Featured
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News Feature |
Lethal AI weapons are here: how can we control them?
Autonomous weapons guided by artificial intelligence are already in use. Researchers, legal experts and ethicists are struggling with what should be allowed on the battlefield.
- David Adam
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Research Highlight |
This water bottle purifies your drink with energy from your steps
Static electricity generated by the foot striking the ground can be captured to kill pathogens.
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World View |
We must protect the global plastics treaty from corporate interference
A United Nations-backed agreement to end plastic pollution is within reach — but only if scientists, civil society and businesses unite against powerful vested interests.
- Martin Wagner
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Technology Feature |
A milestone map of mouse-brain connectivity reveals challenging new terrain for scientists
A pioneering ‘connectomics’ collaboration has successfully reconstructed one cubic millimetre of brain tissue, but researchers are still just scratching the surface of the complexity it contains.
- Michael Eisenstein
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News |
AI now beats humans at basic tasks — new benchmarks are needed, says major report
Stanford University’s 2024 AI Index charts the meteoric rise of artificial-intelligence tools.
- Nicola Jones
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Correspondence |
How to break big tech’s stranglehold on AI in academia
- Michał Woźniak
- & Paweł Ksieniewicz
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Correspondence |
Use fines from EU social-media act to fund research on adolescent mental health
- Christian Montag
- & Benjamin Becker
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Technology Feature |
‘Without these tools, I’d be lost’: how generative AI aids in accessibility
A rush to place barriers around the use of artificial intelligence in academia could disproportionately affect those who stand to benefit most.
- Amanda Heidt
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Correspondence |
Don’t dismiss carbon credits that aim to avoid future emissions
- Edward Mitchard
- , Peter Ellis
- & Roselyn Fosuah Adjei
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Technology Feature |
How synthetic biologists are building better biofactories
Artificial electron donors and acceptors expand researchers’ metabolic engineering options — if only cells would cooperate.
- Sara Reardon
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Nature Video |
No sweat: Moisture-wicking device keeps wearable-tech dry
Breathable patch could allow for comfortable and multifunctional wearable electronics.
- Dan Fox
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News Explainer |
Divisive Sun-dimming study at Harvard cancelled: what’s next?
As the climate crisis rages on, advocacy for testing controversial solar geoengineering technology is ramping up.
- Jeff Tollefson
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Career Q&A |
The beauty of what science can do when urgently needed
Working amid New York City’s pandemic response inspired Nili Ostrov’s approach to expanding the list of organisms that can be used in synthetic biology and engineering.
- Katherine Bourzac
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News Feature |
How AI is improving climate forecasts
Researchers are using various machine-learning strategies to speed up climate modelling, reduce its energy costs and hopefully improve accuracy.
- Carissa Wong
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Technology Feature |
One year, three researchers, millions of cells: how a small team created the largest mouse-embryo atlas so far
A map of mouse development from conception to birth tracks 12.4 million cells at single-cell resolution as they mature into organs and other tissues.
- Sara Reardon
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Spotlight |
China’s medical-device industry gets a makeover
The country is keen to boost its production of medical technology to reduce its reliance on imports. Analysts discuss the impact of policies.
- Sandy Ong
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Nature Podcast |
AI hears hidden X factor in zebra finch love songs
Machine learning detects song differences too subtle for humans to hear, and physicists harness the computing power of the strange skyrmion.
- Nick Petrić Howe
- & Benjamin Thompson
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Technology Feature |
So … you’ve been hacked
Research institutions are under siege from cybercriminals and other digital assailants. How do you make sure you don’t let them in?
- Michael Brooks
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Career Column |
A year in the life: what I learnt from using a time-tracking spreadsheet
A low-tech solution helped Megan Rogers to increase her productivity and maintain a good work–life balance.
- Megan Rogers
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News |
More than 4,000 plastic chemicals are hazardous, report finds
Year-long effort compiles comprehensive database of chemicals in plastics.
- Nicola Jones
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Nature Index |
How AI is being used to accelerate clinical trials
From study design to patient recruitment, researchers are investigating ways that technology could speed up the process.
- Matthew Hutson
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News |
How OpenAI’s text-to-video tool Sora could change science – and society
OpenAI’s debut of its impressive Sora text-to-video tool has raised important questions.
- Jonathan O'Callaghan
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Technology Feature |
No installation required: how WebAssembly is changing scientific computing
Enabling code execution in the web browser, the multilanguage tool is powerful but complicated.
- Jeffrey M. Perkel
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Book Review |
Act now to prevent a ‘gold rush’ in outer space
As private firms aim for the Moon and beyond, a book calls for an urgent relook at the legal compact that governs space exploration.
- Timiebi Aganaba
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News |
Will these reprogrammed elephant cells ever make a mammoth?
The de-extinction company Colossal is the first to convert elephant cells to an embryonic state, but using them to make mammoths won’t be easy, say researchers.
- Ewen Callaway
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Technology Feature |
Five tips for digitizing handwritten data
Need to digitize field notes or historical documents? Researchers share their best practices.
- Alla Katsnelson
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World View |
Here’s what many digital tools for chronic pain are doing wrong
To address the chronic-pain crisis, digital health technologies must break out of their silos and become integrative and holistic.
- Benjamin Lipp
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News & Views |
Well-matched vibrations cool electronic hot spots
Diamond layers can help to dissipate the heat generated by high-power semiconductor devices. This effect has now been enhanced by adding layers of materials and engineering their crystal-lattice vibrations to be compatible at the interfaces.
- Liwen Sang
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Comment |
Big science in Latin America: accelerate particles and progress
An advanced light source for research would boost growth in the Greater Caribbean region — scientific, economic and societal.
- Victor M. Castaño
- , Pedro Fernández de Córdoba
- & Galileo Violini
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Career Q&A |
‘This is my calling’: building point-of-care diagnostic tools to fight tuberculosis
Mireille Kamariza talks about her journey from community college to biotech chief executive, and the uphill battle to stop the spread of the deadly lung disease.
- Abdullahi Tsanni
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Outlook |
Robot, repair thyself: laying the foundations for self-healing machines
Advances in materials science and sensing could deliver robots that can mend themselves and feel pain.
- Simon Makin
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News Feature |
Can non-profits beat antibiotic resistance and soaring drug costs?
Effective, affordable antimicrobial drugs aren’t moneymakers, despite being desperately needed. Can non-profit organizations pick up the slack?
- Maryn McKenna
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News |
First private Moon lander touches down on lunar surface to make history
After a nail-biting descent, the Odysseus spacecraft has landed near the lunar south pole and prepares to kick off a week of data gathering.
- Alexandra Witze
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World View |
Generative AI’s environmental costs are soaring — and mostly secret
First-of-its-kind US bill would address the environmental costs of the technology, but there’s a long way to go.
- Kate Crawford
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News Feature |
Mind-reading devices are revealing the brain’s secrets
Implants and other technologies that decode neural activity can restore people’s abilities to move and speak — and help researchers to understand how the brain works.
- Miryam Naddaf
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Technology Feature |
Super-speedy sequencing puts genomic diagnosis in the fast lane
Streamlined workflows for DNA and RNA sequencing are helping clinicians to deliver prompt, targeted care to people in days — or even hours.
- Michael Eisenstein
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Nature Careers Podcast |
Building robots to get kids hooked on STEM subjects
Robotics are a key part of the Fundi Bots education program and its aim to excite children about science and technology.
- Dom Byrne
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Perspective |
Optimally generate policy-based evidence before scaling
To reduce voltage drops—the depreciation of the cost–benefit profile when scaling up solutions to social problems—sufficient policy-based evidence must be generated before policymakers scale up the project.
- John A. List
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News |
Private Moon launch a success! But will the craft land safely on the lunar surface?
Anxiety is high as the company Intuitive Machines takes its first crack at a touchdown.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Apple Vision Pro: what does it mean for scientists?
The headset opens up possibilities in accessibility and medical research — and raises concerns about human behaviour.
- Jonathan O'Callaghan
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News Explainer |
How to test a Moon landing from Earth
The world is racing to land on the Moon. How do space agencies and commercial companies test their landers ahead of time?
- Jatan Mehta
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News Feature |
The new car batteries that could power the electric vehicle revolution
Researchers are experimenting with different designs that could lower costs, extend vehicle ranges and offer other improvements.
- Nicola Jones
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Nature Podcast |
Cancer’s power harnessed — lymphoma mutations supercharge T cells
Genetic changes that help tumour cells thrive can be co-opted to improve immunotherapy’s effectiveness, and looking at the electric vehicle batteries of the future.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Nick Petrić Howe
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News Explainer |
Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain chip: what scientists think of first human trial
Some researchers are concerned about a lack of transparency surrounding the implant, which aims to allow people to control devices through thought alone.
- Liam Drew
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News & Views |
Flexible fibres take fabrics into the information age
A technique for embedding fibres with semiconductor devices produces defect-free strands that are hundreds of metres long. Garments woven with these threads offer a tantalizing glimpse of the wearable electronics of the future.
- Xiaoting Jia
- & Alex Parrott
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News |
Deepfakes, trolls and cybertroopers: how social media could sway elections in 2024
Faced with data restrictions and harassment, researchers are mapping out fresh approaches to studying social media’s political reach.
- Heidi Ledford
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Editorial |
Research funders must join the fight for equal access to medicines
Pandemic treaty is a rare opportunity to ensure pandemic-related technologies are accessible and affordable to all.
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Career Feature |
How co-working labs reduce costs and accelerate progress for biotech start-ups
Shared lab spaces provide a streamlined launchpad, offering benches as well as a diverse network of industry mentors.
- Rachel Brazil
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Nature Careers Podcast |
Why we should think about more than cash when seeking to eradicate poverty
Catherine Thomas’s research explores different approaches to alleviating poverty, including cash transfers and psychosocial programs.
- Dom Byrne
NATO is boosting AI and climate research as scientific diplomacy remains on ice