Featured
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News |
First private Moon lander touches down on lunar surface to make history
After a nail-biting descent, the Odysseus spacecraft has landed near the lunar south pole and prepares to kick off a week of data gathering.
- Alexandra Witze
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World View |
Generative AI’s environmental costs are soaring — and mostly secret
First-of-its-kind US bill would address the environmental costs of the technology, but there’s a long way to go.
- Kate Crawford
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News Feature |
Mind-reading devices are revealing the brain’s secrets
Implants and other technologies that decode neural activity can restore people’s abilities to move and speak — and help researchers to understand how the brain works.
- Miryam Naddaf
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Technology Feature |
Super-speedy sequencing puts genomic diagnosis in the fast lane
Streamlined workflows for DNA and RNA sequencing are helping clinicians to deliver prompt, targeted care to people in days — or even hours.
- Michael Eisenstein
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Nature Careers Podcast |
Building robots to get kids hooked on STEM subjects
Robotics are a key part of the Fundi Bots education program and its aim to excite children about science and technology.
- Dom Byrne
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Perspective |
Optimally generate policy-based evidence before scaling
To reduce voltage drops—the depreciation of the cost–benefit profile when scaling up solutions to social problems—sufficient policy-based evidence must be generated before policymakers scale up the project.
- John A. List
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News |
Private Moon launch a success! But will the craft land safely on the lunar surface?
Anxiety is high as the company Intuitive Machines takes its first crack at a touchdown.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Apple Vision Pro: what does it mean for scientists?
The headset opens up possibilities in accessibility and medical research — and raises concerns about human behaviour.
- Jonathan O'Callaghan
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News Explainer |
How to test a Moon landing from Earth
The world is racing to land on the Moon. How do space agencies and commercial companies test their landers ahead of time?
- Jatan Mehta
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News Feature |
The new car batteries that could power the electric vehicle revolution
Researchers are experimenting with different designs that could lower costs, extend vehicle ranges and offer other improvements.
- Nicola Jones
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Nature Podcast |
Cancer’s power harnessed — lymphoma mutations supercharge T cells
Genetic changes that help tumour cells thrive can be co-opted to improve immunotherapy’s effectiveness, and looking at the electric vehicle batteries of the future.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Nick Petrić Howe
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News Explainer |
Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain chip: what scientists think of first human trial
Some researchers are concerned about a lack of transparency surrounding the implant, which aims to allow people to control devices through thought alone.
- Liam Drew
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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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Editorial |
Research funders must join the fight for equal access to medicines
Pandemic treaty is a rare opportunity to ensure pandemic-related technologies are accessible and affordable to all.
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Career Feature |
How co-working labs reduce costs and accelerate progress for biotech start-ups
Shared lab spaces provide a streamlined launchpad, offering benches as well as a diverse network of industry mentors.
- Rachel Brazil
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Nature Careers Podcast |
Why we should think about more than cash when seeking to eradicate poverty
Catherine Thomas’s research explores different approaches to alleviating poverty, including cash transfers and psychosocial programs.
- Dom Byrne
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News |
Canada’s oil sands spew massive amounts of unmonitored polluting gases
Innovative aircraft-based technique records carbon emissions not tracked before from the industrial region.
- Nicola Jones
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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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Comment |
To curb plastic pollution, industry and academia must unite
Collaboration is key to making plastic use greener as soon as possible. Our experience yields tips on how to set up industry–academic partnerships.
- Collin P. Ward
- , Christopher M. Reddy
- & Steven T. Perri
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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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Comment |
Impacts for half of the world’s mining areas are undocumented
As the race to extract minerals and metals for clean-energy technologies accelerates, researchers must take more steps to map and study mines globally.
- Victor Maus
- & Tim T. Werner
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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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News |
Scientists question cancer tests that use microscopic nematode worms
Some doctors say a troublingly high number of cancer-free people have tested positive on the tests sold by a Japanese start-up.
- David McNeill
- & Momoko Suda
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Spotlight |
India struggles to turn science into societal benefits
Entrepreneurial researchers can find solutions for Indian problems, but the lack of a spin-off culture means the country loses out.
- David Adam
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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 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