Volume 628 Issue 8007, 11 April 2024

Researchers must support and elevate the voices of Rwanda’s scholars and survivors.

Political candidates are increasingly using AI-generated ‘softfakes’ to boost their campaigns. This raises deep ethical concerns.

An unusual technique picks up the slow vibration of a faint star.

People who had the most vegetation near their residences were the least likely to report depression and anxiety.

Applying a ‘base editor’ allows cells to crank out increased levels of a vital metabolic enzyme.

Climate change is partly to blame for a storm that pounded Girona province with record-breaking hailstones.

An Alabama court ruling that human embryos outside the uterus should be regarded as children has raised concerns among doctors and scientists.

Scientists compiling a review scan more than 1,000 papers and find troubling images in some 10%.

The effect of melting polar ice could delay the need for a ‘leap second’ by three years.

Editorial rebellions seem to be on the rise, as researchers seek more control over scholarly communication.

Convincing evidence of 1:1 tidal locking had been absent until a new analysis of the exoplanet LHS 3844b.

Gene that codes for structural protein could determine the dominant side of the human brain.

A rodent with two extra limbs instead of genitals shows the crucial role of a gene pathway in determining the fate of a primordial structure.

Drug trial results show that vaccines aren’t the only use for the mRNA technology behind the most widely used COVID-19 jabs.

Thirty years after the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, Nature met with researchers who are gaining insights that could help to prevent other atrocities and enable healing.

Researchers want to unpick how climate change affects mental health around the world — from lives that are disrupted by catastrophic weather to people who are anxious about the future.

How humans, animals and even single-celled organisms cooperate to survive suggests there’s more to life than just competition, argues a cheering study of evolutionary biology.

A colourful study of the natural history of ants that takes in dry deserts and lush forests aims to show that sociality is shaped by, and changes with, the environment.

Computational models that require very little data could transform biomedical and drug development research in Africa, as long as infrastructure, trained staff and secure databases are available.

As educators debate whether it’s even possible to use AI safely in research and education, students are taking a role in shaping its responsible use.

A rush to place barriers around the use of artificial intelligence in academia could disproportionately affect those who stand to benefit most.

Dario Sandrini hikes, plants and digs to save a threatened and diminishing ecosystem.

Nanoscale systems that release small molecules have potential therapeutic and industrial uses, but can result in low numbers of molecules reaching their target. A release system triggered by mechanical force offers a fresh approach.

What effects will climate change have on insect communities? Analyses of data collected over decades robustly document consequences specific to bee populations, and this evidence might aid future conservation efforts.

In experiments dubbed the Random Genome Project, researchers have integrated DNA strands with random sequences into yeast and mouse cells to find the default transcriptional state of their genomes.

Humans’ effect on the polar ice sheets is slowing Earth’s rotation, posing challenges for its alignment with the official time standard. Two researchers discuss the science behind the slowdown and the impact it has on timekeeping.

Understanding the factors that drive formation of particular types of cancer can aid efforts to develop better diagnostics or treatments. The identification of a bacterial subspecies with a connection to colon cancer has clinical relevance.

A massive galaxy observed with the JWST indicates that the bulk of its stars formed within the first 500 million years of the Universe.

An optical tweezer array of individual polyatomic molecules is created, revealing the obvious state control in the tweezer array and enabling further research on polyatomic molecules with diverse spatial arrangements.

A magnetic-field-induced Wigner crystal in Bernal-stacked bilayer graphene was directly imaged using high-resolution scanning tunnelling microscopy and its structural properties as a function of electron density, magnetic field and temperature were examined.

We present a device that can reduce the phase-change memory reset current while maintaining a high on/off ratio, fast speed and small variations, representing advances for neuromorphic computing systems.

A synergistic dopant-additive combination strategy using methylammonium chloride as the dopant and a Lewis-basic ionic-liquid additive is shown to enable the fabrication of perovskite solar modules achieving record certified performance and long-term operational stability.

Triple-junction solar cells with cyanate in ultrawide-bandgap perovskites exhibit enhanced defect formation energy and substantially decreased non-radiative recombination.

Fast and scalable synthesis of a variety of transition metal telluride nanosheets by solid lithiation and hydrolysis is demonstrated and several interesting quantum phenomena were observed, such as quantum oscillations and giant magnetoresistance.

A rotaxane-based mechanochemical system enables force-controlled release of multiple cargo molecules that are appended to its molecular axle.

A couple-close approach used to build semisaturated ring systems from dual radical precursors allows sampling of regions of underexplored chemical space, leading to an annulation that can be used for late-stage functionalization of pharmaceutical scaffolds.

Increased melting of ice in Greenland and Antarctica, measured by satellite gravity, has decreased the angular velocity of Earth more rapidly than before and has already affected global timekeeping.

A quantitative study of past, present and future ecological suitability of Europe for bumblebees finds that for 38–76% of species now considered non-threatened, suitable territory could decrease by at least 30% by 2061–2080.

A 16-year dataset of abundance patterns of a diverse assemblage of bees in New Mexico, USA predicts declines for many bee species and indicates that drought-tolerant taxa will prevail in a warming and drying climate.

Insect biomass data covering 27 years were reanalysed using sample-specific information on weather conditions during sampling and weather anomalies during the insect life cycle, finding that biomass is driven by complex weather conditions.

Results from 316 Bombus terrestris colonies at 106 agricultural sites across eight European countries find pesticides in bumble bee pollen to be associated with reduced colony performance, especially in areas of intensive agriculture.

An analysis of more than 500 sites distributed worldwide finds that declines in the abundance of terrestrial insects are attributable mainly to decreases in species that were formerly abundant, rather than being the result of losses of rare species.

The archaeological site Shinfa-Metema 1 in the lowlands of northwest Ethiopia provides early evidence of intensive riverine-based foraging aided by the likely adoption of the bow and arrow.

Introduction of a long synthetic DNA into yeast genomic loci results in high default transcriptional activity in yeast but low activity in mouse, suggesting distinct default levels of genomic activity in these organisms.

Single-neuron and population activity in the macaque prefrontal and temporal cortex robustly encodes 24 species-typical behaviours, reciprocity in social interactions and social support.

Newly developed microfluidic neural tube-like and forebrain-like structures based on human pluripotent stem cells can model pivotal aspects of neural patterning along both the rostral–caudal and dorsal–ventral axes.

Z-DNA anchors the AIRE-mediated transcriptional program by enhancing the generation of double-stranded breaks and promoter poising.

Macrophages are revealed to adopt a polymerase II pause/release process to effectively deal with ingested apoptotic corpses and for continuous efferocytosis.

Anti-TRBC1 antibody–drug conjugates may offer a more potent T cell cancer therapy by bypassing the fratricide that may be limiting the efficacy of anti-TRBC1 CAR T cells in the clinical trial for patients with T cell cancers.

A study reveals that Fusobacterium nucleatum subspecies animalis is bifurcated into two distinct clades, and shows that only one of these dominates the colorectal cancer niche, probably through increased colonization of the human gastrointestinal tract.

Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP1) functions together with TIMELESS and TIPIN to protect the replisome in early S phase from transcription–replication conflicts, and inhibiting PARP1 enzymatic activity may suffice for treatment efficacy in homologous recombination-deficient settings.

DCAF5 has a quality-control function for SWI/SNF complexes and promotes the degradation of incompletely assembled SWI/SNF complexes in the absence of SMARCB1.

ModelAngelo builds atomic models and identifies proteins with unknown sequences in cryo-EM maps.