Research Briefing |
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 |
US COVID-origins hearing puts scientific journals in the hot seat
Politicians spar over whether academic publishers colluded with government scientists to suppress the lab-leak hypothesis.
- Max Kozlov
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Book Review |
Are women in research being led up the garden path?
A moving memoir of botany and motherhood explores the historical pressures on female scientists.
- Josie Glausiusz
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Career Q&A |
‘Shrugging off failure is hard’: the $400-million grant setback that shaped the Smithsonian lead scientist’s career
Planetary scientist Ellen Stofan thought about leaving research after a funding bid was rejected. But new opportunities emerged.
- Anne Gulland
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News |
Revealed: the ten research papers that policy documents cite most
An exclusive analysis shows that economics and interdisciplinary teams get the attention of policymakers.
- Dalmeet Singh Chawla
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News |
What the India election means for science
With voting about to start in India’s general election, some researchers are concerned that sluggish funding growth and slow decision-making processes could hold the country back.
- Smriti Mallapaty
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World View |
AI-fuelled election campaigns are here — where are the rules?
Political candidates are increasingly using AI-generated ‘softfakes’ to boost their campaigns. This raises deep ethical concerns.
- Rumman Chowdhury
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Correspondence |
Use fines from EU social-media act to fund research on adolescent mental health
- Christian Montag
- & Benjamin Becker
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News & Views |
The biologist who built a Faraday cage for a crab
What every biologist should know about electronics, plus a disturbing outbreak of volcanism in North Carolina, in the weekly dip into Nature’s archive.
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Editorial |
Rwanda 30 years on: understanding the horror of genocide
Researchers must support and elevate the voices of Rwanda’s scholars and survivors.
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Career Column |
How I harnessed media engagement to supercharge my research career
My initial exposure to the world’s media was serendipitous, but I’ve learnt to be proactive about it — and reaped the benefits.
- Ben Singh
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News |
Iran frees scientists who studied big cats in surprise move
Six-year ordeal for researchers studying Asiatic cheetah and Persian leopard ends in prisoner amnesty.
- Michele Catanzaro
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Nature Careers Podcast |
How to plug the female mentoring gap in Latin American science
Female academics who are keen to advance their careers need to see other women in leadership positions. Social stereotyping prevents that, argues Vanessa Gottifredi.
- Julie Gould
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Career Feature |
Ready or not, AI is coming to science education — and students have opinions
As educators debate whether it’s even possible to use AI safely in research and education, students are taking a role in shaping its responsible use.
- Sarah Wells
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News |
Brazil budget cuts could leave science labs without power and water
The Lula administration is trying to reverse lawmakers’ reductions, which are hitting scientists in the Amazon especially hard.
- Rodrigo de Oliveira Andrade
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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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Book Review |
Wild women and restoring public trust: Books in brief
Andrew Robinson reviews five of the best science picks.
- Andrew Robinson
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News Feature |
After the genocide: what scientists are learning from Rwanda
Thirty years after the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, Nature met with researchers who are gaining insights that could help to prevent other atrocities and enable healing.
- Nisha Gaind
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News |
Long-lost photos reveal details of world’s first police crime lab
The archive, saved from a garage, shows pioneer of forensic science Edmond Locard at work in his laboratory in Lyon, France.
- Laura Spinney
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Editorial |
The EU’s ominous emphasis on ‘open strategic autonomy’ in research
A reboot of the flagship Horizon Europe fund risks prioritizing a mindset geared towards security over open, future-facing research collaboration.
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News Feature |
Why loneliness is bad for your health
A lack of social interaction is linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia and more. Researchers are unpicking how the brain mediates these effects.
- Saima May Sidik
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Correspondence |
Adopt universal standards for study adaptation to boost health, education and social-science research
- Dragos Iliescu
- & Samuel Greiff
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Correspondence |
How can we make PhD training fit for the modern world? Broaden its philosophical foundations
- Ganesh Alagarasan
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Correspondence |
Allow researchers with caring responsibilities ‘promotion pauses’ to make research more equitable
- Daniel H. Lowenstein
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News & Views |
Why hand-operated front brakes were set to be the future of motoring
The complexity of fitting brakes to all four wheels of a car and the simplicity of John Maynard Smith’s ecological models, in the weekly dip into Nature’s archive.
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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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Book Review |
The great rewiring: is social media really behind an epidemic of teenage mental illness?
The evidence is equivocal on whether screen time is to blame for rising levels of teen depression and anxiety — and rising hysteria could distract us from tackling the real causes.
- Candice L. Odgers
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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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Career Q&A |
Overcoming low vision to prove my abilities under pressure
A genetic eye condition pushed biochemist Kamini Govender to develop coping strategies that serve her well in the lab and help her to avoid burnout.
- Lesley Evans Ogden
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News |
How papers with doctored images can affect scientific reviews
Scientists compiling a review scan more than 1,000 papers and find troubling images in some 10%.
- Sumeet Kulkarni
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News |
Tweeting your research paper boosts engagement but not citations
Analysis of a random selection of papers shared on social media showed no causative link between posting and citations.
- Bianca Nogrady
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Futures |
The real time-travel paradox was the friends we made along the way
Life at the cutting edge.
- Rodrigo Culagovski
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Correspondence |
Superconductivity case shows the need for zero tolerance of toxic lab culture
- Juan Pablo Fuenzalida Werner
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Correspondence |
The ‘Anthropocene’ is here to stay — and it’s better not as a geological epoch
- Thomas P. Roland
- , Graeme T. Swindles
- & Alastair Ruffell
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News & Views |
How Sydney Harbour Bridge was shaping up 100 years ago
Plans for Sydney’s iconic landmark become concrete, plus a ‘Michelin Guide’ to superconductive tunnelling, in the weekly dip into Nature’s archive.
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Comment |
How a tree-hugging protest transformed Indian environmentalism
Fifty years ago, a group of women from the villages of the Western Himalayas sparked Chipko, a green movement that remains relevant in the age of climate change.
- Seema Mundoli
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Research Briefing |
A delay that makes wireless communication faster
Cutting-edge communication (6G and beyond) will rely on precise time control of large amounts of wirelessly transferred information. To achieve this precision, a ‘quasi-true time delay’ chip has been designed that packs as much time delay as possible into a tiny area using 3D waveguides whose length can be varied as required.
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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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Research Highlight |
A horse cemetery in London reveals medieval mounts’ distant origins
Horses buried near the royal complex of Westminster in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had been imported from as far away as Scandinavia.
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Nature Index |
Larger or longer grants unlikely to push senior scientists towards high-risk, high-reward work
A survey of US professors suggests that broad changes to grant schemes might be needed to incentivize new approaches to research.
- Dalmeet Singh Chawla
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Essay |
How did the Big Bang get its name? Here’s the real story
Astronomer Fred Hoyle supposedly coined the catchy term to ridicule the theory of the Universe’s origins — 75 years on, it’s time to set the record straight.
- Helge Kragh
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Comment |
How to achieve safe water access for all: work with local communities
Four scientists reflect on how to foster a more sustainable relationship between water and society amid complex and wide-ranging challenges.
- Farhana Sultana
- , Tara McAllister
- & Michael D. Blackstock
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Editorial |
Are we in the Anthropocene yet?
Measurement matters, but should not detract from the reality that humans are altering Earth systems.
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News |
It’s final: the Anthropocene is not an epoch, despite protest over vote
Governing body upholds earlier decision by geoscientists amid drama.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
What Putin’s next term means for science
Researchers in Russia expect growing isolation as Vladimir Putin embarks on six more years as president.
- Olga Dobrovidova
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Article
| Open AccessPersistent interaction patterns across social media platforms and over time
Long conversations online consistently exhibit higher toxicity, yet toxic language does not invariably discourage people from participating in a conversation, and toxicity does not necessarily escalate as discussions evolve.
- Michele Avalle
- , Niccolò Di Marco
- & Walter Quattrociocchi