Featured
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News |
Blood-sucking fish had flesh-eating ancestors
Two ‘superbly preserved’ fossil lampreys from the Jurassic period help piece together the past of the unusual jawless fish.
- Xiaoying You
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News |
Did dust from the Chicxulub asteroid impact kill the dinosaurs?
Fine particles kicked up by the collision could have blocked out the Sun for years, resulting in global cooling and disastrous consequences for ecosystems.
- Katharine Sanderson
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Book Review |
Consciousness: what it is, where it comes from — and whether machines can have it
To understand where artificial intelligence might be heading, we must first understand what consciousness, the self and free will mean in ourselves.
- Liad Mudrik
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News |
Menopausal chimpanzees deepen the mystery of why women stop reproducing
Some chimpanzees have been found to experience menopause. But are they the exception or the rule?
- Dyani Lewis
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Book Review |
The plant poisons that shape our daily lives
An exploration of nature’s toxins reveals complex relationships between humans and the plant chemicals we use as foods, medicines and mind-altering drugs.
- Emily Monosson
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Research Highlight |
Fossilized skull shows that early bats had modern sonar
Remains suggest that ancient bats used the same form of echolocation as species flying the skies now.
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Article |
The episodic resurgence of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5 virus
Recent resurgences of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5 viruses have different origins and virus ecologies as their epicentres shift and viruses evolve, with changes indicating increased adaptation among domestic birds.
- Ruopeng Xie
- , Kimberly M. Edwards
- & Vijaykrishna Dhanasekaran
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News & Views |
From the archive: animal behaviour, and Darwin discusses organ loss
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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News |
Reproducibility trial: 246 biologists get different results from same data sets
Wide distribution of findings shows how analytical choices drive conclusions.
- Anil Oza
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Article
| Open AccessGenotyping, sequencing and analysis of 140,000 adults from Mexico City
Genotype and exome sequencing of 150,000 participants and whole-genome sequencing of 9,950 selected individuals recruited into the Mexico City Prospective Study constitute a valuable, publicly available resource of non-European sequencing data.
- Andrey Ziyatdinov
- , Jason Torres
- & Roberto Tapia-Conyer
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Article
| Open AccessMexican Biobank advances population and medical genomics of diverse ancestries
Nationwide genomic biobank in Mexico unravels demographic history and complex trait architecture from 6,057 individuals.
- Mashaal Sohail
- , María J. Palma-Martínez
- & Andrés Moreno-Estrada
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News & Views |
Cichlid fish seized an ecological opportunity to diversify
The analysis of fossils in sediment cores from Lake Victoria, Africa, reveals that a group of cichlid fish rapidly diversified as the lake got larger and provided new ecological niches, whereas the other fish there did not diversify.
- Martin J. Genner
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News & Views |
How purposeless physics underlies purposeful life
Evolution by natural selection peerlessly describes how life’s complexity develops — but can it be explained in terms of physics? A new approach suggests it can.
- George F. R. Ellis
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Article
| Open AccessAssembly theory explains and quantifies selection and evolution
Assembly theory conceptualizes objects as entities defined by their possible formation histories, allowing a unified language for describing selection, evolution and the generation of novelty.
- Abhishek Sharma
- , Dániel Czégel
- & Leroy Cronin
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Article
| Open AccessA continuous fish fossil record reveals key insights into adaptive radiation
This study presents a continuous fossil record, extracted from a series of sediment cores, that shows how haplochromine cichlids came to dominate the fish fauna of Lake Victoria in Africa.
- Nare Ngoepe
- , Moritz Muschick
- & Ole Seehausen
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Article
| Open AccessBridging two insect flight modes in evolution, physiology and robophysics
Asynchronous flight in all major groups of insects likely arose from a single common ancestor with reversions to a synchronous flight mode enabled by shifts back and forth between different regimes in the same set of dynamic parameters.
- Jeff Gau
- , James Lynch
- & Simon Sponberg
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Nature Podcast |
Astronomers are worried by a satellite brighter than most stars
Researchers determined the telecommunications satellite was periodically brighter than 99% of stars, and powerful X-rays have uncovered an ancient trilobite’s last meal.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Nick Petrić Howe
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News & Views |
From the archive: lost in translation, and fascinating frogs
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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Book Review |
A ‘user’s manual for the female mammal’ — how women’s bodies evolved
The female perspective is often missed in evolutionary tales, but it is at the centre of what makes us human.
- Josie Glausiusz
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Spotlight |
Digging up ancient animals in Amazonia
Laurent Marivaux works to identify ancient mammals to understand evolutionary history in South America.
- Magali Reinert
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Article
| Open AccessThe sex-specific factor SOA controls dosage compensation in Anopheles mosquitoes
A newly identified gene, sex chromosome activation (SOA), is a master regulator of dosage compensation in Anopheles gambiae.
- Agata Izabela Kalita
- , Eric Marois
- & Claudia Isabelle Keller Valsecchi
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Research Briefing |
A trilobite’s last meal reveals feeding behaviour and physiology
The gut contents of a fossilized trilobite, Bohemolichas incola, from the Ordovician period (about 465 million years ago), were imaged by a technique called synchrotron microtomography and fully itemized. The results indicate that the animal fed indiscriminately on small shelly invertebrates and that its gut had a neutral to alkaline pH.
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Article
| Open AccessUniquely preserved gut contents illuminate trilobite palaeophysiology
Fossilized gut contents of an Ordovician trilobite shed light on the feeding habits of one of the most common and well-known extinct arthropods.
- Petr Kraft
- , Valéria Vaškaninová
- & Per E. Ahlberg
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News & Views |
From the archive: teenage disdain, and Darwin ponders tiny males
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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News & Views |
Getting inside the oldest known vertebrate skull
Analysis of a 458-million-year-old fossil fish reveals anatomical insights about the vertebrate skull and how skull organization evolved from that of ancestral early vertebrates to that of jawed vertebrates.
- Zhikun Gai
- & Philip C. J. Donoghue
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Article
| Open AccessThe oldest three-dimensionally preserved vertebrate neurocranium
Computed tomography reveals that the cranial anatomy of Ordovician stem-group gnathostome Eriptychius americanus from the Harding Sandstone of Colorado, USA, is distinct among vertebrates.
- Richard P. Dearden
- , Agnese Lanzetti
- & Ivan J. Sansom
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Article
| Open AccessEvidence for the earliest structural use of wood at least 476,000 years ago
Wooden artefacts from waterlogged deposits in Zambia dating back 477 ka indicate hitherto unknown sophistication in woodworking at an early date.
- L. Barham
- , G. A. T. Duller
- & P. Nkombwe
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Research Highlight |
The secret sex lives of ‘celibate’ stick insects
Genetic analysis shows that some stick insects that supposedly reproduce without sex are actually pairing off to have offspring.
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News |
A new human species? Mystery surrounds 300,000-year-old fossil
A chinless jawbone from eastern China that displays both modern and archaic features could represent a new branch of the human family tree.
- Dyani Lewis
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News |
Ancient-human fossils sent to space: scientists slam ‘publicity stunt’
The decision to send hominin bones on a commercial spaceflight has raised eyebrows among human-evolution researchers.
- Ewen Callaway
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Article
| Open AccessUncovering new families and folds in the natural protein universe
The extent to which the AlphaFold database has structurally illuminated proteins that are challenging to annotate for function or putative biological role using standard homology-based approaches at high predicted accuracy is investigated.
- Janani Durairaj
- , Andrew M. Waterhouse
- & Joana Pereira
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Article |
A cross-species proteomic map reveals neoteny of human synapse development
A study presents a cross-species proteomic map of synapse development in neocortex and reveals that the human postsynaptic density assembly develops two to three times slower than that in macaques and mice.
- Li Wang
- , Kaifang Pang
- & Arnold R. Kriegstein
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Matters Arising |
Amniote metabolism and the evolution of endothermy
- Ryosuke Motani
- , David A. Gold
- & Geerat J. Vermeij
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Matters Arising |
Reply to: Amniote metabolism and the evolution of endothermy
- Jasmina Wiemann
- , Iris Menéndez
- & Derek E. G. Briggs
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News |
‘Weird’ dinosaur prompts rethink of bird evolution
The fossil is as old as the ‘first bird’, Archaeopteryx, and might have specialized in running or wading instead of flying.
- Jude Coleman
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Article |
A new avialan theropod from an emerging Jurassic terrestrial fauna
An avialan species from the Zhenghe Fauna—a collection of vertebrate fossils from the Late Jurassic of China—had an unusual combination of features, including very long hindlimbs, suggesting that it had a terrestrial or wading lifestyle.
- Liming Xu
- , Min Wang
- & Zhonghe Zhou
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News |
Human ancestors nearly went extinct 900,000 years ago
A new technique analysing modern genetic data suggests that pre-humans survived in a group of only 1,280 individuals.
- Anna Ikarashi
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Research Highlight |
The DNA in a sea sponge’s pores shows what lives nearby
Fragments of DNA extracted from these aquatic animals record the diversity of their neighbours.
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Matters Arising |
Reply to: Palaeospondylus and the early evolution of gnathostomes
- Tatsuya Hirasawa
- & Shigeru Kuratani
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Article |
Assembly of 43 human Y chromosomes reveals extensive complexity and variation
De novo assemblies of 43 Y chromosomes spanning 182,900 years of human evolution reveal considerable diversity in the size and structure of the human Y chromosome.
- Pille Hallast
- , Peter Ebert
- & Charles Lee
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Article |
New reptile shows dinosaurs and pterosaurs evolved among diverse precursors
A well-preserved partial skeleton (Upper Triassic, Brazil) of the new lagerpetid Venetoraptor gassenae gen. et sp. nov. offers a more comprehensive look into the skull and ecology of dinosaur and pterosaur precursors.
- Rodrigo T. Müller
- , Martín D. Ezcurra
- & Sterling J. Nesbitt
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Research Highlight |
Which birds are drab and which dazzle? Predators have a say
An analysis of almost 10,000 species identifies the life-history traits that explain why some birds flaunt a rainbow of ornamental colours.
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Research Highlight |
This ancient reptile wanted to be a whale
Fossils suggests that a dog-sized swimmer sifted prey with plates similar to baleen, in an example of convergent evolution.
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Nature Index |
How China is capturing attention with landmark research
From ancient sea species to clues on comets, papers by the country’s talented scientists are regularly making headlines.
- Gemma Conroy
- , Pratik Pawar
- & Sian Powell
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News & Views |
Replication study casts doubt on magnetic sensing in flies
It has long been thought that the fly Drosophila melanogaster can detect Earth’s magnetic field and offers an ideal system in which to examine this enigmatic sense. However, a rigorous replication of key studies fails to support this idea.
- Eric J. Warrant
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News |
This moss survived 165 million years — and now it's under threat from climate change
Ancient plant survived the formation of the Himalayas, but might now be facing extinction.
- Jude Coleman
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Article
| Open AccessDissecting human population variation in single-cell responses to SARS-CoV-2
Population differences in immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 can be explained by environmental exposures, but also by local adaptation acting through genetic variants acquired after admixture with archaic hominin forms.
- Yann Aquino
- , Aurélie Bisiaux
- & Lluis Quintana-Murci
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News & Views |
A really big fossil whale
A newly discovered fossil of an extinct whale from Peru indicates that the animal’s skeleton was unexpectedly enormous. This finding challenges our understanding of body-size evolution.
- J. G. M. Thewissen
- & David A. Waugh
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