News Feature in 2013

Many governments are assessing the quality of university research, much to the dismay of some researchers.

Publishing in the most prestigious journals can open doors, but their cachet is under attack.

Some brain researchers are increasingly using mice to study visual processing, but others fear the move is short-sighted.

Researchers are tracking just how much impact ancient peoples had on the Amazon.

The Gaia spacecraft will soon launch on a mission to chart the heavens in unprecedented detail.

Probing the biological basis of certain traits ignites controversy. But some scientists choose to cross the red line anyway.

A mammoth undersea US project will soon start streaming data to researchers. But some wonder whether the system is worth its high price.

Third Rock Ventures made its name by placing big bets on the biotechnology companies it launched. Now, everyone is waiting for the pay-off.

As the IPCC finalizes its next big climate-science assessment, Nature looks at the past and future of the planet's watchdog.

A graphical tour through the history of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the science that underlies it.

Getting hundreds of experts to agree is never easy. Ottmar Edenhofer takes a firm, philosophical approach to the task.

Researchers struggle to project how fast, how high and how far the oceans will rise.

Physicists have spent a century puzzling over the paradoxes of quantum theory. Now a few of them are trying to reinvent it.

To track the fate of threatened species, a young scientist must follow the jungle path of a herpetologist who led a secret double life.

How Eric Karsenti's quest to understand the cell launched a trip around the world.

Many researchers believe that physics will not be complete until it can explain not just the behaviour of space and time, but where these entities come from.

In a technical tour de force, Japanese researchers created eggs and sperm in the laboratory. Now, scientists have to determine how to use those cells safely — and ethically.

Elizabeth Loftus has spent decades exposing flaws in eyewitness testimony. Her ideas are gaining fresh traction in the US legal system.

The scientific community is sharply divided over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Canada's tar sands.

Engineered structures with bizarre optical properties are set to migrate out of the laboratory and into the marketplace.