Nature: How the classic computer game Doom became a tool for science

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A study reveals how the asexual Amazon molly defies evolutionary expectations ? plus, evidence of what may be powering superluminous supernovae.

In this episode:

Research Article: Ricemeyer et al.

News and Views: How an all-female fish species defies evolutionary expectations

Nature: ???????Jam-packed star system is most compact of its kind ever found

Nature: ???????Peanut-processing microbes ward off dangerous allergic shock

Research Article : ???????Farah et al.

News and Views: ???????Ultra-bright supernova wobbles like a spinning top

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In this episode:

New Scientist: Paediatricians? blood used to make new treatments for RSV and colds

Science: Galileo?s handwritten notes found in ancient astronomy text

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Injectable fluid safely fills area in which blood clots can form, in animal trials ? plus, strong evidence that an elusive form of diamond has been made in the lab.

Research Article : Wang et al.

News and Views: Magnetic fluid offers better seal in heart-plugging medical procedure

Video: Magnetic gel injected into the heart could stop strokes

Nature: Sewage systems secretly waft pollution into the air

Nature: This ant species is composed of only queens ? no workers or males

Research Article: Lai et al.

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This is an audio version of our Feature: Many people have no mental imagery. What?s going on in their brains?

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In this episode:

00:15 How Pokémon inspired fields as diverse as evolution, biodiversity and research integrity

Nature: Pokémon turns 30 ? how the fictional pocket monsters shaped science

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High-speed footage reveals shoe squeaks can start with a tiny bolt of lightning ? plus, evidence that a debated brain phenomenon exists in humans.

Research Article : Djellouli et al.

Basketball sound effects via Bradley Kanaris/Getty.

Nature: Runaway black hole leaves a trail of stars

Nature: Super-sticky feet help a robot to climb the walls

Research Article: Disouky et al.

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Nature: Brain differences between sexes get more pronounced from puberty

Science: How do busy bees avoid overheating from flying?

Video: Birds gliding through bubbles reveal aerodynamic trick

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Nature: Microsoft Research Project Silica Team

Nature: Microsoft team creates 'revolutionary' data storage system that lasts for millennia

Nature: Parasitic wasps use tamed virus to castrate caterpillars

Nature: Flexible joints: robot morphs into a range of cyborg species

Nature: Sahin et al.

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In this episode:

Nature: Coffee linked to slower brain ageing in study of 130,000 people

Scientific American: Rules of mysterious ancient Roman board game decoded by AI

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In this episode:

Nature: Cho et al.

Nature: Beetle is locked into an eternal dance ? with an ant

Nature: Super-sniffer aeroplane finds oil fields? hidden emissions

Nature: Olalde et al.

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In this episode:

Nature: 48 hours without lungs: artificial organ kept man alive until transplant

Nature: How tumours trick the brain into shutting down cancer-fighting cells

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Nature: Thompson et al.

Nature: Genetically engineered ?stinkweed? comes up roses for making seed oil

Nature: Largest galaxy survey yet confirms that the Universe is not clumpy enough

Nature: Asai et al.

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In this episode:

Nature: Still working at 107: supercentenarian study probes genetics of extreme longevity

Nature: ?Remote controlled? proteins illuminate living cells

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Nature: Touponse et al.

Nature: Disappearing ?planet? reveals a solar system?s turbulent times

Nature: Getting to the (square) root of stock-market swings

Nature: Symons et? al.

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In this episode:

Nature: Sending babies to nursery completely reshapes their microbiome

Science: No bull: This Austrian cow has learned to use tools

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Nature: Pedalino et al.

News: Schrödinger's cat just got bigger: quantum physicists create largest ever 'superposition'

Nature: Ancient pottery reveals early evidence of mathematical thinking

Nature: Gifted dogs learn new words by overhearing humans

Nature: US science after a year of Trump

Nature: US science in 2026: five themes that will dominate Trump?s second year

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In this episode:

Nature: NASA won?t bring Mars samples back to Earth: this is the science that will be lost

Nature: Do their ears hang low? The genetics of dogs? adorable floppy ears

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In this episode:

Research article: Hao et al.

Nature: Ancient ?snowball? Earth had frigidly briny seas

Nature: Putting immune cells into ?night mode? reduces heart-attack damage

Nature: Rusakov et al.

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Researchers have shown that they can piggyback a signal on a 4,400-kilometer-long telecom cable that runs from California to Hawaii, allowing it to act like 44,000 separate seismic-activity detectors. Their method takes advantage of impurities found in glass fibre-optic cables, which reflect light differently when they are stretched and distorted by the pressure of seismic waves.

Science: Seafloor telecom cable transformed into giant earthquake detector

Chemical analysis of the caulking found on the wood an ancient boat has helped researchers identify the origins of the vessel, that sank off the coast of Denmark 2,400 years ago. The team?s analysis suggests it voyaged from much farther away that had been thought ? perhaps coming from the Baltic Sea region. The team also found a fingerprint left in the caulk, although who it belonged to is unknown.

LiveScience: Fingerprint of ancient seaborne raider found on Scandinavia's oldest plank boat

Some plants called cycads (Zamia spp.) heat up to attract the beetles that pollinate them. These beetles have heat-seeking sensors in their antennae, which they use locate the plants. Male cycads warm up around 3 hours before females, meaning that beetles head to them before first carrying pollen over to the females.

Science: Heat-seeking beetles drawn to plants that glow in infrared

The discovery of exoplanet PSR J2322-2650b reveals how unusual other worlds can be. This exoplanet takes just 7.8 hours to orbit an ultra-dense pulsar whose intense gravity pulls PSR J2322-2650b into a lemon shape.

New Scientist: Strange lemon-shaped exoplanet defies the rules of planet formation

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In this episode, reporter Miryam Naddaf joins us to talk about the big science events to look out for in 2026. We?ll hear about: small-scale AI models that could outcompete Large Language Models in reasoning, clinical trials of gene editing to treat rare human disorders, a sample collection mission from Phobos, and how changes to US policy by the Trump team are expected to impact science.

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Anecdotal stories suggesting that weight-loss drugs can help people shake long-standing addictions have been spreading fast in the past few years, through online forums, weight-loss clinics and news headlines. And now, clinical data are starting to back them up.

Over a dozen randomized clinical studies testing whether GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic can suppress addiction are now under way, and neuroscientists are working out how these weight-loss drugs act on brain regions that control craving, reward and motivation.

Scientists warn that the research is still in its early stages, but some researchers and physicians are excited, as no truly new class of addiction medicine has won approval from regulators in decades.

This is an audio version of our Feature: Will blockbuster obesity drugs revolutionize addiction treatment?

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Researchers have created a ?pangenome? containing the genomes of multiple potato types, something they believe can help make it easier to breed and sequence new varieties. The potato?s complicated genetics has made it difficult to sequence the plant?s genome, but improvements in technology have allowed the team to combine sequences, allowing them to look for subtle differences in between varieties.

Nature Podcast: 16 April 2025

Research Article: Sun et al.

According to legend, physicist Werner Heisenberg formulated the mathematics behind quantum mechanics in 1925 while on a restorative trip to the remote North Sea island of Heligoland.

To celebrate the centenary of this event, several hundred researchers have descended on the island to take part in a conference on all things quantum physics. Nature reporter Lizzie Gibney was also in attendance, and joined us to give an inside track on the meeting.

Nature Podcast: ???????13 June 2025

A minuscule robot that can manipulate liquid droplets, and the discovery of ancient puppets on the remains of a large pyramid offers a glimpse into rituals in Mesoamerica.

Research Highlight: This tiny robot moves mini-droplets with ease

Research Highlight: Ancient puppets that smile or scowl hint at shared rituals

Researchers have developed two compounds that can kill malaria-causing parasites within mosquitoes, an approach they hope could help reduce transmission of the disease. The team showed that these compounds can be embedded into the plastics used to make bed nets, providing an alternative to insecticide-based malaria-control measures, which are losing efficacy in the face of increased resistance.

Nature Podcast: ???????21 May 2025

Research article: ???????Probst et al.

The first skeletal evidence that Roman gladiators fought lions.

BBC News: Bites on gladiator bones prove combat with lion

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Nature: Asteroids, antibiotics and ants: a year of remarkable science

In this episode:

Samples taken from the asteroid Bennu by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft suggest the parent body it originated from is likely to have contained salty, subsurface water. This finding provides insights into the chemistry of the early Solar System, and suggests that brines might have been an important place where pre-biotic molecules were formed.

News & Views: Asteroid Bennu contains salts from ancient brine

Nature Podcast: Asteroid Bennu contains building blocks of life

Cells are often grouped into categories according to the RNA molecules they produce. However a study of zebrafish (Danio rerio) brains revealed that cells can be functionally diverse even if they appear molecularly similar. This finding adds more nuance to how a cell's ?type? is ultimately defined.

News & Views: Does a cell?s gene expression always reflect its function?

An assessment of death rates in India?s coastal megacity of Mumbai revealed that the impact of extreme rainfall events will be highest for women, young children and residents of informal settlements. This situation is likely to become more pronounced as a result of climate change.

News & Views: Extreme rainfall poses the biggest risk to Mumbai?s most vulnerable people

Inspired by animals like barnacles and aided by machine learning, researchers have developed a super-sticky compound that works as an underwater adhesive. To demonstrate its properties, researchers applied it to a rubber duck, which stuck firmly to a rock on a beach despite being battered by the sea.

News & Views: AI learns from nature to design super-adhesive gels that work underwater

Nature Podcast: Underwater glue shows its sticking power in rubber duck test

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Nature put a call out for readers to tell us about memorable presents that first got them interested in science, or mementos of their life in research. These include telescopes, yeast-themed wedding rings, and... cows? eyes.

Nature: The gift that shaped my career in science

In the first of our annual festive songs celebrating the science of the past year, we tell the story of a diminutive dinosaur that turned out to be its own species.

Nature Podcast: Meet the ?Wee-rex?. Tiny tyrannosaur is its own species

Nature Video: Hotly debated dinosaur is not a tiny T. rex after all

An all-star cast competes for the glory or being the winner of the Nature Podcast?s 2025 festive quiz.

Nature: Meet the ?Wee-rex?. Tiny tyrannosaur is its own species

Nature: This company claimed to ?de-extinct? dire wolves. Then the fighting started

Nature Podcast: 3D-printed fake wasps help explain bad animal mimicry

Nature Video: ?Aqua tweezers? manipulate particles with water waves

Nature Podcast: Sapphire anvils squeeze metals atomically-thin

Nature Video: Vesuvius volcano turned this brain to glass

Nature Podcast: Ancient viral DNA helps human embryos develop

Nature Video: Magnetic fibres give this robot a soft grip

Nature: These contact lenses give people infrared vision ? even with their eyes shut

Nature Video: Is this really the world's largest mirror? Researchers put it to the test

Nature Podcast: World?s tiniest pacemaker could revolutionize heart surgery

Nature Podcast: Earth?s deepest ecosystem discovered six miles below the sea

Nature Podcast: Nature goes inside the world?s largest ?mosquito factory? ? here?s the buzz

Nature Podcast: Apocalypse then: how cataclysms shaped human societies

Nature Podcast: Honey, I ate the kids: how hunger and hormones make mice aggressive

Our second festive song is an ode to a rubber duck that was stuck to a rock, thanks to a newly designed, super-adhesive hydrogel.

Nature Podcast: Underwater glue shows its sticking power in rubber duck test

Nature Video: Why did researchers stick a duck to a rock? To show off their super glue

Each year, Nature?s 10 highlights some of the people who have helped shape science over the past 12 months. We hear about a few of the people who made the 2025 list, including: a civil servant who stood up for evidence-based public-health policy; the science sleuth who revealed a retraction crisis at Indian universities; and the baby whose life was saved by the first personalized CRISPR therapy.

Nature: Nature?s 10

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Baked soil, ancient tools, and materials that could be used to start fires show that Neanderthals were making fire in the UK 400,000 years ago ? the earliest evidence of this skill found so far. Ancient humans are known to have used naturally occurring fires, but evidence of deliberate fire-starting has been hard to come by. A new suite of evidence pushes back the date of fire mastery by 350,000 years. The team behind the finding believe it helps create a more nuanced picture of Neanderthals, who perhaps gathered round fires and told stories in ancient Europe. 

Research Article: Davis et al.

News and Views: Oldest known evidence of the controlled ignition of fire

Machine-learning algorithms can help to identify traces of life in ancient rocks ? plus, why paintings containing a vivid green pigment lose their lustre over time. 

Research Highlight: AI finds signs of life in ancient rocks

Research Highlight: The mystery of emerald green ? cracked

Research suggests that artificial-intelligence chatbots can influence voters? political views and have a bigger effect than conventional campaigning and advertising. One study found that chatbot conversations swung participants? candidate preferences by up to 15 percentage points, while another revealed that the chatbots? effectiveness stems from their ability to synthesize a lot of information in a conversational way.  

Nature: AI chatbots can sway voters with remarkable ease ? is it time to worry? 

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The ability of space-based telescopes to image the distant Universe could be in peril, according to new research investigating the impacts of light-pollution from future satellites. Streaks of reflected light from satellites currently in low-Earth orbit are already seen in telescope images, and planned launches could raise the number of satellites from around 15,000 to over half-a-million. Computer modelling revealed that this drastic increase would result in images taken by instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope becoming unusable by astronomers. The team propose a series of strategies to help mitigate these impacts, preventing this future becoming reality.

Research Article: Borlaff et al.

Nature: Satellite swarms set to photobomb more than 95% of some telescopes? images

How researchers have sped up the trapping of antimatter atoms ? plus, how hydrogen fuel emission benefits vary considerably from sector to sector.

Research Highlight: Laser cooling traps more antimatter atoms than ever before

Research Highlight: Hydrogen fuel isn?t always the green choice

Glitches in video calls are an annoying feature of everyday life, but these brief interruptions could have serious real-world impacts, according to analysis from a team of researchers. In one experiment, the team found that video calls with glitches decreased the likelihood of someone being hired for a job. Analysis of other data suggested glitchy calls were associated with lower chances of individuals being granted parole. The team behind the work think that these visual errors break the illusion that a video call is a real face-to-face conversation, potentially impairing judgements about the quality of the information discussed.

Research article: Brucks et al.

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CRISPR-based gene editing has revolutionized modern biology, but these tools are unable to access the DNA that resides inside mitochondria. Researchers are eager to access and edit this DNA to understand more about the energy production and the mutations that can cause incurable mitochondrial diseases.

Because CRISPR can?t help with these problems, researchers have been looking for other ways to precisely edit the mitochrondrial genome. And the past few years have brought some success ? if researchers can make editing safe and accurate enough, it could eventually be used to treat, and even cure, these genetic conditions.

This is an audio version of our Feature: Faulty mitochondria cause deadly diseases ? fixing them is about to get a lot easier

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The sounds of ?micro-lightning? have been recorded by NASA?s Perseverance rover, ending a long search for the phenomenon on Mars. A lack of suitable equipment has made it difficult to gather evidence of lightning on the red planet, but a team of researchers realized that a microphone on Perseverance should be able to pick up the characteristic sounds of electrical discharges. In total they found 55 such examples, along with signs of electrostatic interference indicative of the phenomenon. They dubbed the electric bursts ?micro-lightning?, as they are far smaller than the lighting seen on Earth, due to the thin Martian atmosphere. The team believe this finding could help better understand Martian chemistry and how best to design equipment to explore the planet?s surface.

Research Article: Chide et al.

News and Views: Is there lightning on Mars?

How the biology of male seahorses? brood pouches appears similar to mammalian pregnancy? plus, why Neanderthals? jaws were so beefy.

Research Highlight: The origin of male seahorses? brood pouch

Research Highlight: Neanderthal DNA reveals how human faces form

The UN?s climate conference, COP30, came to a close last week in Brazil. Nature reporter Jeff Tollefson tells us what was and wasn?t agreed during the final negotiations.

Nature: What happened at COP30? 4 science take-homes from the climate summit

A new analysis suggests that female authors retract fewer medical science papers than their male counterparts. Women are known to be underrepresented in the medical sciences, but even accounting for this an AI-tool revealed that female authors featured on far fewer retracted research articles. Reporter Jenna Ahart has been investigating and told us why this might be, and what it means for research more broadly.

Nature: Women seem to retract fewer papers than men ? but why?

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Researchers have developed a skin-permeable polymer that can deliver insulin into the body, which they say could one day offer an alternative to injections for diabetes management. The skin?s structure presents a formidable barrier to the delivery of large drugs but in this work a team show that their polymer can penetrate though the different layers without causing damage. Insulin attached to this polymer was able to reduce blood glucose levels in animal models for diabetes at a comparable speed to injected insulin. While further research is required on the long-term safety of this strategy, the team hope it could offer a way to non-invasively deliver other large-molecule drugs into the body.

Research Article: Wei et al.

How extreme drought may be humanity?s biggest challenge after a huge volcanic eruption ? plus, turning a bacterium into a factory for a colour-changing pigment

Research Highlight: Volcano mega-eruptions lead to parched times

Research Highlight: Dye or die: bacterium forced to make pigment to stay alive

The human brain responds in a similar way to both familiar and unfamiliar languages, but there are some key differences, according to new research ? a finding that may explain why learning a language can be difficult. A study looking involving 34 people showed that listening to an unfamiliar language triggers similar neural activity to listening to their native tongue. The finding implies that human speech triggers a common reaction in the brain regardless of understanding. However, there were subtle differences when listening to a known language that may help explain how people actually understand words.

Research Article: Bhaya-Grossman et al.

Neuron: Zhang et al

Sounds used under CC BY 4.0

Signs that greenhouse-gas emissions may peak around 2030 ? plus, evidence of dog breeding by ancient humans.

Nature: Global greenhouse-gas emissions are still rising: when will they peak?

Nature: How ancient humans bred and traded the first domestic dogs

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Yoshua Bengio, considered by many to be one of the godfathers of AI, has long been at the forefront of machine-learning research . However, his opinions on the technology have shifted in recent years ? he joins us to talk about ways to address the risks posed by AI, and his efforts to develop an AI with safety built in from the start. 

Nature: ?It keeps me awake at night?: machine-learning pioneer on AI?s threat to humanity

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Researchers have detected what they say is the strongest evidence yet of a coronal mass ejection (CME) coming from a star other than our Sun. CMEs are massive bursts of fast-moving plasma that can be detected thanks to the characteristic radio signal they produce. However, despite decades of searching, these signals have only been identified from the Sun. Now a team has identified a similar signal coming from a distant star in the Milky Way. They hope their discovery will lead to better understanding of the impact these colossal events might have on the atmospheres of exoplanets, and their chances of being habitable.

Research Article: Callingham et al.

Video footage of a devastating earthquake provides a first-of-its-kind glimpse of a dramatic ground rupture ? plus, a flock of comets seen outside our Solar System.

Research Highlight: Single video camera tells the story of deadly Myanmar quake

Research Highlight: A host of ?exocomets? swarms a distant star

Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a condition that affects around 1 in 20 young people, but its underlying causes are not fully understood. Now, a team of researchers show that three rare genetic variants are implicated in an increased risk of ADHD, which may play a role in the neurons involved in dopamine signalling. While this work provides a better understanding of the complex genetics at play, the authors caution more research is needed to unpick the complex interplay other factors involved in ADHD.

Research Article: Demontis et al.

A high-resolution digital map for Roman roads, and how speaking more than one language could slow brain ageing.

Nature: ?Google Maps? for Roman roads reveals vast extent of ancient network

Nature: Want a younger brain? Learn another language

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A hotly debated species of dinosaur, assumed by many to be a juvenile T. rex, is actually a separate species, according to new research. Nanotyrannus was a dinosaur anatomically similar to T. rex, but about a tenth of the size, leading many to argue it was a young version of the iconic species. However, examination of the limb bones of a well-preserved Nanotyrannus fossil suggests it was close to finishing its growth and so would never become as large as a T. rex, leading the authors to argue that it is, in fact, a different species.

Research Article: Zanno and Napoli

News and Views: T. rex debate settled: contested fossils are smaller rival species, not juveniles

News: ?Teenage T. rex? fossil is actually a different species

Video: Hotly debated dinosaur is not a tiny T. rex after all

An artificial ?neuron? could pave the way to build a brain-inspired computer ? plus, how bats buck the trend by hunting prey their own size.

Research Highlight: Artificial brains with less drain

Research Highlight: By the time you hear these bats, it?s too late

An ?anti-hormone? therapy has shown promise in halting the onset of hallmarks associated with breast cancer, in a small trial. Breast cancer is a leading cause of death in women worldwide, but preventative measures, such as mastectomies, are invasive. A new study examined the efficacy of a treatment that blocks progesterone, a hormone thought to play an important role in breast cancer progression. The therapy reduced both specific clinical markers of breast cancer and the number of cells that can become cancerous. Larger, longer trials are needed to show that this treatment could ultimately become part of a breast cancer prevention strategy, but the team think that this work shows the promise of this approach.

Research Article: Simões et al.

A new approach to speed up CRIPSR therapies reaching clinical trials, and how vocal cords could be healed using a tiny 3D printer.

Nature: Personalized gene editing helped one baby: can it be rolled out widely?

Nature: World?s smallest 3D bioprinter could rebuild tissue during surgery

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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 might 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 because of the risk that one of its variants may evolve to cause a pandemic. But because there are multiple variants of these viruses, it has been hard to pre-prepare vaccines. Now, a team has used information on how H5 viruses changed over time to design a vaccine that in animal studies provided protection against different H5 variants. They hope their approach could be applied to create stockpiles of a vaccine that could be used in the event of a pandemic, regardless of the variant 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 Petri? 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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