Featured
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News Feature |
How does ChatGPT ‘think’? Psychology and neuroscience crack open AI large language models
Researchers are striving to reverse-engineer artificial intelligence and scan the ‘brains’ of LLMs to see what they are doing, how and why.
- Matthew Hutson
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News |
Is the Internet bad for you? Huge study reveals surprise effect on well-being
A survey of more than 2.4 million people finds that being online can have a positive effect on welfare.
- Carissa Wong
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Obituary |
Daniel Kahneman obituary: psychologist who revolutionized the way we think about thinking
Nobel prizewinner whose insights into the foibles of human decision-making launched the field of behavioural economics and sent ripples through all social sciences.
- Eldar Shafir
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Research Highlight |
Pandemic lockdowns were less of a shock for people with fewer ties
During periods of enforced isolation, life satisfaction for older adults took less of a hit in those who were already socially isolated.
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Research Briefing |
Long online discussions are consistently the most toxic
An ambitious investigation has analysed discourse on eight social-media platforms, covering a vast array of topics and spanning several decades. It reveals that online conversations increase in toxicity as they get longer — and that this behaviour persists despite shifts in platforms’ business models, technological advances and societal norms.
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News Feature |
The rise of eco-anxiety: scientists wake up to the mental-health toll of climate change
Researchers want to unpick how climate change affects mental health around the world — from lives that are disrupted by catastrophic weather to people who are anxious about the future.
- Helen Pearson
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Editorial |
Rwanda 30 years on: understanding the horror of genocide
Researchers must support and elevate the voices of Rwanda’s scholars and survivors.
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News Feature |
After the genocide: what scientists are learning from Rwanda
Thirty years after the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, Nature met with researchers who are gaining insights that could help to prevent other atrocities and enable healing.
- Nisha Gaind
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Correspondence |
Adopt universal standards for study adaptation to boost health, education and social-science research
- Dragos Iliescu
- & Samuel Greiff
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News |
Right- or left-handed? Protein in embryo cells might help decide
Gene that codes for structural protein could determine the dominant side of the human brain.
- Sumeet Kulkarni
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Arts Review |
159 days of solitude: how loneliness haunts astronauts
The psychological pressures of going into space might be as hard as the physical feat, a documentary reveals.
- Alexandra Witze
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Perspective |
Artificial intelligence and illusions of understanding in scientific research
The proliferation of artificial intelligence tools in scientific research risks creating illusions of understanding, where scientists believe they understand more about the world than they actually do.
- Lisa Messeri
- & M. J. Crockett
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News & Views |
Why reciprocity is common in humans but rare in other animals
Reciprocal cooperation can be advantageous, but why it is more common in humans than in other social animals is a puzzle. A modelling and experimental study pinpoints the conditions needed for reciprocity to evolve.
- Sarah Mathew
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Nature Podcast |
Why are we nice? Altruism’s origins are put to the test
Research suggests a combination of behaviours underlie the evolution of human cooperation, and researchers make an optical disc with enormous storage capacity.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Nick Petrić Howe
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Analysis
| Open AccessMaking cities mental health friendly for adolescents and young adults
A study examining how cities can foster well-being and positive mental health in young residents synthesizes opinions from researchers, practitioners, advocates and young people, highlighting factors that policymakers and urban planners should consider.
- Pamela Y. Collins
- , Moitreyee Sinha
- & Lian Zeitz
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Article
| Open AccessOnline images amplify gender bias
We find that gender bias is more prevalent in images than text, that the underrepresentation of women online is substantially worse in images and that googling for images amplifies gender bias in a person’s beliefs.
- Douglas Guilbeault
- , Solène Delecourt
- & Ethan Nadler
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Comment |
No ‘easy’ weight loss: don’t overlook the social cost of anti-obesity drugs
Ideas of diet and exercise as the ‘best’ way to lose weight could stigmatize people taking Ozempic, WeGovy and other blockbuster drugs that affect appetite. Lessons from weight-loss surgery reveal ways to help.
- Alexandra Brewis
- & Sarah Trainer
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Career News |
Economists count the cost of ‘risky’ science
A survey seeks to define risk in research and how academics approach it in their work.
- Chris Woolston
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Editorial |
How online misinformation exploits ‘information voids’ — and what to do about it
In 2024’s super election year, providers of online search engines and their users need to be especially aware of how online misinformation can seem all too credible.
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Analysis
| Open AccessA synthesis of evidence for policy from behavioural science during COVID-19
Evaluation of evidence generated to test 19 proposed policy recommendations and guidance for the future.
- Kai Ruggeri
- , Friederike Stock
- & Robb Willer
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Book Review |
The unsung geniuses who uncovered why we sleep and dream
Just 100 years ago, we understood astoundingly little about sleep and dreaming. A tight-knit band of researchers changed things, against sometimes considerable odds.
- Jennifer L. Martin
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Research Briefing |
The myth of cosmopolitan cities: why large urban areas are more segregated
There is a long-standing assumption that large, densely populated cities inherently foster interactions between a diverse range of people. Analysis of 1.6 billion person-to-person encounters in the United States reveals that big cities are actually pockets of extreme segregation, highlighting a need for strategic urban design that fosters more integrated environments.
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News |
‘Disruptive’ science: in-person teams make more breakthroughs than remote groups
Analysis of millions of papers shows that farflung collaborators produce fewer foundational discoveries than groups working together in person.
- David Adam
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News & Views |
People go the extra mile for food
GPS data reveal that people travel far from home to buy food in the United States, challenging ideas about how access to food relates to unhealthy eating habits.
- Abigail Klopper
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Book Review |
Migration isn’t increasing, border restrictions don’t reduce crossings — and other home truths
Prejudice, rather than facts, colours our views about human mobility, argues a new book. But the global shock of the COVID-19 pandemic means that the world is changing in front of our eyes.
- Alan Gamlen
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News |
Don’t overlook race and ethnicity: new guidelines urge change for psychology research
Recommendations aimed at authors, reviewers and editors establish standards for addressing issues that have often gotten short shrift.
- Heidi Ledford
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Research Briefing |
Personal motivations polarize people’s memories of the COVID-19 pandemic
How accurately a person recalls the COVID-19 pandemic is affected by motivational factors, including how they feel about their vaccination status. The recollections of vaccinated and unvaccinated people are skewed in opposite directions, leading to different retrospective narratives about the pandemic. This distorted recall influences how individuals evaluate past political action, and will complicate preparation for future crises.
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Article |
Historical narratives about the COVID-19 pandemic are motivationally biased
How people remember various aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, including their own behaviour, perception of risk and attitudes towards science and governmental policies, is biased by their perceptions and behaviour today.
- Philipp Sprengholz
- , Luca Henkel
- & Cornelia Betsch
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Article
| Open AccessHuman-like systematic generalization through a meta-learning neural network
The meta-learning for compositionality approach achieves the systematicity and flexibility needed for human-like generalization.
- Brenden M. Lake
- & Marco Baroni
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Book Review |
The plant poisons that shape our daily lives
An exploration of nature’s toxins reveals complex relationships between humans and the plant chemicals we use as foods, medicines and mind-altering drugs.
- Emily Monosson
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News |
Milkshake neuroscience: how the brain nudges us toward fatty foods
Brain imaging shows how high-fat foods exert their powerful pull.
- Max Kozlov
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Nature Podcast |
Gene edits move pig organs closer to human transplantation
Monkeys with CRISPR-edited pig kidneys survive for more than a year, and why our brains struggle to count more than four objects.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Shamini Bundell
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Correspondence |
Sustainability: draw on decades of social-science research
- Paul C. Stern
- , Thomas Dietz
- & Kimberly S. Wolske
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Editorial |
The disinformation sleuths: a key role for scientists in impending elections
Researchers in Europe have a golden opportunity to help defend democratic principles and bring science to bear against online disinformation.
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Career Feature |
Tracking women’s mental health amid trauma in Yemen
Psychologist Anjila Sultan returned to the city where she grew up, after witnessing the effects of war and cultural pressures on mothers and children.
- Shihab Jamal
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News & Views |
From the archive: colour constancy, and an atomic romance
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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Correspondence |
Control side effects of the psychedelic renaissance
- Christoph Bublitz
- , Nicolas Langlitz
- & Dimitris Repantis
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News Q&A |
Barbie and body image: a scholar’s take on the research — and the blockbuster film
A clinical health psychologist speaks to Nature about Barbie’s influence on how women and girls view their bodies.
- Emma Marris
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News |
Australia to prescribe MDMA and psilocybin for PTSD and depression in world first
Decision to make the previously illicit drugs available is dogged by suggestions that it was rushed.
- Rich Haridy
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Correspondence |
Autism: don’t negate the value of applied behaviour analysis
- Gina Green
- , Russell Lang
- & Jason Travers
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Correspondence |
Germany: luring drivers onto public transport
- Mark A. Andor
- , Fabian T. Dehos
- & Lukas Tomberg
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News |
Did our human ancestors eat each other? Carved-up bone offers clues
A fossilized hominin leg shows gashes that were probably made by stone tools.
- Lilly Tozer
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Nature Podcast |
What IBM’s result means for quantum computing
A test case for practical applications of quantum computers, and how psychedelic drugs might make brains more malleable.
- Shamini Bundell
- & Nick Petrić Howe
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News |
Morality is declining, right? Scientists say that idea is an illusion
Surveys show people around the world have believed for decades that morals are decaying — but other survey data contradict that perception.
- Mariana Lenharo
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Article
| Open AccessThe illusion of moral decline
We show that the perception of moral decline is pervasive, perdurable, unfounded and easily produced, and suggest that this illusion has implications for research on the misallocation of scarce resources, the underuse of social support and social influence.
- Adam M. Mastroianni
- & Daniel T. Gilbert