A robot with a broken front-right leg. To keep walking despite that damage, it executes an ‘Intelligent Trial and Error� algorithm that conducts experiments based on previous (simulated) experience to find a behaviour that still works. Autonomous mobile robots would be extremely useful in remote or hostile environments such as space, deep oceans or disaster areas. An outstanding challenge is to make such robots able to recover after damage. Jean-Baptiste Mouret and colleagues have developed a machine learning algorithm that enables damaged robots to quickly regain their ability to perform tasks. When they sustain damage � such as broken or even missing legs � the robots adopt an intelligent trial-and-error approach, trying out possible behaviours that they calculate to be potentially high-performing. After a handful of such experiments they discover, in less than two minutes, a compensatory behaviour that works in spite of the damage. Cover Antoine Cully/ Pierre & Marie Curie University. Inset: Alexander Vail

Stone tools from Lomekwi 3 site on the western shore of Lake Turkana in Kenya. When Louis Leakey and colleagues found stone tools associated with early human fossils (now accepted to be 1.8 million years old) at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania more than 50 years ago, it was assumed that tool-making was unique to our genus. Since then the antiquity of tool-making has gone ever deeper and less exclusively associated with Homo. For a while, the earliest-known sharp-edged stone tools, at around 2.6 million years old, have been from Ethiopia. Cut marks found on animal bones from Ethiopia dated to around 3.3 million years ago were controversially associated with tool use among non-human hominins. This earlier beginning to the archaeological record is now affirmed by the discovery reported by Sonia Harmand et al. of the Lomekwi 3 tools, dated to 3.3 million years old, about half a million years older than the current earliest known (2.8 million years old) Homo fossils, reported a few weeks ago. The new finds differ from the Oldowan tools found at Olduvai and elsewhere, and may constitute a pre-Homo tool culture, which the authors suggest calling the ïLomekwianï. (Photo: MPK-WTAP)

This special issue of Nature explores the enormous potential and major challenges for research in India, south Asias superpower. An infographic compares the countrys R&D landscape with that of similar countries. A News Feature examines Indian successes in space, biotechnology and energy � and the bureaucracy, underfunding and other obstacles in the way of higher education and research. We profile Krishnaswamy VijayRaghavan, Indias new secretary of the Department of Biotechnology, who hopes to energize biomedical research. Ten Indian research leaders offer their suggestions for how to build their countrys scientific capacity, and energy specialists Arunabha Ghosh and Karthik Ganesan underline Indias need for cheap and clean power. On the cover, Indian Space Research Organisation staff celebrate the Mars Orbiter Spacecrafts success in September 2014. Cover: Manjunath Kiran/AFP/Getty Images; Inset: Tomatito/Shutterstock

Simulated uniform curtain eruptions overlain on Cassini image N1637461416 adapted to make the erupted material visible. Images taken by the Cassini probe have revealed large fractures bounded by rifts towards the south pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. These features, popularly known as ‘tiger stripes�, reach higher temperatures than their surroundings and are thought to be the sources of observed jets of water vapour and icy particles. Joseph Spitale et al. compare Cassini images with simulated curtains of material erupting from Enceladus� south-polar terrain to produce detailed maps of the emissions at various times. Much of the eruptive activity can be explained by broad, curtain-like eruptions, many of which were probably misinterpreted previously as discrete jets. Phantom jets in the synthesized curtains correspond closely to regions of enhanced brightness in the Cassini images. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Planetary Science Institute.