Featured
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Correspondence |
It’s time to talk about the hidden human cost of the green transition
- Manuel Prieto
- & Nicolás C. Zanetta-Colombo
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News & Views |
A step along the path towards AlphaFold — 50 years ago
Paring down the astronomical complexity of the protein-folding problem, plus Isaac Newton’s ambiguous use of the word ‘axiom’, in the weekly dip into Nature’s archive.
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Nature Careers Podcast |
How a young physicist’s job move helped Argentina join the ATLAS collaboration
A stint at CERN exposed María Teresa Dova to longstanding collaborators and mentors, culminating in a successful bid to join a landmark project.
- Julie Gould
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Article
| Open Access
Light-wave-controlled Haldane model in monolayer hexagonal boron nitride
We introduce strong tailored light-wave-driven time-reversal symmetry breaking in monolayer hexagonal boron nitride, realizing a sub-laser-cycle controllable analogue of the topological model of Haldane and inducing non-resonant valley polarization.
- Sambit Mitra
- , Álvaro Jiménez-Galán
- & Shubhadeep Biswas
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Career Column |
‘Shrugging off failure is hard’: the $400-million grant setback that shaped the Smithsonian lead scientist’s career
Planetary scientist Ellen Stofan thought about leaving research after a funding bid was rejected. But new opportunities emerged.
- Anne Gulland
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News |
Could JWST solve cosmology’s big mystery? Physicists debate Universe-expansion data
New results could help to end a long standing disagreement over the rate of cosmic expansion. But scientists say more measurements are needed.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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News |
AI now beats humans at basic tasks — new benchmarks are needed, says major report
Stanford University’s 2024 AI Index charts the meteoric rise of artificial-intelligence tools.
- Nicola Jones
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News |
NASA admits plan to bring Mars rocks to Earth won’t work — and seeks fresh ideas
The agency’s head calls the current plan for delivering samples collected by the Perseverance rover “too expensive” and its schedule “unacceptable.”
- Sumeet Kulkarni
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Obituary |
Peter Higgs obituary: physicist who predicted boson that explains why particles have mass
Theoretical physicist saw his eponymous particle discovered after 48 years.
- Christine Sutton
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Research Highlight |
An exoplanet is wrapped in glory
Astronomers spot the first planet outside the Solar System to boast a phenomenon reminiscent of a rainbow.
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Article |
Selenium alloyed tellurium oxide for amorphous p-channel transistors
- Ao Liu
- , Yong-Sung Kim
- & Yong-Young Noh
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Research Briefing |
Scalable, high-quality 2D telluride nanosheets for energy and catalysis applications
An innovative solid-state lithiation strategy allows the exfoliation of layered transition-metal tellurides into nanosheets in an unprecedentedly short time, without sacrificing their quality. The observation of physical phenomena typically seen in highly crystalline TMT nanosheets opens the way to their use in applications such as batteries and micro-supercapacitors.
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News |
Randomness in computation wins computer-science ‘Nobel’
Computer scientist Avi Wigderson is known for clarifying the role of randomness in algorithms, and for studying their complexity.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Nature Podcast |
The ‘ghost roads’ driving tropical deforestation
Researchers find that a huge number of roads that don’t appear on official maps, and the protein that could determine whether someone is left-handed.
- Nick Petrić Howe
- & Benjamin Thompson
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Research Briefing |
Controlling single polyatomic molecules in an optical array for quantum applications
Applications from quantum computing to searches for physics beyond the standard model could benefit from precision control of polyatomic molecules. A method of confining and manipulating single polyatomic molecules held in tightly focused ‘optical tweezer’ laser arrays at ultracold temperatures could boost progress on all those fronts.
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News & Views |
Light makes atoms behave like electromagnetic coils
Microscopic magnetic fields form in non-magnetic materials when light makes the atoms rotate. A similar macroscopic effect has long been known, but proof of its atomic equivalent could give rise to ultrafast data processing.
- Carl P. Romao
- & Dominik M. Juraschek
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Article |
Phononic switching of magnetization by the ultrafast Barnett effect
Ultrafast light-induced driving of phonons at resonance in a substrate facilitates the permanent reversal of the magnetic state of a material mounted on it.
- C. S. Davies
- , F. G. N. Fennema
- & A. Kirilyuk
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News |
Total solar eclipse 2024: what dazzled scientists
Amateur and professional astronomers share with Nature what they observed and what data they collected when the Moon blocked the Sun.
- Sumeet Kulkarni
- & Lauren Wolf
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Article
| Open Access
Force-controlled release of small molecules with a rotaxane actuator
A rotaxane-based mechanochemical system enables force-controlled release of multiple cargo molecules that are appended to its molecular axle.
- Lei Chen
- , Robert Nixon
- & Guillaume De Bo
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News & Views |
Nanoscale scythe cuts molecular tethers using mechanical forces
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.
- Iwona Nierengarten
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Article |
Direct observation of a magnetic-field-induced Wigner crystal
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.
- Yen-Chen Tsui
- , Minhao He
- & Ali Yazdani
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Article |
A hybrid topological quantum state in an elemental solid
A hybrid topological phase of matter is discovered in the simple elemental-solid arsenic and explored using tunnelling microscopy, photoemission spectroscopy and a theoretical analysis.
- Md Shafayat Hossain
- , Frank Schindler
- & M. Zahid Hasan
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Article
| Open Access
Terahertz electric-field-driven dynamical multiferroicity in SrTiO3
We demonstrate the emergence of magnetism induced by a terahertz electric field in SrTiO3.
- M. Basini
- , M. Pancaldi
- & S. Bonetti
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Article |
Giant energy storage and power density negative capacitance superlattices
- Suraj S. Cheema
- , Nirmaan Shanker
- & Sayeef Salahuddin
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News & Views |
The biologist who built a Faraday cage for a crab
What every biologist should know about electronics, plus a disturbing outbreak of volcanism in North Carolina, in the weekly dip into Nature’s archive.
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News |
Exclusive: official investigation reveals how superconductivity physicist faked blockbuster results
The confidential 124-page report from the University of Rochester, disclosed in a lawsuit, details the extent of Ranga Dias’s scientific misconduct.
- Dan Garisto
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Research Highlight |
Smallest known starquakes are detected with a subtle shift of colour
An unusual technique picks up the slow vibration of a faint star.
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News & Views |
Trio of radicals choreographed for versatile chemical reaction
The idea that three different free radicals could be used together to carry out specific steps in a chemical reaction has long been implausible. A ‘radical sorting’ strategy now achieves this feat to make organic molecules.
- Kenneth F. Clark
- & John A. Murphy
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News & Views |
A quirky fluid that has robotic capabilities
Scientists have designed a liquid that behaves as both a solid and a fluid owing to the presence of tiny gas-filled capsules. An unusual relationship between pressure and volume enables this material to grasp fragile objects.
- P.-T. Brun
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Article |
Phase-change memory via a phase-changeable self-confined nano-filament
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.
- See-On Park
- , Seokman Hong
- & Shinhyun Choi
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News |
Total solar eclipse 2024: how it will help scientists to study the Sun
The Sun’s mysterious outer atmosphere, the corona, will become easier to view from Earth on 8 April.
- Sumeet Kulkarni
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Article
| Open Access
Heat flows enrich prebiotic building blocks and enhance their reactivity
Heat flows through thin, crack-like geo-compartments are shown to purify previously mixed compounds and enhance their reactivity, providing a selective mechanism for separating molecules relevant to the chemical origins of life.
- Thomas Matreux
- , Paula Aikkila
- & Christof B. Mast
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Article |
An optical tweezer array of ultracold polyatomic molecules
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.
- Nathaniel B. Vilas
- , Paige Robichaud
- & John M. Doyle
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Article |
Shell buckling for programmable metafluids
A metafluid with programmable compressibility, optical behaviour and viscosity is realized by mixing deformable spherical shells that undergo buckling within an incompressible fluid; the versatility of these metafluids opens up numerous opportunities for functionality.
- Adel Djellouli
- , Bert Van Raemdonck
- & Katia Bertoldi
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Article |
Metal telluride nanosheets by scalable solid lithiation and exfoliation
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.
- Liangzhu Zhang
- , Zixuan Yang
- & Hui-Ming Cheng
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News & Views |
Why hand-operated front brakes were set to be the future of motoring
The complexity of fitting brakes to all four wheels of a car and the simplicity of John Maynard Smith’s ecological models, in the weekly dip into Nature’s archive.
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Book Review |
Cosmologist Claudia de Rham on falling for gravity
The aspiring astronaut turned theoretical physicist talks travelling, the accelerating expansion of the Universe, thinking beyond three dimensions and detecting gravitational waves.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Technology Feature |
How synthetic biologists are building better biofactories
Artificial electron donors and acceptors expand researchers’ metabolic engineering options — if only cells would cooperate.
- Sara Reardon
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Career Feature |
How scientists are making the most of Reddit
As X wanes, researchers are turning to Reddit for insights and data, and to better connect with the public.
- Hannah Docter-Loeb
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Article |
Copper-catalyzed dehydrogenation or lactonization of C(sp3)−H bonds
- Shupeng Zhou
- , Zi-Jun Zhang
- & Jin-Quan Yu
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News |
This super-Earth is the first planet confirmed to have a permanent dark side
Convincing evidence of 1:1 tidal locking had been absent until a new analysis of the exoplanet LHS 3844b.
- Joseph Howlett
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News & Views |
Electrons flip a switch on optical communications
Clever manipulation of electrons has enabled scientists to change a key property of light emitted by a device using electrically controlled magnetization. The method could lead to stable and energy-efficient information transfer.
- Satoshi Hiura
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Article |
Thermonuclear explosions on neutron stars reveal the speed of their jets
Relativistic jets observed from transient neutron stars throughout the Universe produce bright flares for minutes after each X-ray burst, helping to determine the role individual system properties have on the speed and revealing the dominant launching mechanism.
- Thomas D. Russell
- , Nathalie Degenaar
- & Melania Del Santo
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Nature Podcast |
How climate change is affecting global timekeeping
Melting polar ice could delay major time adjustment, and the strange connection between brain inflammation and memory.
- Elizabeth Gibney
- & Nick Petrić Howe
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Article |
A global timekeeping problem postponed by global warming
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.
- Duncan Carr Agnew
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Article |
A three-dimensional liquid diode for soft, integrated permeable electronics
Incorporation of a ‘liquid diode’ into a wearable electronic platform enhances comfort and stability by shunting away sweat as it accumulates.
- Binbin Zhang
- , Jiyu Li
- & Xinge Yu
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Article |
Interchain-expanded extra-large-pore zeolites
We report a strategy that yields thermally and hydrothermally stable silicates by expansion of a one-dimensional silicate chain with an intercalated silylating agent that separates and connects the chains.
- Zihao Rei Gao
- , Huajian Yu
- & Miguel A. Camblor
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News & Views |
The wearable electronic patch that’s impervious to sweat
A smart adhesive patch that wicks sweat away from electronics embedded in its centre offers comfortable and reliable sensing of the wearer’s biometrics or environment without the risk of perspiration damaging the devices.
- Yifan Rao
- & Nanshu Lu
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Article |
Optomechanical realization of the bosonic Kitaev chain
We report the experimental realization of a bosonic Kitaev chain in a nano-optomechanical network.
- Jesse J. Slim
- , Clara C. Wanjura
- & Ewold Verhagen
