Featured
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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
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News Feature |
Science and the new age of AI
A Nature special on how AI is transforming the scientific enterprise.
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News Feature |
How to stop AI deepfakes from sinking society — and science
Deceptive videos and images created using generative AI could sway elections, crash stock markets and ruin reputations. Researchers are developing methods to limit their harm.
- Nicola Jones
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News |
Is depression lifting? AI that interprets brain waves has answers
A pattern of brain activity linked with recovery from severe depression could be used to improve therapies such as deep-brain stimulation
- Max Kozlov
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News |
World’s most powerful X-ray laser will ‘film’ chemical reactions in unprecedented detail
Upgraded laser in California will produce one million X-ray pulses per second to study ultrafast processes at the atomic level.
- Katherine Bourzac
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Outlook |
A test of artificial intelligence
As debate rages over the abilities of modern AI systems, scientists are still struggling to effectively assess machine intelligence.
- Michael Eisenstein
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Nature Podcast |
Our ancestors lost nearly 99% of their population, 900,000 years ago
A roundup of stories from the Nature Briefing, including how human ancestors came close to extinction, historic pollution in Antarctica, and the AI that predicts smell from a compound's structure.
- Benjamin Thompson
- , Dan Fox
- & Shamini Bundell
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Book Review |
Dust: how the pursuit of power and profit has turned the world to powder
From atmospheric nuclear testing to the US Dust Bowl, human activities have left a toxic legacy of particulate pollution — and the unseen fallout continues to this day.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
How would room-temperature superconductors change science?
The prized materials could be transformative for research — but only if they have other essential qualities.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Nature Video |
AI finally beats humans at a real-life sport — drone racing
The new system combines simulation with onboard sensing and computation.
- Dan Fox
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Nature Podcast |
Physicists finally observe strange isotope Oxygen 28 – raising fundamental questions
The long-sought finding challenges scientists' understanding of the strong nuclear force, and the AI that can beat human champions at drone racing.
- Dan Fox
- & Nick Petrić Howe
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Correspondence |
Neurotechnology: we need new laws, not new rights
- Sjors Ligthart
- , Christoph Bublitz
- & Susie Alegre
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Nature Video |
Mind-reading computers turn brain activity into speech
Algorithms trained to associate sounds with neural activity can give people back their voice
- Shamini Bundell
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Spotlight |
Why scientists are delving into the virtual world
Virtual-reality software and headsets are increasingly being used by researchers to form deeper collaborations or work remotely.
- Rachael Pells
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News |
If AI becomes conscious: here’s how researchers will know
A checklist derived from six neuroscience-based theories of consciousness could aid in the assessment.
- Mariana Lenharo
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Nature Podcast |
Brain-reading implants turn thoughts into speech
Two studies demonstrate how brain-computer interfaces could help people to communicate, and working out how hot it can get before tropical leaves start to die.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Nick Petrić Howe
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Correspondence |
Digital tech: some way to go for IPCC-style governance
- Sean T. Norton
- & Jacob N. Shapiro
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News Feature |
Rules to keep AI in check: nations carve different paths for tech regulation
A guide to how China, the EU and the US are reining in artificial intelligence.
- Matthew Hutson
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World View |
I’ve witnessed the wonders of the deep sea. Mining could destroy them
Deep-sea mining could wreck more than just the ocean floor in ways we have no idea how to repair.
- Beth N. Orcutt
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News Feature |
ChatGPT broke the Turing test — the race is on for new ways to assess AI
Large language models mimic human chatter, but scientists disagree on their ability to reason.
- Celeste Biever
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News |
Mind-reading machines are coming — how can we keep them in check?
Devices that can record and change brain activity will create privacy issues that challenge existing human-rights legislation, say researchers.
- Liam Drew
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Editorial |
The global fight for critical minerals is costly and damaging
Elements such as rare-earth metals are crucial for the clean-energy transition. Sustainability, equity and security are all at risk in the rush to break China’s dominance over their production.
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Nature Podcast |
Disrupting snail food-chain curbs parasitic disease in Senegal
Intervention against schistosomiasis also shows agricultural and economic benefits, and the successful launch of India’s Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Shamini Bundell
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Comment |
How to build a circular economy for rare-earth elements
Rare-earth elements that are crucial for clean-energy technologies are jealously fought over. Policies and programmes to encourage recycling and recovery could reduce tensions.
- Yong Geng
- , Joseph Sarkis
- & Raimund Bleischwitz
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Comment |
COVID-19 digital contact tracing worked — heed the lessons for future pandemics
For all the controversy over decentralized contact-tracing apps, data show that these privacy-preserving tools saved thousands of lives during the pandemic. National and international authorities must invest in the technology now.
- Marcel Salathé
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Nature Podcast |
Audio long read: ‘Almost magical’ — chemists can now move single atoms in and out of a molecule’s core
Methods to insert, swap or delete atoms in the backbones of molecules could transform medicinal chemistry.
- Mark Peplow
- & Benjamin Thompson
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Outlook |
Robots need better batteries
As mobile machines travel farther from the grid, they’ll need lightweight and efficient power sources.
- Jeff Hecht
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Obituary |
John Bannister Goodenough, battery pioneer (1922–2023)
Materials scientist and Nobel laureate who invented the rechargeable lithium batteries used in electric cars and phones.
- Bill David
- & Michael Thackeray
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News Feature |
War shattered Ukrainian science — its rebirth is now taking shape
The war is far from over but Ukraine’s government is already considering how to build back — and use the opportunity to move on from a Soviet-era system.
- Nisha Gaind
- & Layal Liverpool
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News |
Tiny spinning robots sorted themselves into this beautiful pattern
The microbots help to explain how order arises in a disordered system — image of the week.
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Where I Work |
Teaching robots how to touch
Through better sensing, Yuhan Hu hopes to bring robots and humans closer together.
- James Mitchell Crow
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Obituary |
Gordon Moore (1929–2023)
Microchip entrepreneur and architect of Moore’s Law.
- Christophe Lécuyer
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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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Outlook |
Brain-zapping technology helps smokers to quit
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation is already approved to help people overcome addiction to cigarettes, but researchers still have a lot to learn about how to deliver the treatment effectively.
- Simon Makin
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News |
Arab world’s first asteroid hopper will visit seven space rocks
The UAE’s MBR Explorer aims to solve mystery of ultra-red celestial body in the asteroid belt beyond Mars.
- Miryam Naddaf
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News Feature |
‘Almost magical’: chemists can now move single atoms in and out of a molecule’s core
An explosion of skeletal editing methods to insert, delete or swap individual atoms in molecular backbones could accelerate drug discovery.
- Mark Peplow
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Nature Podcast |
AI identifies gene interactions to speed up search for treatment targets
How an AI overcomes data-scarcity to map gene networks, and assessing the impact of rocket noise on wildlife.
- Nick Petrić Howe
- & Benjamin Thompson
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Outlook |
Revealing vascular roadblocks in the brain
High-resolution imaging quickly identifies blood clots before they inflict major damage.
- Michael Eisenstein
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Article |
Users choose to engage with more partisan news than they are exposed to on Google Search
Ecologically valid data collected during the 2018 and 2020 US elections show that exposure to and engagement with partisan or unreliable news on Google Search are driven not primarily by algorithmic curation but by users’ own choices.
- Ronald E. Robertson
- , Jon Green
- & David Lazer