Research Highlight |
Featured
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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 & Views |
From the archive: socially responsible physicists, and aimless wandering in circles
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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News |
‘Intention is not action’: brain-research centre steps up quest for equality
New institute aims to enshrine inclusivity in all aspects of neuroscience and psychology research.
- Miryam Naddaf
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Nature Podcast |
How to battle misinformation with Sander van der Linden
The social psychologist joins us to discuss his new book Foolproof.
- Benjamin Thompson
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Editorial |
Should Nature endorse political candidates? Yes — when the occasion demands it
Political endorsements might not always win hearts and minds, but when candidates threaten a retreat from reason, science must speak out.
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Research Highlight |
It’s bad! Awful! Negative headlines draw more readers
People scrolling online news are 1% less likely to click on an article for each positive word in its title.
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Technology Feature |
‘Spell-checker for statistics’ reduces errors in the psychology literature
Developed to detect statistical errors, statcheck reduces mistakes in reported P values by up to 4.5-fold.
- Dalmeet Singh Chawla
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Career Column |
How we investigated the diversity of our undergraduate curriculum
To work out the limitations of what we were teaching, we audited the reading materials we recommend to students.
- Sakshi Ghai
- , Lee de-Wit
- & Yan Mak
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News Feature |
How to tackle political polarization — the researchers trying to bridge divides
Political divisions are intensifying, threatening democracies around the world. What strategies bring people closer together again?
- Saima May Sidik
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Comment |
How social media affects teen mental health: a missing link
Researchers investigating the impacts of social media on mental health must consider where exactly adolescents are in their cognitive and social development.
- Amy Orben
- & Sarah-Jayne Blakemore
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News Explainer |
AI chatbots are coming to search engines — can you trust the results?
Google, Microsoft and Baidu are using tools similar to ChatGPT to turn Internet search into a conversation. How will this change humanity’s relationship with machines?
- Chris Stokel-Walker
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Research Highlight |
Who wastes more time waiting? Income plays a part
The difference between wait times for higher- and lower-income people in the United States is subtle, but it adds up.
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News |
Ancient stone tools suggest early humans dined on hippo
Fossils and artefacts unearthed in Kenya suggest our ancestors used stone stools to feed on large animals in the distant past.
- Freda Kreier
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Career Column |
Fieldwork: how to gain access to research participants
It took experience and emotional investment to improve my ability to get close to research participants. Here’s how I did it, says Anna Lena Bercht.
- Anna Lena Bercht
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Career Q&A |
How a grisly historical accident set one neuroscientist on the road to writing a book
A psychology class about railway engineer Phineas Gage’s behaviour change after a metal rod speared his brain in 1848 led Chantel Prat, author of The Neuroscience of You, switching disciplines.
- Emily Cooke
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Research Highlight |
How your brain stays on task when sizing someone up
Two brain regions help humans to filter out irrelevant information and concentrate on the right stuff in social situations.
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Comment |
How games can make behavioural science better
Wordle, Minecraft and Scrabble are played online by millions. Gamifying experiments can make behavioural research more inclusive, rigorous and reproducible — if it’s done right.
- Bria Long
- , Jan Simson
- & Samuel A. Mehr
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Article
| Open Access
Financial incentives for vaccination do not have negative unintended consequences
Findings from large-scale studies in Sweden and the USA indicate that providing financial incentives for vaccination and informing about state incentive programmes do not have any negative unintended consequences.
- Florian H. Schneider
- , Pol Campos-Mercade
- & Armando N. Meier
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Correspondence |
Treating behavioural addictions that lack diagnostic criteria
- Steve Sussman
- & Deborah Louise Sinclair
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Nature Podcast |
The Nature Podcast’s highlights of 2022
The team select some of their favourite stories from the past 12 months.
- Benjamin Thompson
- , Shamini Bundell
- & Noah Baker
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Outlook |
Social-media use isn’t always a problem for children
Maartje Boer explains how using social media can be good for young people, and how to spot the warning signs of problematic use.
- Niki Wilson
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News & Views |
From the archive: human memory, and fungal cultivation by ants
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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Article |
Discriminatory attitudes against unvaccinated people during the pandemic
Vaccinated people express discriminatory attitudes towards unvaccinated individuals across cultures.
- Alexander Bor
- , Frederik Jørgensen
- & Michael Bang Petersen
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Research Briefing |
Genetic risk of smoking and alcohol use examined
In an enormous study of almost 3.4 million individuals from 4 ancestries, variants of more than 2,000 genomic regions were found to be associated with tobacco smoking and alcohol use. Genetic variants that contribute to these behaviours have been identified, and the accuracy of genetic risk scores compared in diverse populations.
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Article
| Open Access
Genetic diversity fuels gene discovery for tobacco and alcohol use
A multi-ancestry meta-regression study analyses diverse genome-wide association studies and genome loci associated with tobacco and alcohol use.
- Gretchen R. B. Saunders
- , Xingyan Wang
- & Scott Vrieze
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Career Feature |
‘Beyond anything I could have imagined’: graduate students speak out about racism
Bias and discrimination are rife in master’s and PhD programmes worldwide, a Nature survey finds.
- Chris Woolston
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Correspondence |
Addiction: expand diagnostic borders with care
- Joël Billieux
- , Maèva Flayelle
- & Daniel L. King
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Research Highlight |
Why are people politically ‘segregated’? Social behaviour holds a clue
People in the United States tend to associate with others who hold views that are similar to their own — but more radical.
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Career Q&A |
Why women aren’t from Venus, and men aren’t from Mars
Neuroscientist Gina Rippon describes how and why she tackled the nature–nurture debate in her book The Gendered Brain, and the media furore it caused.
- Emily Cooke
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Research Highlight |
Dancers pick up the pace on a bass beat — even though it’s inaudible
Concertgoers were not conscious of a low-frequency sound, but grooved more energetically when it played.
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Career Q&A |
How a passion for research could hinder your career and exacerbate inequities in science
Engineer-turned-sociologist Erin Cech describes how she coined the term ‘passion principle’, which challenges the belief that people should love their jobs.
- Jacqui Thornton
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Outlook |
Obstacles and opportunities: how psychedelic medicine can rise to its challenges
A panel of researchers and journalists explore the key issues health care must face as the psychedelic wave gathers momentum.
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Outlook |
Mastering the art of persuasion during a pandemic
Health policymakers need to cultivate social trust and plan effective communication strategies well before the next infectious disease goes global.
- Elizabeth Svoboda
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Article
| Open Access
Genetic insights into the social organization of Neanderthals
Genetic data for 13 Neanderthals from 2 Middle Palaeolithic sites in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia presented provide insights into the social organization of an isolated Neanderthal community at the easternmost extent of their known range.
- Laurits Skov
- , Stéphane Peyrégne
- & Benjamin M. Peter
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Career News |
Getting the job: it’s not just who you know, but how you know them
People are more likely to land high-paying jobs through friends of friends than through their close friends or family, study finds.
- Linda Nordling
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News |
Do soaring energy costs mean we are using less?
Behavioural scientists want to know how much energy people are conserving, and how long new habits will last.
- Heidi Ledford
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Comment |
Young people need experiences that boost their mental health
More policymakers and practitioners should encourage exploration and discovery during youth, to prevent adolescents from reaching crisis.
- Andrew J. Fuligni
- & Adriana Galván
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Outlook |
Can psychedelic drugs uncover the secrets of consciousness?
Volunteers undergo brain scans while being given mind-bending drugs to alter their consciousness.
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Outlook |
Finding medical value in mescaline
After millennia of sacramental use, mescaline is finally entering fully powered clinical trials.
- Eric Bender
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Outlook |
Taking the tripping out of psychedelic medicine
Drugs under development offer the mental-health benefits of psilocybin and similar substances without inducing strong hallucinatory effects.
- Elie Dolgin
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Outlook |
How MDMA resensitizes the brain
Gül Dölen explains how psychedelics restore the brain’s capacity for plasticity, which fades with age, and make possible new mental-health therapies.
- Alla Katsnelson
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Outlook |
The psychedelic escape from depression
Clinical trials suggest that psilocybin — the active ingredient in magic mushrooms — can provide durable remission from an increasingly common mental health condition.
- Michael Eisenstein
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Outlook |
Hope that psychedelic drugs can erase trauma
Some researchers are finding clues that MDMA might be able to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. But the science has yet to catch up with the optimism.
- Lauren Gravitz
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News |
Millions are mourning the Queen — what’s the science behind public grief?
Most of the people mourning the death of Queen Elizabeth II were not close to her — research can shed light on the nature of their grief.
- Katharine Sanderson
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News & Views |
From the archive: how laughter evolved, and mysterious sea creatures
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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Outlook |
A journey into the causes and effects of depression
A raft of insights provide hope for improved treatments.
- Herb Brody
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Outlook |
Psychedelic drugs take on depression
Mind-altering drugs might provide relief for those who don’t respond to conventional therapies — but does the hype outweigh the hope?
- Cassandra Willyard
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Outlook |
Research round-up: depression
How artificial intelligence detects lowered mood, why depression is linked to heart-disease risk, and other highlights.
- Elizabeth Svoboda
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Outlook |
The hormonal keys to depression
Science is only now uncovering the complex interaction between hormones, neurosteroids and mood disorders.
- Bianca Nogrady
Refugee kids find more friends in diverse classrooms