Volume 624 Issue 7992, 21 December 2023

Looking back a century reveals how much the research landscape has changed — and how unclear the consequences of scientific innovation can be.

Postdoctoral woes, especially in biomedical research, are symptomatic of a wider problem. Funding bodies have an opportunity to spearhead a cultural shift.

Awards should be standard-bearers for transparent, robust research that is inclusive, equitable and trustworthy. But that is not what they are right now.

A range of elements in planetary dust provide the colour for high-altitude natural fireworks.

What about the worms? Analysis of the 112 official emojis that represent organisms shows that there is a bias against invertebrates.

Exposure to high levels of ozone causes mothers in low- and middle-income countries to give birth to infants with a low birth weight.

Winds triggered by climate change sweep cold air down from the summit of Mount Everest and other Himalayan peaks, leading to a cooling trend.

The number of articles being retracted rose sharply this year. Integrity experts say that this is only the tip of the iceberg.

A system that integrates brain cells into a hybrid machine can recognize voices.

Lund University in Sweden reorganizes in the face of years of accusations against two professors.

Engineered immune cells, most commonly used to treat cancers, show their power against lupus and other immune disorders.

As nations make historic pledge to ‘transition’ energy systems away from fossil fuels — some scientists are disappointed by the softened wording.

Vivian Cheung sued after her funding was not renewed, alleging discrimination, but the institute said her science no longer met its expectations.

Cosmic dust, microscopic syrup, a flying gecko and more.

An AI pioneer, an architect of India’s Moon mission and the world’s first global heat officer are some of the people behind this year’s big stories.

Kalpana Kalahasti had a crucial role in ensuring Chandrayaan-3’s triumphant touchdown on the Moon.

As Brazil’s environment minister, Marina Silva helped to rein in rampant deforestation and rebuild institutions that were weakened by the previous government.

Katsuhiko Hayashi created viable mouse eggs from male cells, a feat that could help to save species on the brink of extinction.

Annie Kritcher and her team at the US National Ignition Facility designed fusion experiments that generated more energy than they consumed.

Eleni Myrivili is helping the world to prepare for the threats of climate change as the United Nations chief heat officer.

Ilya Sutskever has played a key part in developing the conversational AI systems that are starting to change society.

James Hamlin found problems with the work of controversial physicist Ranga Dias.

Svetlana Mojsov led early studies of GLP-1, the hormone behind Wegovy, Ozempic and other blockbusters.

Halidou Tinto runs a clinic in rural Burkina Faso that has been instrumental to the approval of the world’s first malaria vaccines.

Thomas Powles’s breakthrough success in treating a deadly bladder cancer could herald the next wave of powerful immunotherapeutic drugs.

The poster child for generative AI software is a startling human mimic. It represents a potential new era in research, but brings risks.

A book by physicist Kip Thorne and artist Lia Halloran explores the mysteries of space through poetry and paintings.

Connoisseur Andrew Robinson gives ten of his favourite tomes from the year a more expansive review.

The popular idea that quantum physics implies everything is random and nothing is certain might be as far from the truth as it could possibly be.

The year 2024 must be a turning point for shifting policies away from gross domestic product and towards sustainable well-being. Here’s why and how.

India’s first Moon landing and a welcome return to Horizon Europe for UK researchers loomed large in an eventful year for working scientists around the world.

Cecilia Cerrilla’s PhD project is to protect a tiny species of fish from predatory bass.

Highlights from News & Views published in early 2023.

Highlights from News & Views published in late 2023.

High-resolution structures of TAAR1 — the receptor bound by amphetamines and molecules called trace amines — reveal detailed interactions with ligand molecules that will inform efforts to design antipsychotic drugs.

Automation of chemistry research has focused on developing robots to execute jobs. Artificial-intelligence technology has now been used not only to control robots, but also to plan their tasks on the basis of simple human prompts.

Mutant ion pumps help brine shrimp survive highly saline waters.

Current injectable COVID-19 vaccines are unable to induce robust immunity in the mucosal tissues lining the airways. A protein-based vaccine delivered to the lungs in the form of an inhaled dry powder shows promise as a way forward.

Snippets from Nature’s past.

Diverse genomic sequences might boost equity in areas such as health care. Genomic data from Indigenous Australians, shared through a community-consultation framework, aids efforts to boost genetic representation.

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.

On a 51-ion quantum simulator, we investigate locality of entanglement Hamiltonians for a Heisenberg chain, demonstrating Bisognano–Wichmann predictions of quantum field theory applied to lattice many-body systems, and observe the transition from area- to volume-law scaling of entanglement entropies.

Ultra-narrow quantum Hall Josephson junctions defined in encapsulated graphene nanoribbons exhibit a chiral supercurrent, visible up to 8  T.

We report the experimental realization and room-temperature operation of a low-power (20 pW) moiré synaptic transistor based on an asymmetric bilayer graphene/hexagonal boron nitride moiré heterostructure.

We added out-of-plane cations to homogenize the distribution of cations in perovskite films, resulting in a solar cell with improved efficiency and stability.

Atomic electron tomography is used to determine the 3D atomic positions and chemical species of medium- and high-entropy alloy nanoparticles and quantitatively characterize the local lattice distortion, strain tensor, twin boundaries, dislocation cores and chemical short-range order.

Coscientist is an artificial intelligence system driven by GPT-4 that autonomously designs, plans and performs experiments by incorporating large language models empowered by tools such as internet and documentation search, code execution and experimental automation.

By using several decades of hydrographic data and an inverse biogeochemical model that implicitly accounts for all known export pathways, a top-down estimate of the strength of the biological carbon pump is calculated.

There is extreme socioeconomic segregation in large US cities, arising from a greater choice of differentiated spaces targeted to specific socioeconomic groups, which can be countered by positioning city hubs (such as shopping centres) to bridge diverse neighbourhoods.

Analysis of the genomes of 159 individuals from four Indigenous communities in Australia shows a high level of genetic variation and demonstrates the need for greater representation of Indigenous Australians in reference panels and clinical databases.

Population-scale whole-genome sequencing across four remote Indigenous Australian communities reveals a large fraction of structural variants that are unique to these populations, emphasizing the genetic distinctiveness of and diversity among Indigenous Australians.

Motor neuron senescence and neuroinflammation with microglial hyperactivation are intertwined hallmarks of spinal cord ageing.

Integration of multiomics data with functional analysis of pancreatic tissues from individuals with early-stage type 2 diabetes indicates that the genetic risk converges on RFX6, which regulates chromatin architecture at multiple risk loci.

An inhalable, single-dose dry powder aerosol SARS-CoV-2 vaccine shows good storage stability, results in sustained antigen delivery to antigen-presenting cells in the lungs and induces a potent antiviral immune response.

A severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 Omicron subvariant, BA.2.86, was found to be no more resistant to human sera than the currently dominant XBB.1.5 and EG.5.1, but it had a remarkably higher receptor affinity.

Hyperglycaemia leads to impaired costimulatory molecule expression, antigen transport and T cell priming in distinct lung dendritic cell subsets, driving a defective antiviral adaptive immune response, delayed viral clearance and enhanced mortality.

A large fraction of patients with APS-1 and coeliac disease develop enamel dystrophy, characterized by the presence of autoantibodies against the enamel matrix, which are generated through the breakdown of either central (APS-1) or peripheral (coeliac) tolerance to a battery of ameloblast-sepecific proteins.

We report on the structures of the TAAR1–G-protein complex when bound to methamphetamine and other amines.

TAAR1 has a rigid consensus binding motif that binds to endogenous trace amine stimuli as well as two extended binding pockets that accommodate diverse chemotypes.

Analysis of the group II intron ribonucleoprotein shows the molecular interactions involved in branchpoint adenosine recognition, lariat formation and exon ligation, providing clues to the evolutionary conservation of structural components and catalytic mechanisms in premessenger RNA splicing.