NATURE OUTLOOK Molecular pathways of inflammation, the cystic fibrosis microbiome and other highlights from clinical trials and laboratory studies.

SIMONS FOUNDATION Computer vision and machine learning technologies are creating ever more precise records of animal behavior. Now, neuroscientists must figure out how best to use these techniques to understand neural activity.

Cancer Research UK PARP inhibitors are rapidly transforming the treatment of ovarian, breast, prostate and other types of cancer. To develop these drugs, researchers supported by Cancer Research UK had to decipher how blocking DNA repair could expose a weak point in the biology of cancer cells.

QUANTA The nervous systems of foraging and predatory animals may prompt them to move along a special kind of random path called a Lévy walk to find food efficiently when no clues are available.

NATURE MEDICINE Neural implants can give people with neurological disorders a new lease on life. But it can all be taken all away at the end of the trial.

NATURE OUTLOOK Researchers strive to understand how microbes affect health and disease. Liam Drew picks the highlights of 2019.

NATURE OUTLOOK When immunization rates dip, legislation is often strengthened. But does the evidence stack up?

SIMONS FOUNDATION Seemingly meaningless movements — even a quick twitch of a limb — produce abundant, widespread and high-dimensional activity in the cortex. How might the brain use this information?

NATURE OUTLOOK When two pharmaceutical companies turned their attention to a rare condition, they came up with different strategies for targeting RNA. Now, RNA therapies for other hereditary conditions are within the sights of the industry.

NATURE OUTLOOK The opioid crisis is now an epidemic that involves both prescribed and illicit drugs. Tackling it is more urgent than ever.

NATURE OUTLOOK Highlights from laboratory studies and clinical trials.

NATURE OUTLOOK - WINNER OF THE ASSOCIATION OF BRITISH SCIENCE WRITERS’ AWARD FOR BEST ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY REPORTING 2020

As technologies that integrate the brain with computers become more complex, so too do the ethical issues that surround their use.

NATURE What virtual-reality animal experiments are revealing about the brain.

AEON The hormone system works like a democracy: every tissue in the body is an endocrine organ asserting its needs and demands

NATURE OUTLOOK Genetic studies of today’s tea plants are providing clues to how the plant was first domesticated.

NATURE OUTLOOK Many long-term diseases of the liver lead to scarring, or fibrosis, that restricts the organ’s functions. Evidence that fibrosis can regress has spurred the search for therapies that suppress scar-tissue formation to restore liver health.

NATURE OUTLOOK Anti-seizure medication doesn’t work in every person with epilepsy. But a treatment option is emerging that would spare the need for brain surgery.

NATURE OUTLOOK Liquid biopsies, based on detecting DNA from tumour cells circulating in the blood, can guide clinicians to the most effective treatments.

NATURE OUTLOOK Brain tumours in children differ fundamentally from those in adults — a discovery with enormous implications for treatment strategies.

READER’S DIGEST Liam Drew takes us along on his Parisian adventure with his grandmother and explores the importance of spending quality time with the people in your life