Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Recent eruptions and field expeditions may herald a return to glory for the Son of Krakatau. Jerry Guo explores what the 78-year-old island has to offer.
When jumbo Humboldt squid disappeared from Chilean waters, it led to the demise of a world-class electrophysiology laboratory. Now the creatures are back, finds Tony Scully, and so are the scientists.
Questions raised about the use of 'ALS mice' are prompting a broad reappraisal of the way that drugs are tested in animal models of neurodegenerative disease. Jim Schnabel reports.
Harvard is embarking on an experiment to foster collaboration and interdisciplinary research. Corie Lok looks at whether it can change its culture and reinvent communities along the way.
Researchers trying to develop an HIV vaccine have endured two decades of setbacks. Erika Check Hayden meets a veteran still engaged in the fight — and a rookie willing to join in anyway.
Electricity grids must cope with rising demand and complexity in a changing world. Emma Marris explores the intricacies involved in controlling the power supply.
Armed with a map depicting a 10,000-year-old landscape submerged beneath the North Sea and fresh evidence from nearby sites, archaeologists are realizing that early humans were more territorial than was previously thought. Laura Spinney reports.
Does the difficulty in finding the genes responsible for mental illness reflect the complexity of the genetics or the poor definitions of psychiatric disorders? Alison Abbott reports.
A difference in one molecule led physician Ajit Varki to question what sets humans apart from other apes. Bruce Lieberman meets a man who sees a big picture in the finer points.
Launched in 1977, NASA's Voyager missions transformed humanity's view of the Solar System. Now in their fourth decade, they are sending back information about the borderlands of interstellar space. Here, three veterans recall details and moments that meant something special along the way.
Can the Chinese government meet its ambitious targets on space, the environment, research, energy and health? David Cyranoski takes a look at China today and what it hopes to be tomorrow.
From a 5-millimetre dent on a satellite to a 3-kilometre pit in the surface of Mars, the scars of impact events can be seen at every scale. We present a gallery of some particularly appealing ones from Earth and beyond.
Fewer people are searching for near-Earth asteroids, astronomer David Morrison said in the 1990s, than work a shift in a small McDonalds. But that group — a little larger now — has over the past two decades discovered a host of happily harmless rocks, and in doing so reduced the risk of an unknown asteroid blighting civilization (see page 1178). David Chandler puts together the story in the words of those who watched, and those who watched the watchers.
