News Feature in 2024

Proportional representation or winner takes all? Here’s how researchers compare the merits of contrasting voting methods.

What subjects have past winners studied? What age were they when they won? Where do they live? Nature crunched the data on every science prizewinner to find out.

Pulses of light and sound seem to have beneficial effects. But some argue it is too soon to market experimental devices.

From alcoholism to Parkinson’s, scientists are studying the mechanisms behind the broad clinical potential of weight-loss drugs.

Scientists have more information than ever on how cells differ — but they still resist easy grouping.

It was modelled after DARPA, the hugely successful US tech funder. Can Britain’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency — ARIA — create revolutionary innovations?

Gene and cell therapies bring fresh hope to people with genetic disorders, but recovery can be complex and long-term support remains sparse.

Dozens of labs around the world are striving to grow models of human embryos to study development, fertility and therapies. They are entering uncharted ethical territory.

Geneticists are trying to understand the elevated risks of heart and metabolic disease among people of South Asian ancestry, but some question whether a purely biological approach is best.

In the hills of eastern Tennessee, a record-breaking machine called Frontier is providing scientists with unprecedented opportunities to study everything from atoms to galaxies.

Scientists are beginning to crack the fiendishly complex code that helps us to sense odours.

The country has ambitious plans for fusion power plants to provide clean, limitless energy. Can they be realized?

From supercool materials that send heat into space to shape-shifting materials that can selectively fend it off, scientists are finding new strategies to reduce urban temperatures.

Hundreds of medical algorithms have been approved on basis of limited clinical data. Scientists are debating who should test these tools and how best to do it.

Many nations have embraced burning wood pellets to produce electricity — under the assumption that it is carbon neutral. But research shows this approach can boost greenhouse-gas emissions and threaten the health of local communities.

Researchers have spent decades hunting for clues about the origins of the process that moves the continents around. Its deep history is finally starting to come into focus.

Humans are locked in an arms race with microbes, but scientists are pursuing diverse approaches to keep one step ahead or slow down the competition.

Scientists are using consumer-genomics databases to link living people to ancestors from the recent and not-so-recent past. But the meaning of these connections isn’t always clear.

Scientists are closing in on biomarkers that reflect the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and could improve treatments.

It’s a transformational time long neglected by neuroscience. That is starting to change.