News Feature in 2011

Last year's Stuxnet virus attack represented a new kind of threat to critical infrastructure.

Paul Davies likes to ask big questions. But how did the freethinking cosmologist suddenly find himself probing the physics of cancer?

Physicists have always thought quantum computing is hard because quantum states are incredibly fragile. But could noise and messiness actually help things along?

Vaccination campaigns against measles have had dramatic results — but eradicating the disease is still a distant prospect.

Hysteria about false vaccine risks often overshadows the challenges of detecting the real ones.

Can Bruce Walker transform HIV vaccine research?

The United States has abandoned comprehensive greenhouse-gas curbs, but California is pressing ahead. Mary Nichols is leading the fight against emissions.

The field of induced pluripotent stem cells has grown up fast. Now it is entering the difficult stage.

Vesuvius is one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world — but scientists and the civil authorities can't agree on how to prepare for a future eruption.

A Nature poll reveals how researchers guard, and sometimes burnish, their online image.

Reusable commercial rockets will soon be able to take scientists — and tourists — on suborbital spaceflights. Are these vehicles vital research tools, or an expensive dead end?

Some researchers claim to have analysed DNA from Egyptian mummies. Others say that's impossible. Could new sequencing methods bridge the divide?

The world is producing more PhDs than ever before. Is it time to stop?

Fix it, overhaul it or skip it completely — institutions and individuals are taking innovative approaches to postgraduate science training.

Scientists reviving a decades-old technique for brain stimulation have found that it can boost learning. So what else can be done with some wires and a nine-volt battery?

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill set records for its size and depth. A year on, the biggest impacts seem to be where they are hardest to spot.

Super-powerful magnets would boost the performance of electric cars and other green technology. Why is it so hard to make them?

The country's vast, education-hungry population could supply the next generation of the world's scientists — but only if it can teach them.

Can computational social science help to prevent or win wars? The Pentagon is betting millions of dollars on the hope that it will.

Twenty-five years after the nuclear disaster, the clean-up grinds on and health studies are faltering. Are there lessons for Japan?