Featured
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News Explainer |
Do climate lawsuits lead to action? Researchers assess their impact
Litigation can lead governments to strengthen their climate policies and curb companies’ greenwashing, say scientists.
- Carissa Wong
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News |
Exclusive: official investigation reveals how superconductivity physicist faked blockbuster results
The confidential 124-page report from the University of Rochester, disclosed in a lawsuit, details the extent of Ranga Dias’s scientific misconduct.
- Dan Garisto
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News |
Is IVF at risk in the US? Scientists fear for the fertility treatment’s future
An Alabama court ruling that human embryos outside the uterus should be regarded as children has raised concerns among doctors and scientists.
- Mariana Lenharo
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News |
Sam Bankman-Fried sentencing: crypto-funded researchers grapple with FTX collapse
Organizations who received funds from FTX face pressure to return the money at significant operational cost.
- Jonathan O'Callaghan
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News |
Abortion-pill challenge provokes doubt from US Supreme Court
Lawsuit could roll back access to mifepristone, a drug widely used to induce abortion in the United States.
- Mariana Lenharo
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News |
Influential abortion-pill studies retracted: the science behind the decision
Nature spoke to researchers about the flaws that triggered the retractions. They say these papers are just the tip of the iceberg.
- Mariana Lenharo
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Career Q&A |
I took my case to Nepal’s highest court to improve conservation
After seeing an endangered-animal pelt displayed on television, Kumar Paudel embarked on a five-year legal battle, advocating for equitable enforcement of wildlife laws.
- Saugat Bolakhe
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News |
Climatologist Michael Mann wins defamation case: what it means for scientists
Jury awards Mann more than US$1 million — raising hopes for scientists who are attacked politically because of their work.
- Jeff Tollefson
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Perspective |
Designing a circular carbon and plastics economy for a sustainable future
Four future greenhouse gas emission scenarios for the global plastics system are investigated, with the lead scenario achieving net-zero emissions, and a series of technical, legal and economic interventions recommended.
- Fernando Vidal
- , Eva R. van der Marel
- & Charlotte K. Williams
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News |
Indian forest act faces challenge in Supreme Court
Ecologists, bureaucrats and conservationists say India’s amended Forest Conservation Act will reduce biodiversity and harm livelihoods.
- Gayathri Vaidyanathan
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News |
Trump’s presidential push renews fears for US science
If he wins a second term, the former US president has promised to limit the authority of federal agencies and employees, including scientists.
- Jeff Tollefson
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News |
Fingertip oxygen sensors can fail on dark skin — now a physician is suing
A community health centre in California led by the researcher files the first lawsuit against pulse oximeter manufacturers.
- Anil Oza
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News |
RNA biologist loses disability case against Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Vivian Cheung sued after her funding was not renewed, alleging discrimination, but the institute said her science no longer met its expectations.
- Amanda Heidt
- & Max Kozlov
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Career News |
Disability lawsuit lands Howard Hughes Medical Institute in court
RNA biologist Vivian Cheung accuses the institute of discrimination after it decided not to renew her funding.
- Amanda Heidt
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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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News Explainer |
What the OpenAI drama means for AI progress — and safety
A debacle at the company that built ChatGPT highlights concern that commercial forces are acting against the responsible development of artificial-intelligence systems.
- Nicola Jones
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Editorial |
‘Loss and damage’ — the most controversial words in climate finance today
Crucial talks on how richer countries should compensate poorer countries for the effects of climate-related extreme weather are stuck. The COP28 climate summit must make a breakthrough.
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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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Correspondence |
The EU must stick to its animal-welfare commitments
- Eugénie Duval
- & Benjamin Lecorps
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News |
‘Abortion tests’ developed in Poland spark concern
Scientists are questioning the reliability and ethics of tests to detect abortion drugs in biological samples.
- Layal Liverpool
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Comment |
How science bolstered a key European climate-change case
A group of older women in Switzerland has taken the government to court over its inaction on climate change. Our experience of preparing evidence for the case offers six lessons for researchers.
- Charlotte E. Blattner
- , Ana M. Vicedo-Cabrera
- & Judith Wyttenbach
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Editorial |
Gender equality: the route to a better world
Health outcomes, ending poverty and greening the environment are boosted when power is shared between the genders.
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News |
University mourns nanoscientist killed on UNC campus
Zijie Yan led a laboratory at the University of North Carolina that studied light–matter interactions on the nanometre scale.
- Mariana Lenharo
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World View |
Allow patents on AI-generated inventions — for the good of science
The current global mishmash of rules on whether innovations made using artificial intelligence are patentable impedes AI-rich fields such as drug discovery.
- Ryan Abbott
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News Q&A |
‘Truly historic’: How science helped kids win a landmark climate trial
Lead attorney Julia Olson lays out what’s needed for future victories.
- Emma Marris
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Correspondence |
Control side effects of the psychedelic renaissance
- Christoph Bublitz
- , Nicolas Langlitz
- & Dimitris Repantis
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Editorial |
Clean energy can fuel the future — and make the world healthier
Research challenges the myth that clean energy acts as a brake on global economic development.
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News Feature |
What does ‘brain dead’ really mean? The battle over how science defines the end of life
Ideological differences threaten to muddy the definition of death in the United States — with potentially negative consequences for clinicians and people awaiting organ transplants.
- Max Kozlov
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Editorial |
US Supreme Court on affirmative action: a bitter blow to educational inclusion
The highest US court’s decision that race cannot be considered in university admissions risks rolling back what little progress has been made on racial equity in the sector.
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News |
US to end race-based university admissions: what now for diversity in science?
Researchers talk to Nature about how halting race-conscious admissions will affect STEM employment, university applications and more.
- Helen Santoro
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News |
After Roe v. Wade: dwindling US abortion access is harming health a year later
Researchers are monitoring the consequences of the Supreme Court abolishing the right to an abortion.
- Mariana Lenharo
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News |
Landmark ‘kids’ climate trial begins: how science will take the stand
US youths are taking the state of Montana to court for supporting the fossil-fuel industry rather than protecting the environment and their health.
- Myriam Vidal Valero
- & Jeff Tollefson
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News |
‘Science was heard’: woman who was convicted of killing her children pardoned after inquiry
Kathleen Folbigg, who was jailed in Australia in 2003 over the sudden deaths of her four young children, has been pardoned and released in the wake of new scientific evidence.
- Dyani Lewis
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World View |
The US Supreme Court has gutted federal protection for wetlands — now what?
Most US wetlands just lost federal protection, but there’s still time for state and local governments to act. Scientists and the public can help.
- Royal C. Gardner
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News |
New Zealand volcano: science agency pleads guilty to risk-assessment charge
The charge relates to how GNS Science communicated volcanic risk to contractors in the years before the Whakaari White Island eruption in 2019.
- Dyani Lewis
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Correspondence |
Satellite imagery identifies deliberate attacks on hospitals
- Danielle N. Poole
- , Nathaniel A. Raymond
- & Kaveh Khoshnood
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Nature Index |
Proposed EU data laws leave researchers out in the cold
Some scientists say the European Commission’s Data Act would favour businesses in its aim to expand access rights to big data, and fear that publicly funded science will suffer.
- Nic Fleming
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Book Review |
Ethics in outer space: can we make interplanetary exploration just?
The prospect of settling the Moon, Mars and elsewhere requires urgent conversations about issues such as labour and reproductive rights far from Earth.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Chemist Charles Lieber avoids further prison time for lying about China ties
Ex-Harvard researcher was among the first academics tried under the now-defunct US China Initiative.
- Natasha Gilbert
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News |
Racial inequalities deepened in US prisons during COVID
The proportion of incarcerated people who were Black or Latino increased during the pandemic, mainly because of sentencing differences.
- Myriam Vidal Valero
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Article
| Open Access
COVID-19 amplified racial disparities in the US criminal legal system
A study shows that, although the number of incarcerated people in the USA decreased during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the fraction of incarcerated Black and Latino individuals increased.
- Brennan Klein
- , C. Brandon Ogbunugafor
- & Elizabeth Hinton
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News Explainer |
US aims for electric-car revolution — will it work?
The Environmental Protection Agency has released draft regulations that set the stage for a huge transition to electric vehicles.
- Jeff Tollefson
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News |
Abortion-pill ruling threatens FDA’s authority, say drug firms
A US judge’s decision to overturn the approval of mifepristone could put other drugs at risk, pharmaceutical-industry executives warn.
- Mariana Lenharo
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News |
Researchers in Germany protest proposed postdoc rule change
A potential legal reform is reigniting debate about a time limit on fixed-term postdoc contracts.
- Layal Liverpool
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Correspondence |
When legislation to protect wildlife becomes a problem
- Richard Shine
- , Martin J. Whiting
- & Chris Jolly
European ruling linking climate change to human rights could be a game changer — here’s how