Reviews & Analysis

How do you build a planetary system? Astronomers are tackling the question by peering back in time at the gas and dust surrounding stars younger than our Sun.

In the Universe, the element carbon is created only in stars, in a remarkable reaction called the triple-α process. Fresh insights into the reaction now come from the latest experiments carried out on Earth.

Grazing and mechanical mowing can increase plant diversity in grassland, probably by weakening dominant species and so allowing others to thrive. A partially parasitic flower can, it seems, have a similar effect.

Discoveries of large, carnivorous mammals from the Cretaceous challenge the long-held view that primitive mammals were small and uninteresting. Have palaeontologists been asking the wrong questions?

An effective vaccine against malaria remains elusive. But the finding that a genetically manipulated malaria parasite can protect its host lends fresh appeal to the idea of vaccines involving live attenuated parasites.

Ionic conductors have many applications — in sensors, fuel cells and batteries. Are nanoelectronic devices based on ionic conductors now about to replace silicon?

The unusual case of SM, a person who has a very specific deficit in recognizing fearful expressions on people's faces, is providing intriguing insights into how we perceive emotion.

Gene flow between populations — caused by migration, for instance — is most often viewed as a homogenizing force in evolution. But two studies of wild birds and non-random dispersal find otherwise.

The outer Earth grew largely from material added by impacts from planetesimals, rather than by capture of dust grains from the solar nebula — or at least that's the inference from the latest geochemical analyses.

The ways in which HIV can subvert cellular processes for its own ends seem boundless. The latest discovery — a cellular enzyme that helps to export HIV RNA from the nucleus — reveals a possible drug target.