Featured
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Arts Review |
Las Borinqueñas remembers the forgotten Puerto Rican women who tested the first pill
Clinical trials of the first oral contraceptive recalled in a bold theatre production.
- Mariana Lenharo
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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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News |
Do insects have an inner life? Animal consciousness needs a rethink
A declaration signed by dozens of scientists says there is ‘a realistic possibility’ for elements of consciousness in reptiles, insects and molluscs.
- Mariana Lenharo
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World View |
AI-fuelled election campaigns are here — where are the rules?
Political candidates are increasingly using AI-generated ‘softfakes’ to boost their campaigns. This raises deep ethical concerns.
- Rumman Chowdhury
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News |
How papers with doctored images can affect scientific reviews
Scientists compiling a review scan more than 1,000 papers and find troubling images in some 10%.
- Sumeet Kulkarni
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Correspondence |
Superconductivity case shows the need for zero tolerance of toxic lab culture
- Juan Pablo Fuenzalida Werner
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Correspondence |
Meaningfulness in a scientific career is about more than tangible outputs
- Anna Alexandrova
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Editorial |
A fresh start for the African Academy of Sciences
New leadership is giving the academy a stronger voice for the continent’s scientists, following one of its most testing periods.
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News |
How to stop ‘passing the harasser’: universities urged to join information-sharing scheme
The Misconduct Disclosure Scheme would make it harder for perpetrators to hide their past, advocacy group says.
- Sarah Wild
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Correspondence |
On the ethics of informed consent in genetic data collected before 1997
- Martin Zieger
- , Yann Joly
- & Maria Eugenia D’Amato
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Correspondence |
Stockholm declaration on AI ethics: why others should sign
- Ross D. King
- , Teresa Scassa
- & Hiroaki Kitano
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News |
200 years of naming dinosaurs: scientists call for overhaul of antiquated system
Some palaeontologists want more rigorous guidelines for naming species, along with action to address problematic historical practices.
- Katharine Sanderson
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News Explainer |
How journals are fighting back against a wave of questionable images
Publishers are deploying AI-based tools to detect suspicious images, but generative AI threatens their efforts.
- Nicola Jones
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News |
Fake research papers flagged by analysing authorship trends
A new approach to detecting fraudulent paper-mill studies focuses on patterns of co-authors rather than manuscript text.
- Dalmeet Singh Chawla
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Career Column |
‘Obviously ChatGPT’ — how reviewers accused me of scientific fraud
A journal reviewer accused Lizzie Wolkovich of using ChatGPT to write a manuscript. She hadn’t — but her paper was rejected anyway.
- E. M. Wolkovich
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News Feature |
Unethical studies on Chinese minority groups are being retracted — but not fast enough, critics say
Campaigners who want scrutiny of biometrics research on Uyghurs, Tibetans and other groups are frustrated by slow progress.
- Dyani Lewis
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Correspondence |
Tech developers must respect equitable AI access
- Michał Choraś
- , Marek Pawlicki
- & Aleksandra Pawlicka
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News |
Medical AI could be ‘dangerous’ for poorer nations, WHO warns
The rapid growth of generative AI in health care has prompted the agency to set out guidelines for ethical use.
- David Adam
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Editorial |
There are holes in Europe’s AI Act — and researchers can help to fill them
Scientists have been promised a front-row seat for the formulation of the EU’s proposed AI regulatory structures. They should seize this opportunity to bridge some big gaps.
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News |
AI consciousness: scientists say we urgently need answers
Researchers call for more funding to study the boundary between conscious and unconscious systems.
- Mariana Lenharo
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Correspondence |
Should scientists delegate their writing to ChatGPT?
- Christopher Basgier
- & Shyam Sharma
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Correspondence |
Can AI deliver advice that is judgement-free for science policy?
- Stefano Canali
- & Francesco Barone-Adesi
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News |
Surge in number of ‘extremely productive’ authors concerns scientists
Some researchers publish a new paper every five days, on average. Data trackers suspect not all their manuscripts were produced through honest labour.
- Gemma Conroy
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Editorial |
How the ‘right to science’ can help us overcome the many crises we face today
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights — proclaimed 75 years ago — describes science as fundamental to humanity. Upholding this right has never been more relevant than it is now.
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Nature Podcast |
Polio could be eradicated within 3 years — what happens then?
How to ensure polio doesn’t return after eradication, and the space explosion that’s baffling scientists.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Shamini Bundell
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Career Feature |
Why a climate researcher pushed the limits of low-carbon travel — and his employer’s patience
A refusal to fly to Papua New Guinea for fieldwork took Gianluca Grimalda the long way across 22,000 kilometres and 12 countries.
- Christine Ro
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News Feature |
The rise of brain-reading technology: what you need to know
As implanted devices and commercial headsets advance, what will the real-world impacts be?
- Liam Drew
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News |
How big is science’s fake-paper problem?
An unpublished analysis suggests that there are hundreds of thousands of bogus ‘paper-mill’ articles lurking in the literature.
- Richard Van Noorden
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World View |
Protect the ‘right to science’ for people and the planet
Upholding human rights can ensure that environmental policy is driven by facts and evidence, not denialism, greed and profit.
- Volker Türk
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Editorial |
Why the UK-led global AI summit is missing the point
Robust regulation of AI technologies will be crucial to protecting against harms. Researchers’ voices must be heard.
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Outlook |
How robots can learn to follow a moral code
Ethical artificial intelligence aims to impart human values on machine-learning systems.
- Neil Savage
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Career Feature |
Campus surveillance: students and professors decry sensors in buildings
Privacy campaigners fear that the devices could be used for disciplinary purposes, and some universities have deactivated them after protests.
- Anne Gulland
- & Fayth Tan
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Correspondence |
The EU must stick to its animal-welfare commitments
- Eugénie Duval
- & Benjamin Lecorps
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Career Column |
ChatGPT use shows that the grant-application system is broken
The fact that artificial intelligence can do much of the work makes a mockery of the process. It’s time to make it easier for scientists to ask for research funding.
- Juan Manuel Parrilla
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Career Column |
Dear journals: stop hoarding our papers
Why single-submission policies need to die (and what to do in the meantime).
- Dritjon Gruda
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Nature Podcast |
This isn’t the Nature Podcast — how deepfakes are distorting reality
The rise of AI-generated fakes, evidence of the earliest-known wooden structure, and how NASA’s OSIRIS-REx brought asteroid samples back to Earth.
- Nick Petrić Howe
- & Benjamin Thompson
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Career Column |
How my broken elbow made the ableism of computer programming personal
Amy Ko’s accident gave her an insight into the degree to which her discipline caters mainly to non-disabled people, reinspiring her to invent more accessible programming languages.
- Amy Ko
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News Feature |
Human trials of artificial wombs could start soon. Here’s what you need to know
US regulators will consider clinical trials of a system that mimics the womb, which could reduce deaths and disability for babies born extremely preterm.
- Max Kozlov
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News Feature |
Is a boost to height a boost to health? Dwarfism therapies spark controversy
Emerging treatments for achondroplasia pose difficult choices for parents. Proponents say they are changing lives. Others fear they will feed stigma and erase identity.
- Cassandra Willyard
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Correspondence |
Neurotechnology: we need new laws, not new rights
- Sjors Ligthart
- , Christoph Bublitz
- & Susie Alegre
Are robots the solution to the crisis in older-person care?