The COVID 19 pandemic and consequent lockdown has had a substantial impact on mobility and therefore fuel demand and it is not clear when demand will recover. Ou et al. use a machine learning model that integrates health recovery scenarios to project the near-term future of gasol … | Continue reading
Fine-scale satellite data are used to quantify forest harvest rates in 26 European countries, finding an increase in harvested forest area of 49% and an increase in biomass loss of 69% between 2011–2015 and 2016–2018. | Continue reading
Ageing phenotypes are of great interest but are difficult to study genetically, partly due to the sample sizes required. Here, the authors present a multivariate framework to combine GWAS summary statistics and increase statistical power, identifying additional loci enriched for … | Continue reading
Researchers are scrambling to find other ways to diagnose the coronavirus and churn out millions of tests a week — a key step in returning to normality. | Continue reading
Hydroxyglutarate synthase (HglS) converts 2-oxoadipate to D-2- hydroxyglutarate during lysine catabolism in bacteria. Here the authors use structural and biochemical approaches to show that HglS acts via successive decarboxylation and intramolecular hydroxylation and that homolog … | Continue reading
Funders will override policies of subscription journals that don’t let scientists share accepted manuscripts under open licence. | Continue reading
A long-awaited map of the Big Bang’s afterglow fails to settle a debate over how fast the Universe is expanding. | Continue reading
The push for rapid and open publishing could take off — although financial pressures lie ahead: part 4 in a series on science after the pandemic. | Continue reading
A detailed assessment of the techno-economic potential of enhanced rock weathering on croplands identifies national CO2 removal potentials, costs and engineering challenges if it were to be scaled up to help meet ambitious global CO2 removal targets. | Continue reading
Recent studies have shown T cell reactivity to SARS-CoV-2 in 20–50% of unexposed individuals; it is speculated that this is due to T cell memory to common cold coronaviruses. Here, Crotty and Sette discuss the potential implications of these findings for disease severity, herd im … | Continue reading
Economists welcome the chance to see whether giving people cash to spend however they choose improves livelihoods. | Continue reading
The pandemic is prompting some early-career researchers to rethink their hopes for a university post. | Continue reading
The classification of complex organisms is in chaos. Stephen T. Garnett and Les Christidis propose a solution. | Continue reading
Feat enables researchers to study — and perhaps treat — deadly diseases. | Continue reading
The United Arab Emirates’ Hope orbiter is the Arab world’s first interplanetary spacecraft — and has jump-started science in the country. Will the momentum last? | Continue reading
Genomic analyses of DNA from modern individuals show that, about 800 years ago, pre-European contact occurred between Polynesian individuals and Native American individuals from near present-day Colombia, while remote Pacific islands were still being settled. | Continue reading
Finding that some Polynesians carry genetic ancestry from South America supports long-held theory that ancient populations met and interbred. | Continue reading
The funding agency has taken action in 16-20 cases where foreign ties were not properly reported. | Continue reading
Genetic material is being collected from men across the country to help solve crimes, but researches worry the data will be misused. | Continue reading
Those who could be exploited by AI should be shaping its projects. | Continue reading
Mini and micro light-emitting diodes (LEDs) could move to the centre-stage of display screen technologies once they mature. Shin-Tson Wu of the University of Central Florida and colleagues analysed the pros, cons, and future prospects of the latest display screen technologies, es … | Continue reading
Peter Rowlett introduces seven little-known tales illustrating that theoretical work may lead to practical applications, but it can't be forced and it can take centuries. | Continue reading
The ‘quasiparticles’ defy the categories of ordinary particles and herald a potential way to build quantum computers. | Continue reading
The ‘quasiparticles’ defy the categories of ordinary particles and herald a potential way to build quantum computers. | Continue reading
Observations of TOI-849b reveal a radius smaller than Neptune’s but a large mass of about 40 Earth masses, indicating that the planet is the remnant core of a gas giant. | Continue reading
Effects of vacuum fluctuations in a gravitational-wave detector. | Continue reading
A memory device is proposed that uses a dynamical modification of the stacking order of few-layer WTe2 to encode information. The change in stacking modifies both the Berry curvature and the Hall transport, allowing two states to be distinguished. | Continue reading
Remotely controlled experiments are the way forward. | Continue reading
Three studies showing large DNA deletions and reshuffling heighten safety concerns about heritable genome editing. | Continue reading
Evidence from tissue studies and some people with COVID-19 shows that the virus damages insulin-producing cells. | Continue reading
China’s New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan was launched in 2017 and lays out an ambitious strategy, which intends to make China one of the world’s premier AI innovation centre by 2030. This Perspective presents the view from a group of Chinese AI experts from … | Continue reading
Personality traits help to explain why some people and not others hoarded a humdrum product in the face of a deadly virus. | Continue reading
A prebiotic synthesis of the purine DNA nucleosides (deoxyadenosine and deoxyinosine) in which the pyrimidine RNA nucleosides (cytidine and uridine) persist has implications for the coexistence of DNA and RNA at the dawn of life. | Continue reading
Chip-based frequency combs promise many applications, but full integration requires the electrical pump source and the microresonator to be on the same chip. Here, the authors show such integration of a microcomb with < 100 GHz mode spacing without additional filtering cavitie … | Continue reading