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The review deals with the controversy surrounding the use of highly realistic dolls with a child-like appearance. It summarizes recent empirical findings and provides an overview of the different legal and ethical perspectives on this issue. Countries use different legal approaches to regulate the use or sale of child-like sex dolls. Although a causal link is assumed by some legislators between the prohibition of such dolls and the protection of children from sexual abuse, empirical studies do not support this causality. The imposition of bans will hinder empirical research on the potential use of alternative sexual outputs for people with paraphilic disorders.

Global insights into cellular organization and genome function require comprehensive understanding of the interactome networks that mediate genotype–phenotype relationships1,2. Here we present a human ‘all-by-all’ reference interactome map of human binary protein interactions, or ‘HuRI’. With approximately 53,000 protein–protein interactions, HuRI has approximately four times as many such interactions as there are high-quality curated interactions from small-scale studies. The integration of HuRI with genome3, transcriptome4and proteome5data enables cellular function to be studied within most physiological or pathological cellular contexts. We demonstrate the utility of HuRI in identifying the specific subcellular roles of protein–protein interactions. Inferred tissue-specific networks reveal general principles for the formation of cellular context-specific functions and elucidate potential molecular mechanisms that might underlie tissue-specific phenotypes of Mendelian diseases. HuRI is a systematic proteome-wide reference that links genomic variation to phenotypic outcomes.

Several letters to the editor are presented in response to articles in previous issues including "Doubling the freight car's workday" in the December 18, 1965 issue, "Back on the road--and purring" in the December 15, 1965 issue and "Still seeking air safety" in the December 11, 1965 issue.