Featured
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Outlook |
Fresh water from thin air
Strategies for collecting water from the atmosphere using minimal energy could fill a crucial gap in sustaining communities that have limited access to water.
- Michael Eisenstein
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News Feature |
Nature’s 10: ten people (and one non-human) who helped shape science in 2023
An AI pioneer, an architect of India’s Moon mission and the world’s first global heat officer are some of the people behind this year’s big stories.
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Nature Video |
The rubber that stops cracks in their tracks
Highly entangled polymers allow it to resist cracks from cyclical stress 10 times better than before.
- Dan Fox
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Spotlight |
Renewable energy for the subcontinent
India has invested heavily in wind, solar and storage technology to hit net zero by 2070, but some don’t think it’s doing enough.
- Bianca Nogrady
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Spotlight |
The climate disaster strikes: what the data say
A series of impact assessments highlight India’s vulnerability to extreme weather events and the risks they pose to human health.
- Shannon Hall
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Research Briefing |
Polymer films inspired by spider silk connect biological tissues and electronic devices
Linking biological tissues with electronic devices is challenging owing to the softness of tissues and their arbitrary shapes and sizes. An innovative water-responsive, supercontractile polymer film, inspired by spider silk, allows the construction of soft, stretchable and shape-adaptive tissue–electronic interfaces.
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News |
COP28 climate summit signals the end of fossil fuels — but is it enough?
As nations make historic pledge to ‘transition’ energy systems away from fossil fuels — some scientists are disappointed by the softened wording.
- Katharine Sanderson
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News Feature |
Nuclear-fusion breakthrough: this physicist helped to achieve the first-ever energy gain
Annie Kritcher and her team at the US National Ignition Facility designed fusion experiments that generated more energy than they consumed.
- Jeff Tollefson
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Nature Podcast |
Cat parasite Toxoplasma tricked to grow in a dish
Cat-only life-cycle stage cultured in vitro, and the mysterious giant proteins that might turn bacteria into killers.
- Nick Petrić Howe
- & Shamini Bundell
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Article |
Water-responsive supercontractile polymer films for bioelectronic interfaces
Water-responsive supercontractile polymer films composed of poly(ethylene oxide) and poly(ethylene glycol)-α-cyclodextrin inclusion complex contract by more than 50% of their original length within seconds after wetting and become soft and stretchable hydrogel thin films that can be used in bioelectronic interfaces.
- Junqi Yi
- , Guijin Zou
- & Xiaodong Chen
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News |
Robot chemist sparks row with claim it created new materials
Researchers question whether an AI-controlled lab assistant actually made any novel substances.
- Mark Peplow
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Research Highlight |
Powerful X-ray reveals the inner life of an electric-vehicle battery
Researchers get an unprecedented glimpse of how ions behave during a drive.
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News |
India and climate: what does the world’s most populous nation want from COP28?
India wants to be the voice of the global south at the climate conference. It is also massively dependent on coal.
- Gayathri Vaidyanathan
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Article
| Open AccessSingle-molecule electron spin resonance by means of atomic force microscopy
By using a pump–probe atomic force microscopy detection scheme, electron spin transitions between non-equilibrium triplet states of individual pentacene molecules, as well as the ability to manipulate electron spins over tens of microseconds, is demonstrated.
- Lisanne Sellies
- , Raffael Spachtholz
- & Jascha Repp
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News |
First cash pledged for countries devastated by climate change: COP28 starts with historic decision
Draft resolution on a ‘loss and damage fund’ has attracted more than $400 million, but climate-vulnerable countries say more cash is needed.
- Katharine Sanderson
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News & Views |
Carbon rings push limits of chemical theories
Scientists are tantalized by the many forms that carbon could adopt — some of which are predicted to have extraordinary properties. The synthesis of three new all-carbon molecules is therefore a source of excitement.
- Przemysław Gaweł
- & Cina Foroutan-Nejad
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News Feature |
A new kind of solar cell is coming: is it the future of green energy?
Firms commercializing perovskite–silicon ‘tandem’ photovoltaics say that the panels will be more efficient and could lead to cheaper electricity.
- Mark Peplow
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News |
Google AI and robots join forces to build new materials
Tool from Google DeepMind predicts nearly 400,000 stable substances, and an autonomous system learns to make them in the lab.
- Mark Peplow
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Article |
On-surface synthesis of aromatic cyclo[10]carbon and cyclo[14]carbon
We provide a modified strategy for the on-surface synthesis of cyclocarbons with 10 or 14 carbon atoms that provides a route for characterizing annular carbon allotropes.
- Luye Sun
- , Wei Zheng
- & Wei Xu
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Article
| Open AccessAssociative pyridinium electrolytes for air-tolerant redox flow batteries
The redox behaviour of pyridinium electrolytes under representative flow battery conditions is investigated, offering insights into air tolerance of batteries containing these electrolytes while providing a universal physico-chemical descriptor of their reversibility.
- Mark E. Carrington
- , Kamil Sokołowski
- & Oren A. Scherman
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Article
| Open AccessPesticide use negatively affects bumble bees across European landscapes
Results from 316 Bombus terrestris colonies at 106 agricultural sites across eight European countries find pesticides in bumble bee pollen to be associated with reduced colony performance, especially in areas of intensive agriculture.
- Charlie C. Nicholson
- , Jessica Knapp
- & Maj Rundlöf
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News & Views |
From the archive: renaming the proton, and enthusiasm for sanitary matters
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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Nature Careers Podcast |
How ChatGPT and sounds from space brought a ‘luminous jelly’ to life
Engineer-turned-artist Diana Scarborough and inorganic chemist Anna Melekhova describe how their art–science collaboration gave voice and form to a new material.
- Julie Gould
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Spotlight |
Réunion’s search for energy self-sufficiency
Whether the French island succeeds in producing all of its electricity depends not only on technology, but also on social and political will.
- Rachel Nuwer
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Nature Index |
Are rooftop solar panels the answer to meeting China’s challenging climate targets?
Research is central to the success of major photovoltaic programmes in ramping up clean energy and alleviating rural poverty.
- Yvaine Ye
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Research Highlight |
How to recycle unrecyclable paper cups
Chemistry can transform disposable cups into industrially useful structures called cellulose nanocrystals.
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Technology Feature |
Microbial miners take on rare-earth metals
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.
- Amber Dance
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Article |
Computational prediction of complex cationic rearrangement outcomes
Computers equipped with a comprehensive knowledge-base of mechanistic steps augmented by physical-organic chemistry rules, as well as quantum mechanical and kinetic calculations, can use a reaction-network approach to analyse the mechanisms of cationic rearrangements.
- Tomasz Klucznik
- , Leonidas-Dimitrios Syntrivanis
- & Bartosz A. Grzybowski
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World View |
The world’s chemical-weapons stockpiles are gone — but a new challenge looms
Continued efforts to maintain the ban on chemical weapons depend on nations sharing information to further build trust and global safety.
- Peter J. Hotchkiss
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Nature Video |
The robot chemist helping to pave the way to settlements on Mars
An AI-assisted robot, could use Martian rock to autonomously generate oxygen on the red planet
- Noah Baker
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News |
This AI robot chemist could make oxygen on Mars
The system uses Martian materials to produce catalysts that release oxygen from water.
- Jonathan O'Callaghan
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Research Highlight |
Flashy molecules decode a polymer’s lengthening chain
A fluorescence-imaging method can be used to identify the sequence of molecular building blocks in a polymer.
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Article |
Observing the primary steps of ion solvation in helium droplets
The initial steps of the ion solvation process are observed for the solvation of a single sodium ion in liquid helium, opening possibilities for benchmarking theoretical descriptions of ion solvation.
- Simon H. Albrechtsen
- , Constant A. Schouder
- & Henrik Stapelfeldt
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Research Briefing |
Helium droplets help to visualize the start of ion solvation
The number of helium atoms that gradually bind to a single sodium ion at the surface of a liquid helium nanodroplet has been measured as a function of time, as has the amount of energy that dissipates during this process. These findings provide a much-needed glimpse of the early steps of ion solvation.
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Article
| Open AccessPredicting crystal form stability under real-world conditions
Accuracy of free-energy calculations can be improved by constructing an experimental benchmark for solid–solid free-energy differences, quantifying statistical errors for the computed free energies and placing both hydrate and anhydrate crystal structures on the same energy landscape.
- Dzmitry Firaha
- , Yifei Michelle Liu
- & Marcus A. Neumann
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Article
| Open AccessPlant carbonic anhydrase-like enzymes in neuroactive alkaloid biosynthesis
We show how neuroactive alkaloids from clubmosses are biosynthesized, which reveals an unexpected role for carbonic anhydrase-like enzymes in alkaloid scaffold formation.
- Ryan S. Nett
- , Yaereen Dho
- & Elizabeth S. Sattely
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Comment |
‘Oceans are hugely complex’: modelling marine microbes is key to climate forecasts
Microorganisms are the engines that drive most marine processes. Ocean modelling must evolve to take their biological complexity into account.
- Alessandro Tagliabue
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News & Views |
Atom-swap chemistry could aid drug discovery
An unconventional route for modifying pharmaceutically relevant molecules swaps an atom of carbon for one of nitrogen. The resulting derivatives might open up avenues of research in medicinal-chemistry campaigns.
- Filippo Ficarra
- & Mattia Silvi
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Article |
Carbon-to-nitrogen single-atom transmutation of azaarenes
A new type of transformation converting a heteroaromatic carbon atom into a nitrogen atom, turning quinolines into quinazolines to enable manipulation of molecular properties, is reported.
- Jisoo Woo
- , Colin Stein
- & Mark D. Levin
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Correspondence |
US universities must tackle their huge carbon footprints
- Mark O. Huising
- & Adam R. Aron
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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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Article |
Anion–π interactions suppress phase impurities in FAPbI3 solar cells
The use of anion–π interactions during perovskite film formation is shown to give better quality perovskite layers with high phase purity, leading to improved photovoltaic devices with high power conversion efficiency.
- Zijian Huang
- , Yang Bai
- & Huanping Zhou
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Article |
Arenium-ion-catalysed halodealkylation of fully alkylated silanes
A new method is described that uses arenium-ion-catalysed halodealkylation of silanes with four alkyl groups, typically considered synthetic dead ends, to convert Me4Si and related quaternary silanes into orthogonally substituted (functionalized) silanes.
- Tao He
- , Hendrik F. T. Klare
- & Martin Oestreich
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News |
Tiny ‘quantum dot’ particles win chemistry Nobel
Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov receive the prize for their work on glowing nanoparticles that are used in fields from electronics to surgery.
- Katharine Sanderson
- & Davide Castelvecchi
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Article |
Complex molecule synthesis by electrocatalytic decarboxylative cross-coupling
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.
- Benxiang Zhang
- , Jiayan He
- & Phil S. Baran
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World View |
The UK’s rollback of climate policies will cost its citizens and the world
Incoherent new climate-policy messages by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will dissolve the UK’s climate leadership, stifle innovation’s momentum and cost consumers.
- Joeri Rogelj
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News |
Scientists achieve the tricky task of compressing liquids
Using a metal–organic framework, researchers reduced the volume of a water-based mixture by 7%.
- Katharine Sanderson
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News & Views |
An all-organic laser that is electrically driven
An organic light-emitting diode has been integrated with an optically driven organic laser to produce laser light from electricity. The design bypasses many of the challenges posed by direct electrical input in such devices.
- Stéphane Kéna-Cohen
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