Scientists are listening in on the ways viruses communicate and cooperate. Decoding what the microbes are saying could be a boon to human health. | Continue reading
Hints of a previously unknown, primordial form of the substance could explain why the cosmos now seems to be expanding faster than theory predicts. | Continue reading
Little is known about how human parental relatedness varied across ancient populations. Runs of homozygosity (ROH) in the offspring’s genome can give clues. Here, the authors present a method to identify ROH in ancient genomes and infer low rates of close kin unions across most a … | Continue reading
Massive UK study of COVID-19 cases shows that people who are jabbed have good immunity at first, but quickly become more vulnerable to the fast-spreading Delta variant. | Continue reading
If China’s experimental reactor is a success it could lead to commercialization and help the nation meet its climate goals. | Continue reading
This Review summarizes the current knowledge on key viral mutations and variants and looks to the next phase of pandemic surveillance with a focus on genotype-to-phenotype characterization. | Continue reading
Make science more reliable by placing the burden of replicability on the community, not on individual laboratories. | Continue reading
Aquatic foods have been neglected by researchers and policymakers. It’s time to recognize them. | Continue reading
The newly formed government organization tackled 46 research-fraud investigations in 2020 — three times as many as expected. | Continue reading
Data should be a means to knowledge, not an end in themselves. | Continue reading
Hundreds of scientists had worked on mRNA vaccines for decades before the coronavirus pandemic brought a breakthrough. | Continue reading
Using a large dataset of workers’ technology use from before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, Yang et al. find that firm-wide remote work caused the collaboration networks of information workers to become more static and siloed and communication to shift to more asynchronous medi … | Continue reading
Despite their ubiquitous nature across a wide range of creative domains, it remains unclear if there is any regularity underlying the beginning of successful periods in a career. Here, the authors develop computational methods to trace the career outputs of artists, film director … | Continue reading
A global energy system model finds that planned fossil fuel extraction is inconsistent with limiting global warming to 1.5 °C, because the majority of fossil fuel reserves must stay in the ground. | Continue reading
Intricate color patterns are a defining aspect of morphological diversity in the Felidae. Here the authors apply morphological and single-cell gene expression analysis to fetal skin of domestic cats to identify when, where, and how, during fetal development, felid color patterns … | Continue reading
NASA’s Perseverance rover lives up to its name, drilling and storing Martian rock after a misstep in August. | Continue reading
Personal carbon allowances (PCAs) could support climate mitigation efforts but would need to be carefully designed to avoid impacts on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This Perspective discusses why the time is ripe for reconsidering PCAs and provides a set of SDG-based desi … | Continue reading
I’ve written many recommendations for myself, but a simpler process would be better for science, writes Juan Manuel Parrilla Gutierrez. | Continue reading
Search engines that highlight key papers are keeping scientists up to date. | Continue reading
Geology and climate affect speciation. A combination of path analysis applied to palaeo-reconstructions of mammals and birds with analysis of palaeoclimatic data shows that uplift over the last 3 million years explains more spatial variation in speciation than the direct effects … | Continue reading
Hear the biggest stories from the world of science | 18 August 2021 | Continue reading
The ZyCoV-D vaccine heralds a wave of DNA vaccines for various diseases that are undergoing clinical trials around the world. | Continue reading
The self-targeting antibodies attack type 1 interferons that play a key role in fighting infection. | Continue reading
Racist ideas of categories for human identity continue to warp research and medicine. | Continue reading
Intelligence investigation is inconclusive on virus’s origins, but finds SARS-CoV-2 wasn’t weaponized and unlikely to have been engineered. | Continue reading
Mammalian cell-based cultured meat has mostly been unstructured, leaving a demand for artificial steak-like meat. Here the authors present an assembled steak-like tissue of bovine skeletal muscle, adipose tissue, and blood capillary tissue fabricated by tendon-gel integrated … | Continue reading
Dietary changes are needed for greater nutrition and sustainability, yet it remains unclear how drastic these changes must be. Combining a new epidemiology-based nutritional index and 18 environmental indicators, this study estimates the positive impact of specific food substitut … | Continue reading
The palaeogenomic analysis of a pre-Neolithic skeleton associated with a Toalean burial context from Wallacea. | Continue reading
As the continents’ frozen burden dissipates, the ground deforms — not only in the immediate area, but also in far-flung locations. | Continue reading
Study finds that the noxious pests have become so numerous, they’ve developed a taste for each other — as well as defences to ward off such attacks. | Continue reading
A survey of SARS-CoV-2 RBD antibodies identifies those with activity against diverse SARS-CoV-2 variants and SARS-related coronaviruses, highlighting epitopes and features to prioritize in antibody and vaccine development. | Continue reading
Co-discoverer of first comet known to collide with a planet in modern times. | Continue reading
Lineage relationships among cells of the human body traced. | Continue reading
Sympathetic cooling of a trapped proton by ions in a separate trap. | Continue reading
Sulawesi has some of the world’s oldest cave art, but ancient human remains have been scarce — now a fossil with DNA hints at a mysterious lineage of people. | Continue reading
Australian scientists are rushing to develop new technologies — such as ways to block sunlight — to help preserve corals in the face of climate change. | Continue reading
The body’s immune response to viruses has long been thought to spark autoimmune disease. A virus affecting millions of people could help researchers to finally know for sure. | Continue reading
The end-Permian mass extinction was linked with ocean acidification due to carbon degassing associated with Siberian Trap emplacement, according to boron isotopes from fossil shells and reconstruction of the carbon cycle. | Continue reading