Featured
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News Feature |
Lethal AI weapons are here: how can we control them?
Autonomous weapons guided by artificial intelligence are already in use. Researchers, legal experts and ethicists are struggling with what should be allowed on the battlefield.
- David Adam
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Where I Work |
How ground glass might save crops from drought on a Caribbean island
In Grenada, public-health researcher Lindonne Telesford tests a soil additive made from recycled glass that could help farmers adapt to climate change.
- Kendall Powell
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Comment |
Will AI accelerate or delay the race to net-zero emissions?
As artificial intelligence transforms the global economy, researchers need to explore scenarios to assess how it can help, rather than harm, the climate.
- Amy Luers
- , Jonathan Koomey
- & Eric Horvitz
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Book Review |
Dogwhistles, drilling and the roots of Western civilization: Books in brief
Andrew Robinson reviews five of the best science picks.
- Andrew Robinson
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News |
Do insects have an inner life? Animal consciousness needs a rethink
A declaration signed by dozens of scientists says there is ‘a realistic possibility’ for elements of consciousness in reptiles, insects and molluscs.
- Mariana Lenharo
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Career News |
Londoners see what a scientist looks like up close in 50 photographs
Nature’s Where I Work images are being exhibited in the UK capital until June.
- Jack Leeming
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Research Highlight |
Burnt remains of Maya royalty mark a dramatic power shift
Finds in pyramid at Guatemalan site suggest that remains were disinterred and desecrated in a public ritual.
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Nature Index |
Researchers want a ‘nutrition label’ for academic-paper facts
An ‘at a glance’ approach to publication details, such as journal acceptance rates and the number of peer reviewers, would promote transparency, scientists say.
- Dalmeet Singh Chawla
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News |
Canadian science gets biggest boost to PhD and postdoc pay in 20 years
Government budget includes more money for basic research and notable increases to postgraduate stipends.
- Brian Owens
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News |
Humans and their livestock have sheltered in this Saudi Arabian cave for 10,000 years
Saudi herders have travelled the same routes for millennia, cave discovery suggests.
- Gillian Dohrn
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Spotlight |
How young people benefit from Swiss apprenticeships
Computational biologist Jitao David Zhang says that the country’s vocational training programme teaches key work and life skills.
- Jitao David Zhang
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Research Highlight |
This water bottle purifies your drink with energy from your steps
Static electricity generated by the foot striking the ground can be captured to kill pathogens.
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World View |
We must protect the global plastics treaty from corporate interference
A United Nations-backed agreement to end plastic pollution is within reach — but only if scientists, civil society and businesses unite against powerful vested interests.
- Martin Wagner
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Spotlight |
Deadly diseases and inflatable suits: how I found my niche in virology research
Virologist Hulda Jónsdóttir studies some of the world’s most pathogenic viruses at the Spiez Laboratory in Switzerland.
- Nikki Forrester
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Spotlight |
CERN’s impact goes way beyond tiny particles
A global effort to uncover the nature of the Universe has had resounding effects on scientists and society.
- Nikki Forrester
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Spotlight |
I dive for fish in the longest freshwater lake in the world
Biologist Carolin Sommer-Trembo describes her fascination for fish and why she enjoys doing science in Switzerland.
- Nikki Forrester
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Editorial |
UN plastics treaty: don’t let lobbyists drown out researchers
Tackling plastic pollution needs scientists to be in the negotiating room at upcoming talks.
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Article
| Open AccessThe economic commitment of climate change
Analysis of projected sub-national damages from temperature and precipitation show an income reduction of 19% of the world economy within the next 26 years independent of future emission choices.
- Maximilian Kotz
- , Anders Levermann
- & Leonie Wenz
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News |
Smoking bans are coming: what does the evidence say?
Countries are cracking down on tobacco use and vaping — the laws could save thousands of lives and billions of dollars, say scientists.
- Carissa Wong
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Correspondence |
Female academics need more support — in China as elsewhere
- Daxin Wang
- , Yongbing Cao
- & Chuanli Ren
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Editorial |
How India can become a science powerhouse
As the world’s largest election kicks off this week, India has an opportunity to reimagine science funding.
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Career Feature |
Shrouded in secrecy: how science is harmed by the bullying and harassment rumour mill
Academics are calling for greater transparency in harassment cases. But do the benefits outweigh the risks?
- Sarah Wild
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Correspondence |
Use game theory for climate models that really help reach net zero goals
- Kathleen B. Aviso
- , Raymond R. Tan
- & Maria Victoria Migo-Sumagang
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Correspondence |
It’s time to talk about the hidden human cost of the green transition
- Manuel Prieto
- & Nicolás C. Zanetta-Colombo
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News & Views |
A step along the path towards AlphaFold — 50 years ago
Paring down the astronomical complexity of the protein-folding problem, plus Isaac Newton’s ambiguous use of the word ‘axiom’, in the weekly dip into Nature’s archive.
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World View |
Structure peer review to make it more robust
Everyone who reviews a manuscript should answer a transparent set of questions, to ensure that scientific literature is subject to reliable quality control.
- Mario Malički
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News |
US COVID-origins hearing puts scientific journals in the hot seat
Politicians spar over whether academic publishers colluded with government scientists to suppress the lab-leak hypothesis.
- Max Kozlov
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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 Explainer |
Do climate lawsuits lead to action? Researchers assess their impact
Litigation can lead governments to strengthen their climate policies and curb companies’ greenwashing, say scientists.
- Carissa Wong
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Comment |
Citizenship privilege harms science
Researchers from the global south face often-distressing immigration bureaucracy that most from the global north do not. Six steps can begin to counteract this inequity.
- Mayank Chugh
- & Tiffany Joseph
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Where I Work |
Acid test: why the chemistry of this unique crater lake matters
Hanik Humaida monitors the activity of Indonesia’s volcanoes to help protect the public.
- James Mitchell Crow
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Book Review |
Are women in research being led up the garden path?
A moving memoir of botany and motherhood explores the historical pressures on female scientists.
- Josie Glausiusz
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Career Q&A |
‘Shrugging off failure is hard’: the $400-million grant setback that shaped the Smithsonian lead scientist’s career
Planetary scientist Ellen Stofan thought about leaving research after a funding bid was rejected. But new opportunities emerged.
- Anne Gulland
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News |
Revealed: the ten research papers that policy documents cite most
An exclusive analysis shows that economics and interdisciplinary teams get the attention of policymakers.
- Dalmeet Singh Chawla
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Technology Feature |
A milestone map of mouse-brain connectivity reveals challenging new terrain for scientists
A pioneering ‘connectomics’ collaboration has successfully reconstructed one cubic millimetre of brain tissue, but researchers are still just scratching the surface of the complexity it contains.
- Michael Eisenstein
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Nature Careers Podcast |
How a young physicist’s job move helped Argentina join the ATLAS collaboration
A stint at CERN exposed María Teresa Dova to longstanding collaborators and mentors, culminating in a successful bid to join a landmark project.
- Julie Gould
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News |
AI now beats humans at basic tasks — new benchmarks are needed, says major report
Stanford University’s 2024 AI Index charts the meteoric rise of artificial-intelligence tools.
- Nicola Jones
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News |
NASA admits plan to bring Mars rocks to Earth won’t work — and seeks fresh ideas
The agency’s head calls the current plan for delivering samples collected by the Perseverance rover ‘too expensive’ and its schedule ‘unacceptable’.
- Sumeet Kulkarni
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News |
What the India election means for science
With voting about to start in India’s general election, some researchers are concerned that sluggish funding growth and slow decision-making processes could hold the country back.
- Smriti Mallapaty
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News |
Is ChatGPT corrupting peer review? Telltale words hint at AI use
A study of review reports identifies dozens of adjectives that could indicate text written with the help of chatbots.
- Dalmeet Singh Chawla
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News |
Total solar eclipse 2024: what dazzled scientists
Amateur and professional astronomers share with Nature what they observed and what data they collected when the Moon blocked the Sun.
- Sumeet Kulkarni
- & Lauren Wolf
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Correspondence |
Brazil’s postgraduate funding model is about rectifying past inequalities
- Lucindo J. Quintans-Júnior
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Correspondence |
Declining postdoc numbers threaten the future of US life science
- Anastasia Gromova
- & Steven F. Grieco
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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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Correspondence |
How to break big tech’s stranglehold on AI in academia
- Michał Woźniak
- & Paweł Ksieniewicz
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Correspondence |
Use fines from EU social-media act to fund research on adolescent mental health
- Christian Montag
- & Benjamin Becker