Ed Himelblau was a cartoonist before he learnt to write code. Now, the geneticist hopes his drawings will help others who embrace bioinformatics later in their careers. | Continue reading
Archaeological finds suggest that people developed numbers tens of thousands of years ago. Scholars are now exploring the first detailed hypotheses about this life-changing invention. | Continue reading
Mind-altering drugs such as psilocybin and MDMA could transform the treatment paradigm for mental health disorders, says neuroscientist David Nutt. But trial design considerations, regulatory hurdles and economics still pose problems for psychedelic-assisted therapies. | Continue reading
Rhea at al. show that intravenously injected, radiolabeled SARS-CoV-2 spike 1 protein crosses the mouse blood–brain barrier, likely through the mechanism of adsorptive transcytosis and is also taken up by peripheral tissues. | Continue reading
Maintaining outdated PCs can be a matter of necessity — and a labour of love. | Continue reading
Pre-existing immune responses between antigenically related viruses can influence responses in viral infections or vaccinations. Here the authors assess and characterize the presence of antibody and memory B cell populations specific to SARS-CoV2 and endemic human coronaviruses. | Continue reading
Estimates of the levels of neutralizing antibodies necessary for protection against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 or severe COVID-19 are a fraction of the mean level in convalescent serum and will be useful in guiding vaccine rollouts. | Continue reading
The rapid increase in the number of proteins in sequence databases and the diversity of their functions challenge computational approaches for automated function prediction. Here, the authors introduce DeepFRI, a Graph Convolutional Network for predicting protein functions by lev … | Continue reading
Cosmologists have unveiled a trove of fresh data, but the measurements do not settle earlier questions about the Universe’s unexpected smoothness. | Continue reading
Researchers say the complaint filed against Elisabeth Bik could have a ‘chilling effect’ on scholarly criticism. | Continue reading
This is the first time the National Academy of Sciences has kicked out a member for violating its amended code of conduct. | Continue reading
People who recover from mild COVID-19 have bone-marrow cells that can churn out antibodies for decades, though viral variants could dampen some of the protection they offer. | Continue reading
The International Society for Stem Cell Research relaxed the famous 14-day rule on culturing human embryos in its latest research guidelines. | Continue reading
Allegations that COVID escaped from a Chinese lab make it harder for nations to collaborate on ending the pandemic — and fuel online bullying, some scientists say. | Continue reading
Aging is associated with an increased risk of chronic diseases and functional decline. Here, the authors investigate the fluctuations of physiological indices along aging trajectories and observed a characteristic decrease in the organism state recovery rate. | Continue reading
With COVID rates dropping and vaccinations on the rise, the United States and other places are removing some requirements for face coverings. Are they moving too fast? | Continue reading
In a cynomolgus macaque model, CRISPR base editors delivered in lipid nanoparticles are shown to efficiently and stably knock down PCSK9 in the liver to reduce levels of PCSK9 and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol in the blood. | Continue reading
The first successful clinical test of a technique called optogenetics has allowed a person to see for the first time in decades, with the help of image-enhancing goggles. | Continue reading
At the Elliott State Forest in Oregon, researchers will explore how best to balance timber production with conservation. | Continue reading
The number of ships using a ‘flag of convenience’ loophole that allows them to be scrapped in a place with lax environmental regulations is skyrocketing. | Continue reading
Nguyen et al. take a fresh look at Tesla’s concept of an asymmetric fluidic conduit. They show that for alternating flow at high frequencies the device can almost be operated as a diode, enabled by a transition to turbulent-like flow at rather low Reynolds numbers. | Continue reading
Estimates of the levels of neutralizing antibodies necessary for protection against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 or severe COVID-19 are a fraction of the mean level in convalescent serum and will be useful in guiding vaccine rollouts. | Continue reading
Strategies to maximize carbon uptake by land should account for soil carbon storage. | Continue reading
Spin torque oscillators (STOs) are attractive potential alternative for many high frequency applications, due to their small area and CMOS compatibility. Here, Sharma et al succeed in the electrical synchronization of four STOs, and use their setup to demonstrate wireless and bat … | Continue reading
The pandemic is teaching us key lessons about crisis, communication and misinformation, and is spurring changes in the way scientists study public-health questions. | Continue reading
Their structures were once controversial. Now researchers have discovered quasicrystals in the aftermath of a 1945 bomb test. | Continue reading
Observations of γ-rays with energies up to 1.4 PeV find that 12 sources in the Galaxy are PeVatrons, one of which is the Crab Nebula. | Continue reading
Nature is asking former scientists from under-represented groups in the United States about their reasons for leaving, and where they ended up. | Continue reading
The pandemic stress-tested the way the world produces evidence — and revealed all the flaws. | Continue reading
Massen, Hartlieb, Martin et al. study the duration of yawns across mammals and birds to test the brain cooling hypothesis. Consistent with this hypothesis, their findings indicate that brain mass and neuron numbers influence yawn duration, and that mammals yawn longer than birds … | Continue reading
Unique circumstances in Taiwan led to the creation of the foundry model, where an integrated circuit manufacturer has no products of its own and its plants produce only customer designs. The model has reshaped the global semiconductor industry and is well positioned to be at the … | Continue reading
Older people who waited 11–12 weeks for their second jab had higher peak antibody levels than did those who waited only 3 weeks. | Continue reading
The attempted landing of Zhurong could happen imminently, and is the biggest test yet of China’s nascent deep-space exploration capabilities. | Continue reading
A brain–computer interface enables rapid communication through neural decoding of attempted handwriting movements in a person with paralysis. | Continue reading
Ancient microbiomes from palaeofaeces are more similar to non-industrialized than industrialized human gut microbiomes regardless of geography, but 39% of their de novo reconstructed genomes represent previously undescribed microbial species. | Continue reading
A brain–computer interface for rapid typing. | Continue reading
Variants including B.1.617 have been linked to India’s surge in infections. Researchers are hurrying to determine how much of a threat they pose. | Continue reading
A cryogenic CMOS control chip operating at 3 K is used to demonstrate coherent control and simple algorithms on silicon qubits operating at 20 mK. | Continue reading
A multi-layered electrolyte, in which a less stable electrolyte is sandwiched between two electrolyte layers that are more stable, can inhibit the growth of lithium dendrites in highly pressurized solid-state lithium metal batteries. | Continue reading