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Science journalist Lizzie Wade’s first book, Apocalypse: A Transformative Exploration of Humanity's Resilience Through Cataclysmic Events explores some of the cataclysmic events that humans have faced through history. Lizzie joined us to discuss what modern archaeology has revealed about these events, and the role these they’ve have played in shaping societies around the world.
Apocalypse: A Transformative Exploration of Humanity's Resilience Through Cataclysmic Events Lizzie Wade Harper (2025)
Music supplied by SPD/Triple Scoop Music/Getty Images
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Researchers have developed an AI tool that can calculate a person’s risk of developing over 1,000 different diseases, sometimes years in advance. The system, called Delphi-2M, was trained to identify patterns of disease progression using 400,000 people's health records from data repository the UK Biobank. This training allowed it to predict someone’s future disease risks, based on their current medical record. While AI health prediction systems do exist, they typically only estimate risks for a single disease — the authors hope that their system could one day save healthcare professionals time and be used to calculate disease burdens at a population level.
Research Article: Shmatko et al.
News: What diseases will you have in 20 years? This AI makes predictions
Evidence that refugees hosted by local families integrate better into their adoptive country — plus, the squidgy shirt that can keep wearers cool.
Research Highlight: How to help refugees thrive: have local families host them
Research Highlight: Jelly-filled garment keeps wearers cool when heat and humidity soar
Using AI tools may make you more likely to cheat at tasks like tax reporting, according to a new study. Using a well-studied test of honesty, researchers looked to see if people were more likely to engage in unethical behaviour if given the option of delegating it to an AI. Including AIs seemed to increase the chance that someone would be dishonest, which raises concerns about the impacts of these tools on ethics.
Research Article: Köbis et al
News and Views: People are more likely to cheat when they delegate tasks to AI
Europe has a new supercomputer, JUPITER, that could boost its AI ambitions, and a catalogue of octopus movement.
Nature: World's most energy-efficient AI supercomputer comes online
New York Times: Building an Octopus Dictionary, One Arm Movement at a Time
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In 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) facilities in the US directly detected ripples in space-time, known as gravitational waves. These waves were produced by the final spiral of two orbiting black holes that smashed into each other, sending ripples across the Universe.
In this podcast, Benjamin Thompson speaks to Cole Miller from the University of Maryland about the quest to detect gravitational waves, which were first hypothesised by Albert Einstein back in 1916.
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Major energy producers increased the likelihood and intensity of heatwaves, according to research published in Nature. Using data from an international disaster database, a team developed a methodology to investigate how much anthropogenic climate change had influenced heatwaves. They conclude that many of these events would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, and that nearly a quarter of the heatwaves recorded from 2000 to 2023 can be directly linked to the greenhouse-gas emissions from individual energy giants.
Research Article: Juvé et al.
News and Views Forum: Heatwaves linked to emissions of individual fossil-fuel and cement producers
News: Dozens of heatwaves linked to carbon emissions from specific companies
How shifting coastal tides may have spurred the rise of the world’s oldest civilization — plus, the liquid crystal lenses that can refocus in a flash.
Research Highlight: Changing tides ushered in the world’s first civilization
Research Highlight: Liquid-crystal specs refocus with the push of a button
Science in the United States is facing an increasing crisis, in the face of swinging cuts and President Donald Trump’s ongoing attack on anything with a connection to diversity, equity and inclusion. In the face of this crisis, many researchers are fighting back — we hear about some of their efforts, and what they think about their chances of success.
News Feature: Scientists take on Trump: the researchers fighting back
How CRISPR-edited pancreas cells could offer new hope for those with type 1 diabetes, and what brain scans reveal about how we process colour.
Nature: Hope for diabetes: CRISPR-edited cells pump out insulin in a person — and evade immune detection
Nature: My blue is your blue: different people’s brains process colours in the same way
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In 2016, Brian Wansink wrote a blog post that prompted scientific sleuths to investigate his work. They found evidence of data manipulation, and, after several news articles and two investigations by his institution, he would found to have committed misconduct, as defined by Cornell University. His work had been used to inform US policy around food, much of which has now been thrown into question.
Cases like this are rare, but science is not immune to misconduct. The rise in 'paper mills' — organisations that produce questionable or fake papers that they sell authorships on — has led some to worry that misconduct is on the rise and that a proportion of the scientific literature cannot be trusted.
In episode two of Self Correction, we explore how researchers are responding to the problem of research misconduct. We discuss how difficult it is to determine the prevalence of misconduct, and how sleuths, journalists and research integrity institutions are fighting back.
This episode was written and produced by Nick Petrić Howe. Dan Fox was the editor. The music was provided by Triple Scoop Music.
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Raising mosquitoes to tackle disease might sound like an odd concept, but that’s what a facility in Brazil is aiming to do. Millions of mosquitoes are produced there every week, but these insects carry harmless Wolbachia bacteria that curbs their ability to spread deadly human viruses. Nature reporter Mariana Lenharo visited the facility and told us all about her experience in this Podcast Extra.
News: This is the world’s largest ‘mosquito factory’: its goal is to stop dengue
Video: Inside a mosquito factory
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Researchers have made an unusual observation that appears at odds with biology: an ant, known as the Iberian Harvester Ant can produce offspring of two completely different species. Many ants need to mate with other species to produce workers that are a genetic mix of the two, known as hybrids. But in Sicily, a team found hybrid worker ants but no trace of the father. They suggest that the one species present, Messor ibericus, is able to lay its own eggs, but also eggs of another species, Messor structor. These offspring can then mate to produce the hybrid workers. This strategy conflicts with several conventional definitions of what a species is, which may prompt a rethink of these already blurry concepts.
Research Article: Juvé et al.
News and Views: Ant queens produce sons of two distinct species
News: ‘Almost unimaginable’: these ants are different species but share a mother
Humans are living longer but a life expectancy of a hundred appears out of reach — plus, how light pollution is making birds sing for longer.
Research Highlight: When will life expectancy reach 100? No time soon
Research Highlight: Bright city lights make birds around the world sing longer
Researchers have discovered that steel truss bridges possess a number of mechanisms that make them resilient to collapse, even after damage. Steel truss bridges are a common kind of bridge, but many are ageing and under increased pressure due to climate change and increased vehicle loads. To understand how damage affects these bridges a team of engineers built a scale replica of a bridge section and monitored how it coped when different sections were cut. They found six distinct resistance mechanisms that allowed the bridge to continue carrying heavy loads even with the damaged sections. They hope these data will help fortify existing bridges and inform the design of future bridges to help prevent catastrophic collapse.
Research Article: Reyes-Suárez et al.
The chemistry underlying why beer drinkers fall into two taste camps, and how a deep-sea worm uses arsenic to survive its toxic environment..
Nature: Beer lovers fall into two flavour camps — which one are you in?
Science: Deep-sea worms fight poison with poison to survive in hydrothermal vents
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The search for signs of consciousness has expanded, thanks to advanced neuroimaging techniques. These tools allow researchers to detect consciousness in unresponsive humans, and now researchers are looking to develop tests that work in animals and perhaps even artificial intelligence systems of the future.
This is an audio version of our Feature: How to detect consciousness in people, animals and maybe even AI
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In the late 1700s, rural France was beset with rapidly spreading rumours of aristocratic plots to suppress revolutionary ideas. But how, and why, these rumours were able to spread so quickly has puzzled historians. Now, using modern epidemiological modelling, a team suggests that a combination of high wheat prices, income and literacy level drove this period of French history known as the Great Fear.
Research Article: Zapperi et al.
News: An abiding mystery of the French Revolution is solved — by epidemiology
An unorthodox explanation for dark energy — plus, and how a tiny marsupial predator overcame near extinction.
Research Highlight: Does dark energy spawn from black holes? Could be a bright idea
Research Highlight: Tiny Australian predator defies drought to recover from near-extinction
Physicists differ widely in their interpretations of quantum mechanics, and so do Nature readers, according to our Cosmo-inspired quiz. The quantum world is notoriously difficult to explain, with interpretations of the mathematical foundations ranging from the epistemic, which only describes information, to the realist, where equations map onto the real world. The quiz suggests that many readers prefer the realist, even if that is difficult to mesh with the physics itself.
Feature: Physicists disagree wildly on what quantum mechanics says about reality, Nature survey show
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Researchers have used electrochemistry to increase the rates of nuclear fusion reactions in a desktop reactor. Fusion energy promises abundant clean energy, but fusion events are rare, hindering progress. Now, inspired by the controversial claim of cold fusion, researchers used electrochemistry to get palladium to absorb more deuterium ions, that are used in fusion. When a beam of deuterium was fired at the deuterium-filled palladium, they saw a 15% increase in fusion events. They did not get more energy than they put in, but the authors believe this is a step towards enhancing fusion energy and shows the promise of electrochemical techniques.
Research Article: Chen et al.
News and Views: Low-energy nuclear fusion boosted by electrochemistry
Do ants hold the key to better teamwork? — plus, the coins that hint at extensive hidden trade networks in southeast Asia.
Research Highlight: Super-efficient teamwork is possible — if you’re an ant
Research Highlight: Ancient coins unveil web of trade across southeast Asia
Chocolate gets its best tastes from microbes, according to a new study. Fermentation of cocoa beans helps create chocolate tastes but not much has been known about the process. Now, the temperature, pH and microbes involved have been identified and the researchers showed how it would be possible to manipulate these to produce premium chocolate flavours.
News: Why chocolate tastes so good: microbes that fine-tune its flavour
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In this Podcast Extra, we discuss a report released by the US Department of Energy, which concluded that global warming is “less damaging economically than commonly believed”. However, many researchers say that the report misrepresents decades of climate science.
We discuss how scientists are trying to coordinate a unified response amidst concerns that this report will be used in attempts to repeal a 2009 government ruling that greenhouse gases endanger public welfare.
News: Outrage over Trump team’s climate report spurs researchers to fight back
News: Are the Trump team’s actions affecting your research? How to contact Nature
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Researchers have used a phenomenon known as thermal transpiration to create a solar-powered flying device that can stay aloft without any moving parts. The diminutive device, just one centimetre across, consists of two thin, perforated membranes that allow air to flow through the device, generating lift. Although only a proof-of-concept, the team hope that a scaled-up version of the device could be used to measure conditions in the mesosphere, a particularly hard-to-study part of the Earth’s atmosphere, or even on Mars.
Research Article: Schafer et al.
News and Views: Levitating platform could ride sunlight into the ‘ignorosphere’
News: These tiny flyers levitate on the Sun's heat alone
A 3D scan of body art on a 2,000-year-old mummy reveals the techniques used by ancient tattooists — plus, the bacterial cause of a devastating sea-star disease.
Research Highlight: Intricate origins of ice mummy’s ink revealed
Research Highlight: Mystery of billions of sea-star deaths solved at last
Despite being one of the most successful scientific frameworks in history, there is one thing that quantum physics can’t explain: gravity. Whether gravity is quantum in nature is something that has had physicists vexed, but now a slew of experiments are being planned to try and answer this question. We hear how these experiments will work, and what their results might mean for physicists’ understanding of the universe.
News Feature: Is gravity quantum? Experiments could finally probe one of physics’ biggest questions
How genes can have different effects depend on the parent they come from, and how lithium shows promise in treating Alzheimer’s disease in mice studies.
Nature: These genes can have the opposite effects depending on which parent they came from
Nature: New hope for Alzheimer’s: lithium supplement reverses memory loss in mice
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Aided by machine learning, researchers have developed a super-sticky compound that works as an underwater adhesive. Inspired by animals like barnacles, the team developed a new kind of a material called a hydrogel. The material is capable of securely fastening objects together even when immersed in salty water— a challenge for existing adhesives. To show off its properties the researchers applied it to a rubber duck, which stuck firmly to a rock on a beach despite being battered by waves.
Research Article: Liao et al.
News and Views: AI learns from nature to design super-adhesive gels that work underwater
The tomato-infused origins of the modern potato — plus, a specific group of stem cells that may help to drive osteoarthritis.
Research Highlight: Potato, tomato: the roots of the modern tater
Research Highlight: Ageing stem cells in the knees drive arthritis damage
By taking samples from over 150 trees in a forest in the US, researchers have revealed a previously unknown community of microorganisms living there. While the microbiomes of animals have been well explored, studies looking at the microbes living inside trees are limited. In this work the team show distinct populations of microbes living within different parts of a tree, and huge diversity in populations between trees. The team behind the work hope these findings will lead to a greater understanding of tree physiology and the role these microbes play in broader ecosystems.
Research Article: Arnold et al.
Back in April, the company Colossal Biosciences claimed to have de-extincted dire wolves, a large-bodied wolf species that once roamed North America. We discuss the science behind this technology, and the debates within the research community surrounding Colossal’s announcement.
News Feature: This company claimed to ‘de-extinct’ dire wolves. Then the fighting started.
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Researchers have dived down to more than 9,000 metres below the surface of the Pacific and discovered surprisingly complex communities of life living in deep ocean trenches. The new research shows an array of animal life that appears to be using methane as a source of energy. The researchers are planning more dives to learn more about this mysterious ecosystem and how these animals can thrive despite the extreme pressure they face.
Research Article: Peng et al
A fossilized leg bone reveals an 11-million-year-old fight between a terror bird and a caiman, plus the anti-ageing secret of ‘immortal’ stars.
Research Highlight: Rumble in the Miocene: terror bird versus caiman
Research Highlight: ‘Immortal’ stars have an elixir of youth: dark matter
New research reveals that infection by a respiratory virus has the potential to awaken dormant cancer cells. In mice studies, a team showed that inflammation caused by infection with influenza or SARS-CoV-2 could initiate the awakening of breast cancer cells that had metastasized to the lungs. Observational studies using human health data also showed that a COVID-19 infection was associated with increased risk of lung metastasis and cancer death. While the precise mechanisms are unknown, the team say that understanding the process could help mitigate any risks of cancer progression caused by a viral infection.
Research Article: Chia et al.
News and Views: Inflammation during viral infection can rouse dormant cancer cells
A survey of more than 1,100 physicists has revealed that there are widely different interpretations of what quantum mechanics means for our understanding or reality. Reporter Lizzie Gibney takes us through the different ideas physicists have and asks if such disagreements even matter.
Nature: Physicists disagree wildly on what quantum mechanics says about reality, Nature survey shows
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A new study suggests that gold can be superheated far beyond its melting point without it becoming a liquid. Using an intense burst from a laser, a team heated a gold foil to 14 times its melting point, far beyond a theoretical limit put forward in previous studies. The team suggest that the speed at which they heated the gold allowed them to shoot past this limit, but there is scepticism about whether the team actually achieved the level of heating they report.
Research Article: White et al.
News and Views: Solid gold superheated to 14 times its melting temperature
How island life led to huge wingspans for flying foxes, and how a sugary diet ‘rewires’ a mouse’s brain.
Research Highlight: How the world’s biggest bats got their enormous wingspans
Research Highlight: How sugar overload in early life affects the brain later
With increasing political polarisation and more nuclear-armed nations, researchers are warning about the threat of nuclear war. Reporter Alex Witze has been speaking to scientists, and she told us about their chief concerns and how to avoid a conflict in an era of AI and misinformation.
News Feature: How to avoid nuclear war in an era of AI and misinformation
What a new AI model from China means for science, and why some dolphins use sponges to hunt.
Nature: ‘Another DeepSeek moment’: Chinese AI model Kimi K2 stirs excitement
Associated Press: Some Australian dolphins use sponges to hunt fish, but it’s harder than it looks
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A simple methodological error meant that for years researchers considered drinking moderate amounts of alcohol to be healthy. Now plenty of evidence suggests that isn't the case, but errors like this still plague the scientific literature. So, how can the scientific literature become more error-free?
In the first episode of this two-part series, to determine what steps can be taken to help clean up science we explore peer review, replications, AI and even paying people to detect errors.
This episode was written and produced by Nick Petrić Howe. Dan Fox was the editor. The Swiss horn music came from DangerLaef on Freesound. All other sound effects and music were provided by Triple Scoop Music.
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In this episode:
The extinct marine mega-predator Temnodontosaurus had specialised adaptations to stealthily hunt its prey, suggests an analysis of a fossil flipper. Although Temnodontosaurus was a member of a well-studied group of marine reptiles called ichthyosaurs, its lifestyle has been a mystery due to a lack of preserved soft tissue. Now, a team have studied the fossil remains of a fore-fin, revealing several anatomical details that likely reduced low-frequency noise as the animal swam. It’s thought that these adaptations helped Temnodontosaurus stalk other ichthyosaurs and squid-like creatures that made up its prey.
Research Article: Lindgren et al.
Research shows that future space probes could navigate using two stars as reference points, and how objects are more memorable when people encounter them while feeling positive emotions.
Research Highlight: Lonely spacecraft can navigate the stars
Research Highlight: Memory gets a boost from positive emotion
Cumulative damage to mitochondria during waking hours could be a key driver for the need to sleep, according to new research. In fruit fly experiments, a team showed that being awake caused damage to mitochondria found in a specific set of neurons. Once this damage reaches a threshold it kicks off a process that ultimately leads to sleep. Although it’s unclear if this process occurs in humans, the researchers think this need for sleep may be an ancient process that coincided with the evolution of organisms with power-hungry nervous systems.
Research Article: Sarnataro et al.
Researchers have been sneaking text into their papers designed to trick AI tools into giving them a positive peer-review report. Multiple instances of these prompts have been found, which are typically hidden using white text or an extremely small font invisible to humans. We discuss the rise in this practice and what is being done to tackle it.
Video: Could hidden AI prompts game peer review?
Nature: Scientists hide messages in papers to game AI peer review
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Vianet Djenguet is an award-winning wildlife film-maker and camera operator whose work has featured in a number of major nature documentaries.
In this podcast, Vianet joins us to talk about his career, how wildlife film-making have changed, and his experiences working with local researchers to capture footage of endangered animals on the new television series The Wild Ones.
The Wild Ones Apple TV+ (2025)
Music supplied by SPD/Triple Scoop Music/Getty Images
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Ancient DNA evidence shows that the advent of agriculture led to more infectious disease among humans, with pathogens from animals only showing up 6,500 years ago. The DNA, extracted from human teeth, shows the history of diseases present in Eurasia over tens of thousands of years. The approach used could be a powerful way to understand how illness has shaped humanity, but it is unable to detect some bacteria that enter the bloodstream at low concentrations or some viruses, so future work could seek to fill that gap.
Research Article: Sikora et al.
News: Animal diseases leapt to humans when we started keeping livestock
DNA studies confirm that sardines were a major ingredient of the Roman Empire’s favourite fish sauce, and how analysis of animal manure identified global hotspots for antibiotic-resistance genes.
Research Highlight: Ancient DNA helps trace stinky Roman fish sauce to its source
Research Highlight: Poo of farm animals teems with drug-resistance genes
A 19-year experiment sampling bowhead whale faeces reveals a link between warming Arctic waters and increasing levels of toxic algae, researchers say. While climate change is expected to drive increases in the prevalence of harmful algal blooms, long-term data is lacking. To address this, a team worked with indigenous communities to collect and sample whale poo, showing that increases in algal toxins in the Arctic food chain are linked to rising ocean temperatures. The researchers suggest levels of these toxins need to be closely monitored to protect Arctic communities that depend on marine resources for food.
Research Article: Lefebvre et al.
An object from beyond our solar system has been spotted zipping past Jupiter, and evidence that Neanderthals created ‘fat factories’ to extract vital nutrients from animal bones.
Nature: Neanderthals boiled bones in ‘fat factories’ to enrich their lean diet
Nature: Rare find: interstellar visitor seen blazing through our Solar System
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Questions and doubts about vaccines are on the rise worldwide and public-health specialists worry that these trends could worsen. But while the shift in public attitudes towards immunizations can leave scientists, physicians and many others feeling disheartened, a surge of research on vaccine hesitancy is starting to offer ways to address the issue.
This is an audio version of our Feature How to speak to a vaccine sceptic: research reveals what works
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