The best of our longer reads as selected by our editors.
Embryonic stem cells, dating rocks on other celestial bodies and controversies on human guinea pigs were some of the most popular in-depth stories of the year.
With a history of public blunders, can Advanced Cell Technology make embryonic stem-cell therapies a reality?
11 January 2012
In the 1940s, US doctors deliberately infected thousands of Guatemalans with venereal diseases. The wound is still raw.
8 February 2012
Since the 1960s, researchers have been scrutinizing a handful of patients who underwent a radical kind of brain surgery. The cohort has been a boon to neuroscience — but soon it will be gone.
14 March 2012
Biologists ponder what fundamental discoveries might match the excitement of the Higgs boson.
28 March 2012
Adrian Owen has found a way to use brain scans to communicate with people previously written off as unreachable. Now, he is fighting to take his methods to the clinic.
13 June 2012
Dating features on the Moon and Mars is guesswork. Scott Anderson is building a tool to change that.
25 July 2012
Fierce rivals have joined forces in the race to teleport information to and from space.
5 December 2012
For decades, one design has dominated nuclear reactors while potentially better options were left by the wayside. Now, the alternatives might finally have their day.
5 December 2012
In the wake of high-profile controversies, psychologists are facing up to problems with replication.
16 May 2012
Conservationists are taking heroic measures to restore the fertility of a three-footed Sumatran rhino. But some ask whether this is the right way to save an endangered species.
30 May 2012
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Features of the year. Nature (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2012.12055
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2012.12055