (CF 2 Cl 2 ), then widely used as refrigerants and aerosol propellants, readily absorbed ultraviolet light and broke down to release reactive chlorine. This work was the first step in tracing the causal chain linking industrial production of CFCs with global ozone depletion — and won Rowland and Molina the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, shared with Dutch chemist Paul Crutzen. Surrounded by his family at his home in Corona del Mar, California, Rowland died on 10 March, aged 84, from complications of Parkinson’s disease. He was born in Delaware, Ohio; his mother was a Latin teacher and his father taught mathematics at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, where Rowland attended college after graduating from high school at 15. When he was old enough, he enlisted in the US Navy. As a lanky athlete, he readily found a home in sports teams in the Navy and later in graduate school at the Uni- versity of Chicago, Illinois, where he played baseball for the university and for a semi- professional team. Rowland earned his PhD in nuclear chem- istry at Chicago under chemist Willard Libby and was taught by four other faculty mem- bers; counting Sherry, all six would later receive Nobel prizes. He met Joan at Chicago, and they moved to take up his early jobs at Princeton University in New Jersey and at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. In 1964, Rowland accepted an offer to start up the chemistry department at a new University of California campus in the then-unbuilt city of Irvine. Later, with atmospheric chemist Ralph Cicerone, he also helped to found the Earth system science department. The elegance of Molina and Rowland’s 1974 Nature paper remains impressive to today’s atmospheric chemists, who live in a world of satellite observations and supercom- puters. Stratospheric chemistry at the time was based on balloon-borne samplers of trace gases and on one-dimensional models that could now easily run on a smart phone. Nonetheless, the pair measured the ultra- violet cross sections of CFC-11 and -12 in the lab, calculated their photolytic destruc- tion rates in the atmosphere and derived their atmospheric lifetimes as 50–100 years. They reviewed industrial production and emission of CFCs, projected the build-up and release of chlorine atoms in the strato- sphere and concluded that ozone depletion was likely and would be long-lived, even with remediation. This work has been borne out, in detail, by nearly four decades of research. Rowland and Molina’s work started an environmental movement that began with scientists, led by Rowland, urging the elimi- nation of CFCs. It remains the best success story for global cooperation on a worldwide environmental threat. The activism led to the 1978 ban by the US Environmental Protection Agency on CFC use in aerosol cans, and finally in 1990 to the complete phasing out of CFC production by the Montreal Protocol and its amendments. In his unwillingness to back down from the implications of his work, Rowland became a role model to many of us, and remains so. This was a threat to some — particularly the CFC industry, but also, less understandably, to some scientific colleagues. For many years, Rowland experienced personal threats as well as irrational attacks on the science. Rowland’s science always stood tall, as did he, and seemed inerrant. He kept up his 1 6 8 | NAT U R E | VO L 4 8 4 | 1 2 A P R I L 2 0 1 2 © 2012 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved interests in ozone and environmental policy, but his research moved on. Soon after the ozone hole was discovered over Antarctica, he made major contributions with his gradu- ate student Neil Harris to the detection of ozone depletion over the Northern Hemi- sphere. This work was crucial in persuading DuPont and other chemical companies to abandon CFCs in favour of hydrochloro- fluorocarbons, which are less damaging to the ozone layer. In the late 1970s, Rowland initiated a programme to monitor background concen- trations of various gases, and that continues today. Six of its group members were work- ing in the field when he passed away. His curiosity demanded an objective approach, and so it was when, working with his former student and then fellow professor (D.R.B.), he identified in 1995 that the unusual mix of high ozone and hydrocarbons in Mexico City was due to leaking propane stoves and heaters, rather than traffic. In 2011, he was involved in discussions regarding the mix of atmospheric hydrocarbons resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Over almost five decades, Rowland was active in his research lab as well as teaching, playing tennis and having collegial discus- sions over lunch. When not travelling, he could be seen carrying his briefcase in one hand, with a pile of papers under the other arm, to and from his office. He was a prolific note-taker, filling a notebook in a week. This practice intimidated one of us (M.J.P.), who, while giving a talk at an international con- ference, first encountered Sherry in the front row, taking assiduous notes and then asking a terrifying, brutal, yet constructive question. Rowland treated everyone like a colleague. He disarmingly considered questions from any listener with the depth and profundity due a scientific peer. This trait was appre- ciated by students, friends and family. To Sherry, the question was of foremost impor- tance; it was at the core of his scientific quest. His passing ended a unique career that merged chemistry and atmospheric sciences, leading to a new partnership between science and policy for the protection of our planet. ■ Michael J. Prather is Fred Kavli Chair in Earth system science and Donald R. Blake is professor of chemistry at the University of California, Irvine, California, USA. e-mail: mprather@uci.edu C. PUMA/UC IRVINE C Atmospheric chemist who linked human activity to ozone depletion.

Arid ecosystems cover about 40% of Earth's land area and are home to over two billion people, yet they remain vulnerable to climate change and human actions. Using numerical simulations, and data from Mediterranean ecosystems in Spain, Morocco and Greece, Kefi et al. show that patch-size distribution of vegetation follows a power law. As grazing pressure increases, patch size deviates from the power law close to the transition to desert conditions. So patch-size distribution may be a useful early warning of desertification. The cover shows an arid landscape (top) in the El Planeron nature reserve in Belchite, Spain, and the lower panels show degradation in this landscape. In a separate paper, Scanlon et al. use satellite imagery to show that the size distribution of tree clusters in the Kalahari basin also follows a scale-free power law. This can be explained by positive feedback associated with preferential environments near existing trees. In News & Views Ricard Sole discusses both papers. COVER IMAGE Sonia & Michael Kefi/ Yolanda Pueyo/ Santiago Begueria Portugues It is shown that clusters of tree canopies within Kalahari landscape in southern Africa lack characteristic size, with the size distributions following power laws. Model results indicate that this apparent self-organized behaviour can be explained by positive feedbacks that operate in this water-limited ecosystem as a result of preferential environments formed within the vicinity of existing trees. The concept of local-scale interactions driving large-scale pattern formation has been supported by numerical simulations, which have demonstrated that simple rules of interaction are capable of reproducing patterns observed in nature1,2. These models of self-organization suggest that characteristic patterns should exist across a broad range of environmental conditions provided that local interactions do indeed dominate the development of community structure. Readily available observations that could be used to support these theoretical expectations, however, have lacked sufficient spatial extent or the necessary diversity of environmental conditions to confirm the model predictions. We use high-resolution satellite imagery to document the prevalence of self-organized vegetation patterns across a regional rainfall gradient in southern Africa, where percent tree cover ranges from 65% to 4%. Through the application of a cellular automata model, we find that the observed power-law distributions of tree canopy cluster sizes can arise from the interacting effects of global-scale resource constraints (that is, water availability) and local-scale facilitation. Positive local feedbacks result in power-law distributions without entailing threshold behaviour commonly associated with criticality. Our observations provide a framework for integrating a diverse suite of previous studies that have addressed either mean wet season rainfall or landscape-scale soil moisture variability as controls on the structural dynamics of arid and semi-arid ecosystems.

What happens when you find a hobbit — or a unicorn? The Discovery of the Hobbit, by Mike Morwood and Penny Van Oosterzee, tells the story of one of the most controversial hominid fossil finds of recent times. Morwood (a co-author on the 'hobbit' paper published in Nature) and science writer Van Oosterzee describe the hostile welcome that Homo floresiensis faced, notably the claims that it was a pathological specimen of modern humans. Henry Gee, the Nature editor responsible for accepting the paper, reviews the book and adds a little more background to the story.

The refereed journal literature needs to be freed from both paper and its costs, but not from peer review, whose "invisible hand" is what maintains its quality. The residual cost of online-only peer review is low enough to be recovered from author-institution-end page charges, covered from institutional subscription savings, thereby vouchsafing a toll-free refereed research literature for everyone, everywhere, forever.Human nature being what it is, it cannot be altogether relied upon to police itself. Individual exceptions there may be, but to treat them as the rule would be to underestimate the degree to which our potential unruliness is vetted by collective constraints, implemented formally.So it is in civic matters, and it is no different in the world of Learned Inquiry. The "quis custodiet" problem among scholars has traditionally been solved by means of a quality-control and certification [QC/C] system called "peer review" (Harnad 1985): The work of specialists is submitted to a qualified adjudicator, an editor, who in turn sends it to fellow-specialists, referees, to seek their advice about whether the paper is potentially publishable, and if so, what further work is required to make it acceptable. The paper is not published until and unless the requisite revision can be and is done to the satisfaction of the editor and referees.

Are some ways of measuring scientific quality better than others? Sune Lehmann, Andrew D. Jackson and Benny E. Lautrup analyse the reliability of commonly used methods for comparing citation records. Citation analysis can loom large in a scientist's career. In this issue Sune Lehmann, Andrew Jackson and Benny Lautrup compare commonly used measures of author quality. The mean number of citations per paper emerges as a better indicator than the more complex Hirsch index; a third method, the number of papers published per year, measures industry rather than ability. Careful citation analyses are useful, but Lehmann et al. caution that institutions often place too much faith in decisions reached by algorithm, use poor methodology or rely on inferior data sets.

The final week of October 2009 started badly for me, when Nature closed its stem-cell blog The Niche — one of my favourites as it covered my field. A few days later, events took a more serious turn for the worse when — out of the blue — I was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer. I was 42. Blogs and blogging were suddenly the last thing on my mind. More than a year and half later, I am in remission and doing great. The battle against the cancer was the most difficult of my life and I still worry that it may come back. But the experience also had positive effects. For one, I still missed The Niche, and assumed that others did too. Once I recovered, I found the courage to start a replacement. After all, how hard can blogging be when compared with facing cancer? A year on, it has been a remarkable experience. Compared with just two years ago, blogging is much more accepted as a means of communication by scientists, many of whom read blogs even if they do not write them. Yet, in my experience, it remains relatively rare for faculty-level academic biological researchers to blog regularly, particularly in controversial fields such as stem-cell research. As far as I know, I am the only stem-cell faculty scientist in the world who runs a regularly updated blog. (If I am wrong then please get in touch to say hello!) Why is this? Other scientists in academia tell me they worry that blogging would damage their careers. Specifically, they fear that colleagues would view them as amateurs, ‘wasting time’ on blogging, which could reduce their chances of tenure. They fear the wrath of others in the field should they post the ‘wrong’ thing on their blog, and they worry about pay-back in negative grant and paper reviews. Some are concerned about attracting unruly and insulting readers’ comments. Are they right to be fearful? In an entire year of blogging I have had to censor just six inflammatory or defamatory comments. Despite my blog taking on the anti-stem-cell community in the United States and the misinformation they peddle, such as the meme that adult stem cells are a panacea that make embryonic stem cells redundant, I have received remarkably few personal attacks from them. I am grateful for that, if puzzled. This is certainly not because my blog goes unnoticed. True, I started with just five readers a day, but one year later, traffic has increased more than 30-fold and continues to rise. The blog averages 150 visitors a day and sometimes up to 500 a day, made up of a veritable Who’s Who in stem-cell science, and beyond. How do I know? Senior figures in the field tell me in confidence that they read and enjoy the blog, but none has publicly contributed on it — perhaps a sign that there’s still a way to go before scientists stop being nervous about blogs. My audience extends beyond academics, and discussion on the blog has catalysed links between academic scientists, biotechnology companies, big pharma, government officials, funding agencies, investors, teachers, reporters, students and patient advocates. The blog has also helped to coordinate political efforts to advance stem-cell research through campaigns that put pressure on US and California officials to vote pro-science and pro-stem cells. I find self-publishing on my blog a liberating break from the tedious and frustrating grind of peer review, and it has encouraged me to write more for general audiences. There has been some negative feedback, usually expressed privately rather than on the blog itself. Some critics cautioned that I might anger ‘the wrong people’ in academia or at funding agencies. Others were more direct with their disapproval of some of my most popular posts — usually those that mentioned specific funding agencies or companies by name — with the implied threat that I would see papers or grant applications rejected. Some who disliked my outspokenness insisted I shut down the blog. But don’t let this put you off — the threats came from a very small number of people and have (so far) been toothless. My lab is fine in terms of funding and publishing and I recently got tenure. Here are some tips for beginners. Start slowly; wait a day after writing and reread your draft before posting. Try to avoid discussing your own institution, and critique papers or theories in the field in a constructive manner. It is important that you include your own opinions, but do not use your blog to broadcast your opinions about issues that are unrelated to science. Update your blog regularly, because readers will not visit blogs that they perceive as boring or ‘old news’. Read and comment on other blogs, which will lead people to yours. Get a Twitter account to promote it and dabble with search-engine optimization. And you should tell your colleagues about your blog. Savvy scientists must increasingly engage with blogs and social media. A new generation of young researchers has grown up with an ever-present Internet. Publishers have been quicker than academics to react to this new world, but scientists must catch up. Even if you choose not to blog, you can certainly expect that your papers and ideas will increasingly be blogged about. So there it is — blog or be blogged.

The mass of the axion, a particle that is central to many dark-matter theories, is calculated via the equation of state of the Universe and the temperature dependence of the so-called topological susceptibility of quantum chromodynamics. Calculations that need to consider the theory of quantum chromodynamics, which describes how the strong interaction holds quarks together, are daunting because of the nonlinearity of the strong force. Despite the numerical difficulties, Szabolcs Borsanyi et al. have managed to perform an accurate calculation of the mass of an axion. These particles are at the heart of many dark-matter theories. Key in this paper is the ability to calculate the equation of state and the so-called topological susceptibility of quantum chromodynamics over a very wide temperature range. With their determination of the axion mass, the authors make important predictions about the evolution of the Universe that will help to test dark-matter theories involving axions in the near future. Unlike the electroweak sector of the standard model of particle physics, quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is surprisingly symmetric under time reversal. As there is no obvious reason for QCD being so symmetric, this phenomenon poses a theoretical problem, often referred to as the strong CP problem. The most attractive solution for this1 requires the existence of a new particle, the axion2,3—a promising dark-matter candidate. Here we determine the axion mass using lattice QCD, assuming that these particles are the dominant component of dark matter. The key quantities of the calculation are the equation of state of the Universe and the temperature dependence of the topological susceptibility of QCD, a quantity that is notoriously difficult to calculate4,5,6,7,8, especially in the most relevant high-temperature region (up to several gigaelectronvolts). But by splitting the vacuum into different sectors and re-defining the fermionic determinants, its controlled calculation becomes feasible. Thus, our twofold prediction helps most cosmological calculations9 to describe the evolution of the early Universe by using the equation of state, and may be decisive for guiding experiments looking for dark-matter axions. In the next couple of years, it should be possible to confirm or rule out post-inflation axions experimentally, depending on whether the axion mass is found to be as predicted here. Alternatively, in a pre-inflation scenario, our calculation determines the universal axionic angle that corresponds to the initial condition of our Universe.

Jeffrey S. Mogil and Malcolm R. Macleod propose a new kind of paper that combines the flexibility of basic research with the rigour of clinical trials.

The chemical composition of a massive galaxy in the early Universe reveals an extremely short period of star formation. This result could challenge our ideas about the evolution of galaxies and of the Universe itself. See Letter p.248 This paper presents the first chemical abundance measurement of a galaxy beyond a redshift of z = 2. It is at z = 2.1, when the Universe was 3 billion years old, and the analysis shows it to be the most magnesium-enhanced massive galaxy found so far, with twice the enhancement found in similar-mass galaxies today. The abundance pattern of the galaxy is consistent with enrichment exclusively by core-collapse supernovae, and a star-formation timescale of 0.1 to 0.5 billion years, making it one of the most vigorous star-forming galaxies in the Universe.

Inhibitors of the BET bromodomain proteins are promising cancer therapeutics, but tumour cells are likely to become resistant to these drugs. Anticipated mechanisms of resistance have now been described. See Letter p.413 BET inhibitors that target bromodomain chromatin readers such as BRD4 are being explored as potential therapeutics in cancer. Here Kornelia Polyak and colleagues investigate the response of breast cancer cell lines and xenograft mouse models to BET inhibitors. They find that triple-negative breast cancer cell lines respond to BET inhibitors. Resistance can emerge, but there is no evidence for mechanisms involving drug efflux or mutations in the bromodomain genes or known driver genes. Instead, there are transcriptional changes and increased recruitment of BRD4 to chromatin independent of its bromodomain, concomitant with its increased phosphorylation. Together with two recent Nature publications from the laboratories of Mark Dawson and Johannes Zuber dealing with different cancers, the study suggests potential avenues to improve clinical responses to BET inhibitors. Jeff Settleman discusses all three papers in News & Views.