Featured
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News & Views |
Flexible fibres take fabrics into the information age
A technique for embedding fibres with semiconductor devices produces defect-free strands that are hundreds of metres long. Garments woven with these threads offer a tantalizing glimpse of the wearable electronics of the future.
- Xiaoting Jia
- & Alex Parrott
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News |
Deepfakes, trolls and cybertroopers: how social media could sway elections in 2024
Faced with data restrictions and harassment, researchers are mapping out fresh approaches to studying social media’s political reach.
- Heidi Ledford
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News |
Two-faced AI language models learn to hide deception
‘Sleeper agents’ seem benign during testing but behave differently once deployed. And methods to stop them aren’t working.
- Matthew Hutson
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News |
This robot grows like a vine — and could help navigate disaster zones
Plant-inspired machines could one day prove useful in search-and-rescue scenarios.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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News |
Medical AI could be ‘dangerous’ for poorer nations, WHO warns
The rapid growth of generative AI in health care has prompted the agency to set out guidelines for ethical use.
- David Adam
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News & Views |
From the archive: the royal ‘we’, and an experiment in telegraphy
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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News & Views |
A 2D route to 3D computer chips
Ultrathin materials have long been touted as a solution to the problems faced by the ever-growing semiconductor industry. Evidence that 3D chips can be built from 2D semiconductors suggests that the hype was justified.
- Tania Roy
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News |
Mission failure feared for private US Moon lander — what’s next?
Astrobotic, the firm that launched the Peregrine spacecraft, says it will learn from any missteps and look ahead to its next attempt.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Private US Moon mission launches — will it open a new era for science?
Astrobotic could be the first commercial firm to successfully deliver research equipment to the lunar surface, if it sticks the landing.
- Alexandra Witze
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News Feature |
The AI–quantum computing mash-up: will it revolutionize science?
Scientists are exploring the potential of quantum machine learning. But whether there are useful applications for the fusion of artificial intelligence and quantum computing is unclear.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Career Column |
How an AI-powered lion became a teaching tool
The mascot for King’s College London helped Andrés Gvirtz to teach a class, with a little help from generative artificial intelligence.
- Andrés Gvirtz
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News |
Will superintelligent AI sneak up on us? New study offers reassurance
Improvements in the performance of large language models such as ChatGPT are more predictable than they seem.
- Matthew Hutson
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Nature Index |
How research managers are using AI to get ahead
For those at the interface of funding organizations and the scientific community, platforms such as ChatGPT can tackle menial tasks and free up time for relationship-building work such as coaching and mentoring.
- Linda Nordling
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News & Views |
Contact-tracing app predicts risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission
The risk of catching COVID-19 as calculated by a smartphone app scales with the probability of subsequently testing positive for the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, showing that digital contact tracing is a useful tool for fighting future pandemics.
- Justus Benzler
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News |
Polar bear fur-inspired sweater is thinner than a down jacket — and just as warm
The synthetic fibre is an aerogel coated with polyurethane and is flexible, washable and wearable.
- Gemma Conroy
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News |
AI consciousness: scientists say we urgently need answers
Researchers call for more funding to study the boundary between conscious and unconscious systems.
- Mariana Lenharo
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News & Views Forum |
2D materials ratchet up biorealism in computing
A transistor made from atomically thin materials mimics the way in which connections between neurons are strengthened by activity. Two perspectives reveal why physicists and neuroscientists share equal enthusiasm for this feat of engineering.
- Frank H. L. Koppens
- , James B. Aimone
- & Frances S. Chance
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Career Feature |
If you want something done right, do it yourself: the scientists who build their own tools
Three researchers who went out on a limb to bridge a gap in their field talk to Nature about how and why they went about designing their own, unique devices — and the challenges involved.
- Rachael Pells
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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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News Feature |
OpenAI’s chief scientist helped to create ChatGPT — while worrying about AI safety
Ilya Sutskever has played a key part in developing the conversational AI systems that are starting to change society.
- Nicola Jones
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Correspondence |
Generate verifiable soil carbon credits from croplands
- Peng Fu
- , David Schurman
- & James R. Kellner
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Book Review |
What the Ottomans did for science — and science did for the Ottomans
A hundred years after the birth of modern Turkey, a monumental research project is uncovering the untold story of science and technology during six centuries of the Ottoman Empire.
- Ehsan Masood
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Outlook |
This cyborg cockroach could be the future of earthquake search and rescue
From drivable bionic animals to machines made from muscle, biohybrid robots are on their way to a variety of uses.
- Liam Drew
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Nature Podcast |
The world’s smallest light-trapping silicon cavity
Researchers exploit intermolecular forces to carve a nanoscale hole, and investigating whether poverty can be reduced without increasing emissions.
- Nick Petrić Howe
- & Shamini Bundell
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Comment |
Generative AI could revolutionize health care — but not if control is ceded to big tech
Large language models such as that used by ChatGPT could soon become essential tools for diagnosing and treating patients. To protect people’s privacy and safety, medical professionals, not commercial interests, must drive their development and deployment.
- Augustin Toma
- , Senthujan Senkaiahliyan
- & Bo Wang
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Comment |
ChatGPT one year on: who is using it, how and why?
In just a year, ChatGPT has permeated scientific research. Seven scientists reveal what they have learnt about how the chatbot should — and shouldn’t — be used.
- Marzyeh Ghassemi
- , Abeba Birhane
- & Francisco Tustumi
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News |
How does it feel to have an octopus arm? This robo-tentacle lets people find out
Mimicking the snatch and grab of an octopus snaring its prey required a new way of thinking about robotics.
- Bianca Nogrady
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News |
‘My collaborations would see me jailed’: Australian researchers fear proposed new laws
Under the proposal, technology with potential military use would need authorization to be shared with non-Australian colleagues.
- Bianca Nogrady
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News Explainer |
What the OpenAI drama means for AI progress — and safety
A debacle at the company that built ChatGPT highlights concern that commercial forces are acting against the responsible development of artificial-intelligence systems.
- Nicola Jones
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News & Views |
From the archive: a juice extractor in an insect’s gut, and amateur radio telephony
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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News |
SpaceX Starship launch ends in explosion — what’s next for the mega-rocket?
The craft travelled into space for the first time, before it self-destructed for unknown reasons.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
‘Electrocaloric’ heat pump could transform air conditioning
Heat pumps are ubiquitous in the form of air conditioners. Scientists just invented one that avoids harmful refrigerant gases.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Nature Podcast |
Dust: the tiny substance with enormous power
Jay Owens joins us to talk about her book Dust: The Modern World in a Trillion Particles.
- Benjamin Thompson
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Nature Index |
Hypotheses devised by AI could find ‘blind spots’ in research
Artificial intelligence is asking questions that humans hope to answer.
- Matthew Hutson
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Nature Video |
The 3D printer that crafts complex robotic organs in a single run
Combining machine vision with contactless error correction allows for even more advanced multi-material printing.
- Dan Fox
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Nature Podcast |
How to 3D print fully formed robots
Printing multi-material objects in a single run, and the effectiveness of lifestyle interventions for preventing type 2 diabetes.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Shamini Bundell
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News Feature |
The rise of brain-reading technology: what you need to know
As implanted devices and commercial headsets advance, what will the real-world impacts be?
- Liam Drew
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News |
‘ChatGPT detector’ catches AI-generated papers with unprecedented accuracy
Tool based on machine learning uses features of writing style to distinguish between human and AI authors.
- McKenzie Prillaman
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Nature Podcast |
Nature's Take: How will ChatGPT and generative AI transform research?
Nature staff take on the big topics that matter in science.
- Nick Petrić Howe
- , Magdalena Skipper
- & Yann Sweeney
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Comment |
Garbage in, garbage out: mitigating risks and maximizing benefits of AI in research
Artificial-intelligence tools are transforming data-driven science — better ethical standards and more robust data curation are needed to fuel the boom and prevent a bust.
- Brooks Hanson
- , Shelley Stall
- & Ge Peng
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Research Briefing |
Large-scale nanowire camera with a single-photon sensitivity
Superconducting detectors are a leading technology for the detection of single photons, but have been limited in the number of pixels that they can offer. A 400,000-pixel superconducting nanowire single-photon detector camera provides an improvement by a factor of 400 compared with the current state of the art.
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News |
AI ‘breakthrough’: neural net has human-like ability to generalize language
A neural-network-based artificial intelligence outperforms ChatGPT at quickly folding new words into its lexicon, a key aspect of human intelligence.
- Max Kozlov
- & Celeste Biever
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Comment |
Living guidelines for generative AI — why scientists must oversee its use
Establish an independent scientific body to test and certify generative artificial intelligence, before the technology damages science and public trust.
- Claudi L. Bockting
- , Eva A. M. van Dis
- & Johan Bollen
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News & Views |
How purposeless physics underlies purposeful life
Evolution by natural selection peerlessly describes how life’s complexity develops — but can it be explained in terms of physics? A new approach suggests it can.
- George F. R. Ellis
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Research Briefing |
Scandium-45 nuclear-clock candidate driven by X-ray lasers
Precise timekeeping is key to many technologies, motivating the search for more-stable reference oscillators for use as clocks. The resonant X-ray excitation of a long-lived nuclear state in scandium-45 makes it a potential reference oscillator for a nuclear clock that could surpass atomic clocks in stability and resilience against external perturbations.
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News Feature |
AI and science: what 1,600 researchers think
A Nature survey finds that scientists are concerned, as well as excited, by the increasing use of artificial-intelligence tools in research.
- Richard Van Noorden
- & Jeffrey M. Perkel
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Nature Podcast |
This isn’t the Nature Podcast — how deepfakes are distorting reality
The rise of AI-generated fakes, evidence of the earliest-known wooden structure, and how NASA’s OSIRIS-REx brought asteroid samples back to Earth.
- Nick Petrić Howe
- & Benjamin Thompson