Featured
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News Feature |
Women’s health research lacks funding — these charts show how
Conditions that affect women more than men garner less funding. But boosting investment could reap big rewards.
- Kerri Smith
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News Feature |
Is the world ready for ChatGPT therapists?
The current landscape of mobile mental-health apps is the result of a 70-year search to automate therapy. Now, advanced AIs pose fresh ethical questions.
- Ian Graber-Stiehl
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News |
COVID’s future: mini-waves rather than seasonal surges
Three years after the start of the pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 shows no signs of settling into a seasonal pattern of spread, like influenza has.
- Ewen Callaway
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Career Q&A |
How I fused passions for art and medicine into a medical illustration career
Hillary Wilson contends that medicine needs more-diverse artwork from illustrators who bring varied perspectives.
- Abdullahi Tsanni
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News |
White House to tap cancer leader Monica Bertagnolli as new NIH director
Long-awaited decision comes more than a year after Francis Collins resigned as director of the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world.
- Max Kozlov
- & Heidi Ledford
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News |
Famous ‘homunculus’ brain map redrawn to include complex movements
Textbook homunculus diagram depicts how the brain controls individual body parts — the revamp could improve treatments for brain injury.
- Max Kozlov
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Book Review |
How sketches of the womb have empowered and oppressed women over the ages
Depictions of fetuses have helped to teach safer birthing practices and saved lives — but they can also be used to erase the person giving birth.
- Josie Glausiusz
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Book Review |
Did the Black Death break feudalism and make capitalism? Maybe, maybe not
Pathogens and pandemics have played a huge part in shaping human history right up to COVID-19 — but their exact effects remain highly debatable.
- Hugh Pennington
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Outlook |
Kids and clinical trials: why the system is failing children
A panel of physicians and researchers discusses the reasons for the paucity of trials, the effect it has on patients and how the approval process for paediatric drugs could be streamlined.
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News |
Massive mosquito factory in Brazil aims to halt dengue
Facility will produce up to five billion bacteria-infected mosquitoes per year.
- Mariana Lenharo
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Perspective |
Foundation models for generalist medical artificial intelligence
This review discusses generalist medical artificial intelligence, identifying potential applications and setting out specific technical capabilities and training datasets necessary to enable them, as well as highlighting challenges to its implementation.
- Michael Moor
- , Oishi Banerjee
- & Pranav Rajpurkar
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Editorial |
The WHO at 75: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
The World Health Organization is emerging from the peak of the pandemic bruised. Its member states must get back to prioritizing universal health care.
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Nature Podcast |
Giant black-hole pair from the early Universe gives clues to how galaxies form
Researchers see most distant pair of supermassive black holes yet observed, and assessing an AI's ability to interpret heart images.
- Nick Petrić Howe
- & Shamini Bundell
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Article
| Open AccessBlinded, randomized trial of sonographer versus AI cardiac function assessment
The impact of artificial intelligence in cardiac function assessment is evaluated by a blinded, randomized non-inferiority trial of artificial intelligence versus sonographer initial assessment of the left ventricular ejection fraction.
- Bryan He
- , Alan C. Kwan
- & David Ouyang
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Career Feature |
Split-site doctorates are helping to build Africa’s research base
University partnerships that let PhD students split their time between two countries and keep jobs at home have many benefits.
- Rachel Nuwer
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News |
AI ‘fairness’ research held back by lack of diversity
Authors of papers on the potential biases of artificial intelligence tools in health care are predominantly white, male and from high-income countries.
- Carissa Wong
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Outline |
Video: Safeguarding the kidney
Physicians aim to find better ways to prevent, diagnose and treat acute kidney injury.
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Research Briefing |
Health benefits of growing up in cities have diminished globally
An unprecedented data set of the body measurements of 71 million children and adolescents reveals that, in most countries, growing up in cities no longer results in the height advantage seen in most of the world in the 1990s. However, in much of sub-Saharan Africa, the growth and development advantages of urban living have been amplified.
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Outline |
What is acute kidney injury? A visual guide
Early detection and prompt treatment could prevent long-term health effects of acute kidney injury, a condition that commonly arises while people are in hospital.
- Michael Eisenstein
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Outline |
Preventing kidney injuries in hospital
Delayed diagnosis and limited treatment options leave people with acute kidney injury at risk of long-term health problems. Researchers are now looking for ways to act earlier and more effectively.
- Michael Eisenstein
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Editorial |
Treat pain as a priority, not an afterthought
Chronic pain is real and ruins lives — medical attitudes to it must change.
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Nature Podcast |
Bacterial ‘syringes’ could inject drugs directly into human cells
Repurposing a microbial system to deliver molecules directly into cells, and the disconnect between research into, and treatment of, chronic pain.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Nick Petrić Howe
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Article
| Open AccessDiminishing benefits of urban living for children and adolescents’ growth and development
The advantage of living in cities compared with rural areas with respect to height and BMI in children and adolescents has generally become smaller globally from 1990 to 2020, except in sub-Saharan Africa.
- Anu Mishra
- , Bin Zhou
- & Majid Ezzati
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News Feature |
Chronic pain can be treated — so why are millions still suffering?
Science is beginning to uncover the multiple processes driving persistent pain. But connecting people with treatments that will help them remains a challenge.
- Lucy Odling-Smee
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Research Briefing |
Dialogue between specialized gut cells and nerves contributes to sex bias of gut pain
A team spanning two continents has identified a gut–nerve conduit that confers abdominal pain in mice. Responses to activation of this conduit reveal a striking sex difference that suggests that the circuit is chronically engaged in females, perhaps explaining the strong female bias in gut pain in humans.
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News Explainer |
The world faces a water crisis — 4 powerful charts show how
Hundreds of millions of people lack access to safe water and sanitation. Will the first UN conference on water in nearly 50 years make a difference?
- Miryam Naddaf
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News |
Ohio train derailment: scientists scan for lingering toxics
East Palestine residents look to independent researchers to fill gaps left by authorities.
- Mariana Lenharo
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Clinical Briefing |
Inhibition of the protein menin shows early promise in leukaemia
Leukaemias characterized by the rearrangement of the gene KMT2A or mutation of the NPM1 gene depend on the protein menin. In a first-in-human trial, the menin inhibitor revumenib had minimal severe adverse effects and showed promising clinical activity in individuals with these types of leukaemia.
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News |
Common sweetener suppresses mouse immune system — in high doses
Finding suggests that the sugar substitute sucralose could one day be used to treat autoimmune conditions.
- Max Kozlov
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Research Highlight |
There’s no one ‘best’ diet for promoting health
Several diets are linked to lower rates of chronic disease — but eating red and processed meats poses a higher risk.
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Research Highlight |
Strep B vaccines could save tens of thousands of babies’ lives
A global campaign to vaccinate pregnant people would reduce not only infant mortality but also stillbirths and developmental damage.
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Comment |
Five steps to make MRI scanners more affordable to the world
Fifty years since the basis of magnetic resonance imaging was published, MRI scanners remain expensive — and impractical in many countries. Here’s how we are making them smaller and less costly.
- Andrew Webb
- & Johnes Obungoloch
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News |
Culling vampire bats failed to beat rabies — and made the problem worse
The timing of the cull makes all the difference.
- Jude Coleman
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Outlook |
Researchers tackle chronic kidney disease
Innovative technology and a class of drugs called SGLT2 inhibitors could help more people with this common condition.
- Herb Brody
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Outlook |
The pursuit of dialysis equity
When a transplant is out of reach, kidney failure leaves those without access to high-quality health care with few options.
- Lauren Gravitz
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Outlook |
The genetic revolution transforming kidney disease
Genetic sequencing is changing the way the often deadly disorder is diagnosed, managed, treated and prevented.
- Bianca Nogrady
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Outlook |
Could implantable artificial kidneys end the need for dialysis?
Highly engineered mechanical structures could radically improve the quality of life for people with chronic kidney disease.
- Neil Savage
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Outlook |
Stop denying kidney transplants to non-citizens
Policies that prevent undocumented immigrants in the United States from receiving a donated organ are not only cruel and unfair, but also fail the cost-effectiveness test.
- C. Elena Cervantes
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Outlook |
Confronting racial and ethnic disparities in diabetic kidney disease
Diabetes is on the rise globally, mostly in low- and middle-income countries and among minority ethnic groups in wealthier nations. This increase is behind a surge in chronic kidney disease.
- Charles Schmidt
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Outlook |
SGLT2 inhibitors breathe life into kidney-disease care
Researchers want to expand the use of drugs that protect the hearts and kidneys of people with chronic kidney disease.
- Amanda B. Keener
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Outlook |
Chronic kidney disease: highlights from research
Illuminating genetic risk, disrupting fibrosis and intercepting inflammation.
- Michael Eisenstein
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Research Highlight |
Liver failure cases fall after US clampdown on paracetamol
The number of acute liver injuries tied to paracetamol—opioid painkillers fell after a US mandate to limit pills’ active ingredients.
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News Feature |
Indoor air is full of flu and COVID viruses. Will countries clean it up?
The current pandemic has focused attention to the importance of healthy indoor air and could spur lasting improvements to the air we breathe.
- Dyani Lewis
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World View |
Sims-style ‘digital twin’ models can tell us if food systems will weather crises
From COVID-19 to the war in Ukraine, virtual models could inform global food policy before emergencies unfold.
- Zia Mehrabi
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News |
Diabetes and obesity are rising globally — but some nations are hit harder
Rates of type 2 diabetes and other conditions caused by disorders of the body’s energy-processing system are driven in part by changing food habits.
- Saima May Sidik
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News |
COVID pill is first to cut short positive-test time after infection
The antiviral ensitrelvir, which is not approved in the United States, shortens symptoms in people with mild COVID and might reduce risk of long COVID — but more data are needed.
- Mariana Lenharo
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News Explainer |
How to stop the bird flu outbreak becoming a pandemic
From tracking the disease’s spread in wild birds to updating human vaccines, there are measures that could help keep avian influenza in check.
- Saima May Sidik
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Career Q&A |
How I cope with my ‘invisible’ disabilities of anxiety and depression
Cell biologist Keisha Hardeman describes her journey with mental-health challenges, and the power of therapy.
- Esther Landhuis