Volume 623 Issue 7988, 23 November 2023

The latest United Nations data paint a grim picture. But countries that are getting land-restoration measures right provide some cause for hope.

A new initiative challenges the severe neglect of women’s brain health from puberty through to pregnancy and menopause.

Researchers make a 3D-printed beam based on the Renaissance polymath’s idea for a masonry structure.

Tracking devices show that protecting these solitary wanderers will require regulation over enormous stretches of open ocean.

A fluorescence-imaging method can be used to identify the sequence of molecular building blocks in a polymer.

A bacterial toxin used to reduce wrinkles can also treat a common disorder in older people.

Super-precise gene-editing approach switches off a gene in the liver that regulates ‘bad’ cholesterol.

Demand is fuelling an illegal trade. But smuggled monkeys carry diseases that can disrupt experiments and lead to unreliable data.

Around 7.3 billion people faced temperatures strongly influenced by global warming over the past year.

Scientists tell Nature why the rainforest has dried out, and what to expect in the coming months.

The landmark decision could transform the treatment of sickle-cell disease and β-thalassaemia — but the technology is expensive.

Large language model creates synopses of papers aimed at various reading levels to help scientists sift through the literature.

Environment ministry launches programme that also includes exporting and euthanizing the animals, which threaten the country’s biodiversity.

The campaign to eradicate polio could succeed in the next few years. But that’s just the beginning of a new challenge — keeping it away.

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.

From identifying disputed artworks to reconstructing lost masterpieces, artificial intelligence is enriching how we interpret our cultural heritage.

Compensating for the devastating impacts of heatwaves, hurricanes and floods after they occur is too slow. With climate risks accelerating, the world must predict who needs funds and when.

Finance for coping with the harms of climate change must be disbursed swiftly and pragmatically. The world’s largest existing climate fund for supporting climate mitigation and adaptation provides lessons.

Students value being taught by real-life scientists with lived experience of life in the lab, say researchers who switched career.

As a tech-hungry world gobbles up rare-earth elements, researchers are adapting bacteria that can isolate and purify the metals in the absence of harsh chemicals.

Amie Fornah Sankoh studies how viruses commandeer plant communication at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.

The space telescope has helped to determine the atmospheric composition of an exoplanet using the light spectrum of its host star. Spectral changes as the planet orbits the star reveal the long-sought presence of exoplanetary methane.

Proteins can condense to form membraneless organelles, which act as vessels for biochemical reactions in cells. An investigation shows that protein condensation is also a cellular mechanism for controlling water availability.

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.

A type of magnetic resonance imaging, known as low-field MRI, could make the technique more widely accessible, but only if the image quality can be improved. A deep-learning protocol might hold the key.

A curious topological structure known as a hopfion ring has been induced in a magnetic material. The first of its kind in 3D, the ring is a tantalizing prospect for several branches of computing development.

Thick filaments contain the protein myosin that generates the force of every heartbeat. Two studies report how these myosin molecules pack together in thick filaments with other proteins to form a surprisingly complex structure.

Deep, high-resolution polarization observations of HL Tau at 870  µm show gaps that have polarization angles with a notable azimuthal component and a higher polarization fraction than the rings.

Transmission and emission spectra of the 825 K warm Jupiter WASP-80b taken with the NIRCam instrument of the JWST show strong evidence of CH₄ at greater than 6σ significance

A one-dimensional trapped-ion quantum simulator with up to 23 spins is used to demonstrate a continuous symmetry-breaking phase that relies on long-range interactions.

Transmission electron microscopy is used to observe three-dimensional topological solitons known as hopfions that in a chiral magnet are found to form rings around skyrmion strings, and a nucleation protocol for these rings is provided.

Following a micro-then-nano growth sequence to fabricate composites that are blends of block-copolymer-based supramolecules, small molecules and nanoparticles shows that high-performance barrier materials can be manufactured by means of entropy-driven assembly.

An independently certified power conversion efficiency of 32.5% for perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells is achieved through improved charge transfer at the amorphous indium zinc oxide interconnecting layer and reduced optical losses at the front and rear electrodes.

The inclusion of a Mg–Bi-based interlayer between the lithium metal and solid electrolyte and a F-rich interlayer on the cathode improves the stability and performance of solid-state lithium-metal batteries.

We report a radical-based Ni/Ag-electrocatalytic cross-coupling of substituted carboxylic acids, enabling an approach to accessing complex molecular architectures, which relies on a silver additive that forms an active Ag nanoparticle-coated electrode surface along with carefully chosen ligands.

The ages and geochemical compositions of inclusions of sublithospheric diamonds indicate additions to the mantle keel of Gondwana by the underplating of buoyant subducted material, originating from 300–700-km depth, which may have contributed to supercontinent stability during long-distance migration.

A study that tracked mammal populations before, during and after a severe storm in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park finds that behavioural responses and survival are linked to body size, with increased mortality of small species owing to limited mobility and changes in food availability.

Recordings of neural populations from motor cortex and striatum spanning monkeys and mice demonstrate that neural dynamics in individuals from the same species are preserved when they perform similar behaviour.

A study reports single-cell RNA-sequencing profiles for more than 1.6 million cell nuclei from 101 whole mouse embryos including 22 mutant and 4 wild-type genotypes, from one experiment.

We present the ‘zebrafish single-cell atlas of perturbed embryos’, single-cell trancriptomic data of developing zebrafish embryos across various timepoints and with genetic perturbations.

Spatiotemporal regulation of wound healing in mice and humans occurs via retinoic acid and hypoxia signalling, which regulate the differentiation of CD201⁺ fibroblast progenitors into proinflammatory and myofibroblast states.

Inborn errors of the alternative NF-κB pathway in humans impair the development of AIRE-expressing medullary thymic epithelial cells, thereby underlying the production of autoantibodies against type I IFNs and predisposition to viral diseases

As well as being the substrate for the lipopolysaccharide transport protein complex comprising LptA–G, lipopolysaccharide binding to Lpt proteins promotes their assembly into a bridge linking the inner and outer membranes of Gram-negative bacteria.

Peptide-centric chimeric antigen receptors (PC-CARs) provide a platform to address the challenges involved in targeting intracellular oncoproteins, and PC-CARs based on the neuroblastoma-dependency gene PHOX2B induce elimination of aggressive tumors.

Experiments in mice show that expression of the oncogene SmoM2 induces basal cell carcinoma in the ear epidermis but not in the back skin, and that this difference in susceptibility is regulated by the extracellular matrix.

Polymerase delta is required for multiple steps in polymerase theta-dependent repair of chromosome breaks, a pathway targeted in cancer therapy.

Water thermodynamics drive changes in macromolecular assembly that rapidly restore intracellular water availability in response to physiological fluctuations in temperature, pressure and osmotic strength.

The intricate molecular architecture and interactions of the human cardiac myosin filament offer insights into cardiac physiology, disease and drug therapy.

A cryo-electron tomography study reports the structure of thick myosin filaments of mouse cardiac muscle in the relaxed state in situ and the MyBP-C links that connect them with the surrounding thin actin filaments.