The publisher is scrutinizing researchers who might be inappropriately using the review process to promote their own work. | Continue reading
K2-18 b is a planet with a mass around eight times that of the Earth that lies within the standard habitable zone of its star. Hubble spectra show the presence of an atmosphere around K2-18 b containing significant amounts of water vapour (up to a few tens of per cent, depending … | Continue reading
The race to cash in is draining universities of talent, fracturing the field and closing off avenues of enquiry, warn Jacob D. Biamonte, Pavel Dorozhkin and Igor Zacharov. | Continue reading
A new prosthetic leg that can transmit sensory signals via implanted electrodes is shown to restore meaningful sensory feedback that improves walking performance and lowers phantom limb pain during use in two human lower-limb amputees. | Continue reading
Analysis suggests that roughly one in 3,600 people studied were born to closely related parents. | Continue reading
Calcium could replace lithium in batteries that store solar and wind power. | Continue reading
Many ligand-binding assays still rely on signals that scale linearly with probe concentration. The authors present lasing detection probes with a dye-labelled virus as the gain medium to optically amplify the signal, which could enable much higher signals than for fluorescent qua … | Continue reading
Tellurium has two-dimensional phases and some Weyl nodes around its Femi level that make it a suitable candidate for the study and application in nonlinear optics. Here the authors show the synthesis and use of bio-grown optical Te(0) nanoparticles for optical modulation and ther … | Continue reading
A naturally occurring small molecule shows promise as a drug for tissue and organ repair and regeneration. Viravuth Yin of the Kathryn W. Davis Center for Regenerative Biology and Medicine with colleagues in the US found that treating zebrafish with an intraperitoneal injection o … | Continue reading
The gut microbiota regulates levels of serotonin (5-HT) in the gut, affecting the mammalian nervous system. But does 5-HT affect the microbiota? Here, it is shown to increase the relative abundance of spore-forming members of the gut microbiota and enhance mouse colonization by T … | Continue reading
We face interconnected planetary emergencies threatening our climate and ecosystems. Charlie J. Gardner and Claire F. R. Wordley argue that scientists should join civil disobedience movements to fight these unprecedented crises. | Continue reading
Observations of highly redshifted broad absorption lines of helium and hydrogen atoms provide unambiguous evidence of fast infalling gas that is merging into an accretion disk around a black hole. | Continue reading
Cells with ARID1A mutations exhibit mitotic defects, yet show surprisingly low levels of copy number defects. Here, Zhao et al. resolve this issue by showing that ARID1A loss causes defects in telomere cohesion, which selects against gross alterations in copy number. | Continue reading
Simunovic et al. use human embryonic stem cells to generate a three-dimensional model of a human pre-gastrulation epiblast and show that anterior–posterior symmetry breaking can be induced by BMP4 and WNT signalling. | Continue reading
Tear gas and pepper spray put lives at risk. Examine their effects and regulate their deployment, urges Dan Kaszeta. | Continue reading
Liquid products from electrocatalytic CO2 reduction are often mixed with additional solutes in the electrolyte, meaning that downstream separation is required. Here, the authors design cells that use solid electrolytes to generate flows of CO2-derived liquid fuels with high conce … | Continue reading
Agrivoltaics can achieve synergistic benefits by growing agricultural plants under raised solar panels. In this article, the authors showed that growth under solar panels reduced tomato and pepper drought stress and increased production, while simultaneously reducing photovoltaic … | Continue reading
Prescription fulfilment patterns vary between countries and could help nations develop guidelines to fight a surge in opioid addiction. | Continue reading
Evidence is stacking up that a small number of strategically placed bots can influence the choices of undecided voters. | Continue reading
In a small trial, a cocktail of drugs seemed to rejuvenate the body’s ‘epigenetic clock’. | Continue reading
How excitement over claims of a high-temperature superconductor reached fever-pitch — and then died away. | Continue reading
In a voter game, information gerrymandering can sway the outcome of the vote towards one party, even when both parties have equal sizes and each player has the same influence; and this effect can be exaggerated by strategically placed zealots or automated bots. | Continue reading
Targeted CRISPR libraries expand the use of genetic screens across experimental conditions. Here, the authors develop a method for generating and analysing small scale custom CRISPR libraries and use it in the human and livestock pathogen Toxoplasma gondii to identify virulence f … | Continue reading
Expression of the protein E-cadherin aids the process of metastasis. | Continue reading
Researchers race to retrieve ice amid protests by local residents. | Continue reading
How do racial biases play into deadly encounters with the police? Researchers wrestle with incomplete data to reach answers. | Continue reading
Using graphene as the ‘metal’ layer can increase the localization accuracy of metal-induced energy transfer, enabling axial localization of single emitters and measurement of the thickness of lipid bilayers with ångström accuracy. | Continue reading
Network rewiring can alter perception of others’ voting intentions. | Continue reading
On moonlit nights, barn owls with white plumage are more successful hunters than those with red plumage. White owls trigger longer freezing times in their prey by exploiting their aversion to bright light, despite the fact that they can be more easily detected. | Continue reading
Jaco de Swart enjoys a biography of the scientist who pioneered findings on dark matter and supernovae. | Continue reading
Isotopes that caused a radiation spike earlier this month probably came from an exploding nuclear-reactor core — but device’s application is still unknown. | Continue reading
Amy Eacock et al. examine the sensory input mechanism for slow colour change in the twig-mimicking caterpillars of the peppered moth. They find that this camouflage process does not require the use of eyes, relying instead on extraocular colour sensing. | Continue reading
In a model system crosslinked by motors, cytoskeletal polymers slide past each other at speeds independent of their polarity. This behaviour is best described within an active-gel framework that deviates from the dilute limit set by existing theory. | Continue reading
Controlling the flow and representation of information in deep neural networks is fundamental to making networks intelligible. Bergomi et al introduce a mathematical framework in which the space of possible operators representing the data is constrained by using symmetries. This … | Continue reading
Robert P. Crease enjoys Sean Carroll’s foray into a 60-year-old theory. | Continue reading
The Japanese woman’s vision has improved since the transplant, say her doctors. | Continue reading
A machine learning model allows the identification of new small-molecule kinase inhibitors in days. | Continue reading
A quantum circuit-based algorithm inspired by convolutional neural networks is shown to successfully perform quantum phase recognition and devise quantum error correcting codes when applied to arbitrary input quantum states. | Continue reading
Nanoscale vacuum channel transistors, which have a vertical surround-gate configuration, can be fabricated on 150 mm silicon carbide wafers using conventional integrated circuit processing technology. | Continue reading
A computer built entirely using transistors based on carbon nanotubes, which is capable of multitasking and emulating instructions from the MIPS instruction set, is enabled by methods that overcome inherent challenges with this new technology. | Continue reading
Exploring the physics behind this exotic state of matter. | Continue reading
By synthesizing undistorted cross-sectional image reconstructions from multiple conventional images acquired with angular diversity, optical coherence refraction tomography offers greater than threefold improvement in lateral resolution and speckle reduction in imaging tissue ult … | Continue reading
Experiment suggests that humans are capable of perceiving even the feeblest flash of light. | Continue reading
Universities must accept that there will be consequences if early-career researchers are not properly supported. | Continue reading