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Researchers have uncovered a protein that enhances DNA repair and may explain how bowhead whales can live more than 200 years. The protein, cold-induced RNA-binding protein, was shown to enhance repair of double stranded DNA breaks, a particularly troublesome kind of damage. The team showed that this protein could also extend the lives of Drosophila flies and enhance repair in human cells. More needs to be understood about how this protein works, but the researchers hope that it could, one day, help prevent cancer and ageing in humans.
Research Article: Firsanov et al.
News: This whale lives for centuries: its secret could help to extend human lifespan
A precise way to grow crystals, with lasers — plus, the specialist organ that allows stinkbugs to protect their eggs from wasps.
Research Highlight: How to grow crystals when and where you want them
Research Highlight: Stinkbug ‘ear’ actually hosts parasite-fighting fungi
Researchers have used ‘nanobodies’ to create an antivenom that works against 17 snake species’ venom. Snakebites kill millions each year, so getting the right antivenom can be life or death. But they are difficult to produce and often are very specific. Now, using nanobodies from llamas, researchers created an antivenom against a broad range of snake species’ venom. The new antivenom can now even be produced without the llamas, and the team hope it will pave the way for a more universal antivenom.
Research Article: Ahmadi et al.
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Advice on how to get good sleep is everywhere, with the market for sleep aids worth more than US$100 billion annually. However, scientists warn that online hacks and pricey tools aren’t always effective, and suggest that lessons learnt about the workings of a network of biological clocks found in the human body could ultimately lead to improved sleep.
This is an audio version of our Feature: How to get the best night’s sleep: what the science says
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Researchers have uncovered the neural mechanisms that underlie an aggressive behaviour in mice prompted by hunger and hormonal state. Virgin female mice can become aggressive towards mouse pups when they are food deprived, but it seems that the relevant amounts of pregnancy hormones, oestrogen and progesterone, also played a role. By investigating the neurons involved, neuroscientists showed how hunger and hormones are integrated by the brain to lead to aggressive behaviour. This could help researchers understand more about how multiple stimuli are interpreted by the brain, something much harder to study than single stimulus effects.
Research Article: Cao et al.
The overlooked environmental costs of wastewater treatment facilities — plus, an ancient communal hunting system that lasted well into the eighteenth century.
Research Highlight: Wastewater treatment produces surprising amounts of greenhouse gases
Research Highlight: Andean peoples hunted and gathered long after they embraced farming
Around the world, universities and students are scrambling to adapt to the use of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT. And while there is optimism that these tools could improve education, there are also concerns about the ways they could stifle independent, critical thought. We hear about the studies trying to unpick the potential impact of this new technology.
News Feature: Universities are embracing AI: will students get smarter or stop thinking?
A blood test for Alzheimer’s, and what should be the next ‘test’ for AI after the Turing test?
Nature: Blood tests are now approved for Alzheimer’s: how accurate are they?
Nature: AI language models killed the Turing test: do we even need a replacement?
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A vaccine capable of protecting against multiple strains of avian influenza virus may be a step closer, according to new research. The H5 subtype of avian influenza viruses has spilled over into mammals and is particularly concerning to researchers due to the risk of them evolving to cause another pandemic. But because there are multiple variants of these viruses, it has been hard to pre-prepare vaccines. Now, a team have used information on how these viruses evolved over time to design a vaccine that in animal studies provided protection against different H5 strains. They hope their approach could be applied to create stockpiles of vaccine that could be used in the event of a pandemic, regardless of the strain that causes it.
Research Article: Kok et al.
Making muon beams without a huge particle accelerator — plus, the bats hunting migrating birds in mid-air.
Research Highlight: Portable muon beam could accelerate archaeology scans
Research Highlight: European bats capture migrating birds and eat them on the wing
A new search engine that can sift through the staggering volumes of biological data, and the multiple failings revealed by an assessment of 25 years of carbon offsetting data.
Nature: ‘Google for DNA’ brings order to biology’s big data
The Guardian: Carbon offsets fail to cut global heating due to ‘intractable’ systemic problems, study says
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Stereotyped assumptions about women’s ages and their perceived job suitability are enhanced by Internet imagery, according to new research. A study of hundreds of thousands of online images shows that women appear younger than men. This stereotype extends to the jobs that people perceive women do, with men being associated with roles such as CEO or head of research, while women were linked to occupations like cook or nurse. The research shows that these biases have been embedded into the training data for AI models and could affect future hiring. The researchers caution that society is at risk of creating a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ where these stereotypes shape the real world.
Research Article: Guilbeault et al.
News and Views: Distorted representations of age and gender are reflected in AI models
A very hungry planet — plus, how climate change is leading to larger trees in the Amazon.
Research Highlight: ‘Rogue’ planet is fastest-growing ever observed
Research Highlight: Trees of the Amazon are becoming even mightier
Thirty years ago, astronomers announced the discovery of the first exoplanet around a Sun-like star, sparking a renewed passion into spotting these planets that lie beyond our Solar System. In celebration, Nature asked researchers to tell us about their favourites.
News: These alien planets are astronomers’ favourites: here’s why
Hear the music of a distant planetary system
Flora Graham from the Nature Briefing joins us to talk about the winners of this year’s science Nobel prizes.
Nature: Medicine Nobel goes to scientists who revealed secrets of immune system ‘regulation’
Nature: Groundbreaking quantum-tunnelling experiments win physics Nobel
Nature: Chemistry Nobel for scientists who developed massively porous ‘super sponge’ materials
Nature: Will AI ever win its own Nobel? Some predict a prize-worthy science discovery soon
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Research suggests that ancient viral-DNA embedded in the human genome is playing a key role in early embryo development. Around 8% of our genome consists of endogenous retrovirus DNA — the remnants of ancient infections, but knowledge of their activity is limited. Now, a team show that these sequences are required for the correct development of lab-derived embryo analogues, and for the switching on of human-specific genes.
Research Article: Fueyo et al.
News and Views: Ancient viral DNA in the human genome shapes early development
Longer whale mothers are more likely to give birth to daughters — plus, how the stink of the corpse flower waxes and wanes to attract pollinators.
Research Highlight: Big mother whales have more daughters than sons
Research Highlight: Corpse flowers waft out stinky compounds as fast as landfills do
Researchers have developed a way to use heat to recharge DNA-based computer circuits, which could help overcome one of the stumbling blocks preventing this technology from being scaled up. Although DNA strands have been used to perform computational tasks for some time, current methods can run out of energy or build up waste products, preventing their continued use. Now, using just heat a team have demonstrated a reuseable neural network based on DNA. They hope that ultimately this could be a step in the development of bigger and more powerful DNA computers that could be used to power targeted clinical therapies.
Research Article: Song & Qian
A one-time gene therapy for Huntington’s disease show promise at slowing the brain disorder’s progression — plus, how mitochondria throw out ‘tainted’ DNA.
Nature: Huntington’s disease treated for first time using gene therapy
Nature: Mitochondria expel tainted DNA — spurring age-related inflammation
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In April, Robert F. Kennedy Jr held a press conference about rising diagnoses of autism, and said he would soon be announcing a study to find the responsible agent. Although Kennedy said that environmental factors are the main cause of autism, research has shown that genetics plays a bigger part. Also, the rise in prevalence, many researchers say, is
predominantly caused by an increase in diagnoses rather than a true rise in the underlying symptoms and traits.
Although the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a US$50 million to fund studies on the causes of autism, many researchers were dismayed that these developments seemed to ignore decades of work on the well-documented rise in diagnoses and on causes of the developmental condition.
This is an audio version of our Feature: Autism is on the rise — what’s really behind the increase?
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Researchers have identified a key protein that helps tick-borne encephalitis virus enter the brain. In rare cases an infection can lead to serious neurological symptoms, but little was known about how the virus interacts with human cells. Now, a team show that a protein found on the outside of cells plays an important role in infection. In mouse experiments, they show that blocking the ability of the virus to bind to this protein protected the mice from disease. Currently no treatments exist, but the team hopes that this research will ultimately lead to a viable drug for this disease.
Research Article: Mittler et al.
The squirming robot that speeds up the insertion of an emergency breathing tube — plus, the 10,000-year-old remains that could be the oldest intentionally preserved mummies
Research Highlight: Soft robot steers itself down the human airway
Research Highlight: Smoke-dried mummies pre-date Egypt’s embalmed bodies
To assess the potential impact of cuts to funding by the Trump administration, Nature trained a machine-learning bot to try and reproduce the NIH’s method of cancelling grants and applied it to science that was successfully funded around ten years ago. This thought experiment shows that highly impactful science and medical research might have been at risk had a similar process been followed a decade ago, revealing the potentially broad-reaching consequences of these actions today.
Nature Index: What research might be lost after the NIH’s cuts? Nature trained a bot to find out
News: Are the Trump team’s actions affecting your research? How to contact Nature
What researchers understand about chatbot-induced psychosis, and the AI designed viruses capable of killing E. coli bacteria.
Nature: Can AI chatbots trigger psychosis? What the science says
Nature: World’s first AI-designed viruses a step towards AI-generated life
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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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