Research Highlight |
Featured
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News & Views |
100 years of synthetic fuels
The Fischer–Tropsch synthesis shaped history by providing a way of making liquid fuels from coal. It is now causing a stir again as a route to sustainable fuels.
- Ferdi Schüth
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Research Highlight |
A solar system is born
Astronomers have spotted a second planet taking shape from the material orbiting a young star — only the second such example known.
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News |
Artemis II mission is about to fly humans to the Moon — here’s the science they’ll do
Set to lift off this week, the NASA flight will take astronauts around the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Humanity is heading back to the Moon — why aren’t more scientists thrilled?
Some researchers remain underwhelmed by NASA’s upcoming lunar fly-by.
- Elizabeth Gibney
- & Davide Castelvecchi
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Nature Video |
Static electricity is a mystery but invisible carbon may be key
A thin layer of carbon on the surface of oxide grains changes how they exchange static charge.
- Shamini Bundell
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Technology Feature |
Inside the ‘self-driving’ lab revolution
AI-powered robotic tools are muscling in on tasks typically done by humans. What does the future hold?
- Rachel Brazil
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News |
Quantum simulations verified by experiments for the first time
Physicists cross-checked quantum computer predictions against experimental data about materials’ properties.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Obituary |
Anthony Leggett obituary: physicist who brought quantum theory to the macro world
The polymath also trained as a philosopher and won a Nobel prize for his theory of superfluids.
- Philip Stamp
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Research Briefing |
Redirecting current solves a shadowy problem faced by perovskite solar cells
Solar modules made from perovskite materials have a stability issue that arises when they are placed in partial shade. This long-standing problem has now been addressed by integrating an electronic component called a memristor into the solar cell.
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Review Article |
Towards intelligent and miniaturized drug delivery devices
Intelligent and miniaturized drug delivery devices leveraging advances in biotechnology, artificial intelligence, electronics and materials science enable treatments with increased precision and responsiveness, with applications in cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other diseases.
- Xinwei Wei
- , John B. Buse
- & Zhen Gu
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News & Views |
Long-distance quantum link generates entanglement faster than it is lost
Entanglement between ions connected by 10 kilometres of optical fibre is a step towards large-scale quantum communications networks.
- Ronald Hanson
- & Tracy Northup
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News & Views |
Pilot project paves way to storing CO2 underground as minerals in arid countries
Carbon dioxide has been turned into minerals in Earth’s subsurface using recirculating water flow — a viable way to sequester this greenhouse gas in water-scarce areas.
- Juliane Weber
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Article |
Superluminal correlations in ensembles of optical phase singularities
Ultrafast electron imaging shows full phase-space dynamics of optical singularities, which can reach superluminal velocities before annihilation and break the particle-like analogy of topological defects.
- T. Bucher
- , A. Gorlach
- & I. Kaminer
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News |
Major conference catches illicit AI use — and rejects hundreds of papers
The papers’ watermarks allowed organizers to detect use of large language models in peer review.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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Article |
Topological soliton frequency comb in nanophotonic lithium niobate
An integrated lithium niobate–semiconductor platform generates topological soliton frequency combs on-chip, enabling turn-key, dispersion-agnostic comb sources without high-Q resonators or complex stabilization.
- Nicolas Englebert
- , Robert M. Gray
- & Alireza Marandi
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Article |
A fast starburst wind consumes most of the energy from supernovae
Starburst galaxies are seen to host galaxy-scale winds, which are super-fast and could be powered entirely by the thermal pressure of gas heated by supernovae.
- Marc Audard
- , Hisamitsu Awaki
- & Evan Scannapieco
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Article |
Electrochemical corrosion accompanies dendrite growth in solid electrolytes
Operando birefringence microscopy measurements of the stresses around growing dendrites in solid electrolytes show that stresses decrease as current densities increase, revealing a linkage between electrochemical and mechanical stability that informs the design of solid-state batteries.
- Cole D. Fincher
- , Colin Gilgenbach
- & Yet-Ming Chiang
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Article
| Open Access
Towards end-to-end automation of AI research
An artificial intelligence system can produce research papers with minimal human involvement, even passing the first round of peer review for the workshop of a main machine learning conference.
- Chris Lu
- , Cong Lu
- & Jeff Clune
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Article
| Open Access
Structural basis of supercoiling-induced CRISPR–Cas9 off-target activity
Cas9 structures explain topology sensing and off-target activation.
- Quentin M. Smith
- , Sylvia Whittle
- & David S. Rueda
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Article
| Open Access
CO2 subsurface mineral storage by its co-injection with recirculating water
An industrial-scale pilot project using co-injection of recirculated water for subsurface CO2 mineralization shows promise as a pathway for carbon sequestration in regions with limited access to water resources.
- Eric H. Oelkers
- , Serguey Arkadakskiy
- & Hussein Hoteit
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Article
| Open Access
Disequilibrium response to tapping crustal magma reveals storage conditions
Magma drilling data from Krafla volcano, Iceland, are used to reconstruct in situ lithostatic magmatic conditions using disequilibrium simulations that provide a method for improving the understanding of magma storage conditions and evolution.
- Janine Birnbaum
- , Fabian B. Wadsworth
- & Yan Lavallée
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News |
Antimatter has been transported for the first time ever — in the back of CERN’s truck
Physicists have succeeded for the first time in transporting the most expensive and most volatile substance on Earth: antimatter.
- Elizabeth Gibney
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World View |
How the war in Iran is reshaping the energy landscape
As prices surge and governments scramble to respond, the crisis underscores an urgent need to rethink energy security.
- Aisha Al-Sarihi
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News |
These medical X-rays are all deepfakes — and they fool even radiologists
Radiologists and large language models alike have a hard time picking out real medical images from fake ones.
- Jenna Ahart
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Technology Feature |
Drowning in data sets? Here’s how to cut them down to size
Indefinite data retention is neither financially nor practically possible, but there are ways to give your data maximal long-term value.
- Sarah Wild
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News |
The world just lived through the 11 hottest years on record — what now?
Measurements of Earth’s energy input and output reveals that the planet is more out of balance than ever before.
- Rachel Fieldhouse
- & Mohana Basu
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Research Highlight |
Mighty mini-magnet is low in cost and light on energy use
A compact device can produce a magnetic field that is more than 800,000 times stronger than Earth’s.
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News |
Elusive ‘nuclear clocks’ tick closer to reality — after decades in the making
Super-precise timekeepers based on atomic nuclei could be tested as soon as this year.
- Dan Garisto
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News |
UK bets big on homegrown fusion and quantum — can it lead the world?
UK government announces multibillion-pound science investments — but what impact will this have on the global race in these fields?
- David Adam
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Where I Work |
A breath of fresh air: solving Ulaanbaatar’s pollution issues — in photos
Mongolia’s capital is among the world’s most toxic cities. One aspirational ex-physicist is clearing the air.
- Dave Tacon
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News |
Mathematician who reshaped number theory wins prestigious Abel prize
Gerd Faltings showed that a subset of arithmetic equations have a finite number of solutions.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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News |
Major Turing computing award goes to quantum science for first time
Turing Award winners Gilles Brassard and Charles Bennett pioneered ideas that are now foundational to quantum computers and quantum communications.
- Davide Castelvecchi
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Editorial |
Leading the charge to explain static electricity
There’s a shocking lack of understanding of the physics underlying this commonplace phenomenon, but researchers are on the case.
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News Feature |
Static electricity is a big mystery — a jolt of fresh research could help to solve it
The familiar phenomenon has puzzled researchers for centuries, but experiments are finally making sense of its unruly behaviours.
- Jenna Ahart
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News & Views |
Hair-raising: how carbon contamination can drive static charging
Objects made from the same insulator can sometimes acquire different charges when rubbed together, owing to a thin layer of carbon-based material on the object’s surface.
- Simone Ciampi
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Article |
Bistable superlattice switching in a quantum spin Hall insulator
Bistable superlattice switching between two lattice configurations with sharply contrasting periodicities has been observed in monolayer TaIrTe4, a dual quantum spin Hall insulator.
- Jian Tang
- , Thomas Siyuan Ding
- & Qiong Ma
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Comment |
Affordable mobility for all: why we need smaller, cheaper electric vehicles
A cross between e-bikes and electric cars, low-speed electric vehicles are easier to build and run and are greener than larger alternatives.
- Linni Jian
- , Yunwang Chen
- & Ching-chuen Chan
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Article |
Observation of self-bound droplets of ultracold dipolar molecules
Self-bound droplets and droplet arrays are observed in an ultracold gas of strongly dipolar sodium–caesium molecules, establishing ultracold molecules as a system for the exploration of strongly dipolar quantum matter.
- Siwei Zhang
- , Weijun Yuan
- & Sebastian Will
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Research Briefing |
Mystery of how plants make a family of medicinal molecules has been solved
The cinchona alkaloids are a family of plant-derived compounds that include quinine, an antimalarial drug also used as the bittering ingredient in tonic water. The biosynthetic pathway in Cinchona plants that produces the scaffold for these important molecules has been mapped.
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Article |
Integrated memristor for mitigating reverse-bias in perovskite solar cells
A memristor integrated into perovskite photovoltaics aims to mitigate the issues seen with reverse-bias degradation under partial shading.
- Mahdi Mohammadi
- , Fuxiang Ji
- & Wolfgang Tress
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Article |
Magnetic resonance control of spin-correlated radical pair dynamics in vivo
Magnetic resonance control of spin-correlated radical pairs alters red fluorescent protein emission in transgenic Caenorhabditis elegans, demonstrating in vivo magnetic field modulation of biomolecular processes.
- Shaun C. Burd
- , Nahal Bagheri
- & Mark Kasevich
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Article |
Integrated photonic neural network with on-chip backpropagation training
An integrated photonic deep neural network was trained end-to-end with on-chip gradient-descent backpropagation, and all linear and nonlinear computations were performed on a single photonic chip, resulting in a reliable performance despite on-chip errors and variations.
- Farshid Ashtiani
- , Mohamad Hossein Idjadi
- & Kwangwoong Kim
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Article
| Open Access
Adventitious carbon breaks symmetry in oxide contact electrification
By measuring charge exchange in a sphere/plate pair composed of identical amorphous silicon dioxide and controlling charging polarity using baking or plasma treatment, adventitious carbon is shown to break symmetry in oxide contact electrification.
- Galien Grosjean
- , Markus Ostermann
- & Scott R. Waitukaitis
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Article |
Triple-junction solar cells with improved carrier and photon management
- Kerem Artuk
- , Deniz Turkay
- & Christian M. Wolff
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Article |
Planar Li deposition and dissolution enable practical anode-free pouch cells
- Lei Liu
- , Yuxuan Xiang
- & Jianhui Wang
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World View |
AI is programmed to hijack human empathy — we must resist that
As artificial intelligence begins to mimic consciousness with uncanny skill, we need design norms and laws that prevent it from being mistaken for sentient beings.
- Mustafa Suleyman
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Research Highlight |
Polymers with purpose: molecules can squirm free of the pack
Tightly packed molecular chains can start to wiggle in many directions when an enzyme introduces energy.
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Nature Podcast |
Briefing chat: ‘Can it run Doom?’ — why scientists got brain cells and a satellite to play the classic game
Nature staff discuss some of the week's top science news.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Rachel Fieldhouse
These advanced solar cells have an antique source: old bullets