Scientific community and society articles from across Nature Portfolio

Precise timekeeping is key to many technologies, motivating the search for more-stable reference oscillators for use as clocks. The resonant X-ray excitation of a long-lived nuclear state in scandium-45 makes it a potential reference oscillator for a nuclear clock that could surpass atomic clocks in stability and resilience against external perturbations.

Snippets from Nature’s past.

Understanding the timeline of technological developments sheds light on early societies. A remarkable finding in Africa of a structure made from shaped wood provides clues about our hominin relatives.

This PrimeView highlights the diverse range of applications of carbon nanotube-based chemiresistive sensors.

Rps genes are used to manage the major soybean pathogen Phytophthora sojae, which causes Phytophthora stem and root rot (PRR). Here, the authors show that widely used Rps genes are no longer effective for managing PRR in the United States, Canada and Argentina.

Earthworms contribute to plant growth. Here, Fonte et al. conduct a global meta-analysis and estimate that earthworms contribute to roughly 6.5% of global grain (maize, rice, wheat, barley) production and 2.3% of legume yields, equivalent to over 140 million metric tons annually.

As healthcare systems perform better, their resource footprints have an increasingly negative impact on the environment and health — requiring innovative strategies to break this vicious cycle.

Laurent Marivaux works to identify ancient mammals to understand evolutionary history in South America.

60 years ago the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Eugene Wigner, J. Hans D. Jensen and Maria Goeppert Mayer.