Volume 652 Issue 8112, 30 April 2026

These highly sentient creatures have weak protections for their well-being. That must change.

Different carbon‑removal approaches solve different problems, and pitting these technologies against each other could slow progress.

Radio sensors at South Pole suggest arrays could record neutrinos of unprecedented energies over hundreds of cubic kilometres of ice.

Arizona ‘cleaner’ ant nibbles and licks the workers of a different ant species.

Relatively high levels of micro- and nanoplastics around brain tumours might indicate breakdown of the blood–brain barrier.

Low-cost system can optimize synthesis of a wide variety of products.

Physicists have spent the past decade trying to pin down the elusive fundamental constant, to no avail.

Many Democrats making the switch to politics are motivated by the Trump administration’s cuts to science — whereas energy and AI are a pull for some Republicans.

Quantum machines are making inroads into biology but have no ‘advantage’ over classical machines yet.

Survey results suggest a rise in questioning of scientific evidence.

Autonomous agents aren’t just creating their own research — on the Reddit-style website Agent4Science, they’re chatting about it, too.

Some researchers are delighted by an executive order to streamline investigations of psychedelics, but warn that caution is needed.

Study in mice suggests that B cells help to regulate muscle performance.

A Nature analysis shows that the Trump administration has terminated more than 100 advisory committees to science agencies — and reduced the transparency and independence of those that remain.

Just like vertebrates, cephalopods — such as octopuses and squid — have elaborate brains. Neuroscientists are flocking to them for insights into how intelligence evolved.

A philosophical take on the history of the Universe that is inspiring but incomplete.

Andrew Robinson reviews five of the best science picks.

Funders must take action before an increase in submission of high-quality proposals written using AI models makes it impossible to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Space is now shared by governments, companies, scientists and philanthropists. They need to work together to avoid collisions and clashes.

Early publishing success, team size and international collaborations are some of the best predictors of future publication rates.

Through flexibility, problem-solving and the generosity of colleagues, I shepherded students through fieldwork remotely.

Modified nitazenes, opioids 1,000 times stronger than morphine, show remarkably few adverse effects in rodents, renewing the potential of these drugs for pain relief.

A nanostructured ‘metasurface’ lens enables 3D images to be viewed without specialized glasses and can switch to 2D operation.

Forests that regrow on farmland are resilient and regain much of their lost biodiversity and species richness in 30 years — a finding with implications for conservation.

Facial wounds heal with less scarring than do comparable ones on the back. The reason relates to differences in the ability of cells to express collagen genes.

Nature readers are invited to compose couplets about SI units, and a report on an Anglo-Saxon burial ground, in our weekly dip into Nature’s archive.

A large language model that is trained to respond in a warm manner is more likely to give incorrect information and reinforce conspiracy beliefs.

A form of the inflammatory protein caspase-5 is expressed in immature gut cells, where it promotes proliferation and facilitates tissue regeneration.

A Review of de novo protein design highlights key methodological advances and achievements, current challenges and future applications.

Tailoring relativistic laser–plasma interactions on femtosecond timescales unlocks a direct route to extreme field generation using a coherent harmonic focus.

Experiments on five different language models show that training language models to produce warmer responses can undermine the accuracy of their output, especially when users express feelings of sadness.

Ultrasonic measurements show phonon Hall viscosity drives an intrinsic thermal Hall effect in α-RuCl₃, resolving its origin.

Scalable fabrication of ordered perovskite quantum dot superlattices enables high-efficiency, ultrahigh-resolution LEDs and active-matrix displays with greatly improved brightness, stability and device lifetime.

A full-colour 2D–3D switchable light-field display powered by a metasurface lenticular lens is proposed that is a promising solution for next-generation display technologies in both consumer electronics and commercial applications.

This work demonstrates industrial-scale roll-to-roll fabrication of high-efficiency visible metalenses using nanoimprinting and TiO₂ coating, achieving low cost, high throughput and uniform performance, enabling commercialization of metasurfaces.

A printable meta-assembly comprising polystyrene embedded in a polydimethylsiloxane matrix used in roll-to-roll additive nanoprinting is described for the fabrication of highly tunable optical architectures that can span seven orders of magnitude in length.

Triplet excitons in OPVs can redissociate via the charge-transfer state into free carriers, reducing losses and improving efficiency, enabled by molecular design controlling singlet–triplet energetics through exciton delocalization.

A crossover-coupled electrolyte forms a robust, adaptive solid electrolyte interphase in anode-free lithium metal batteries, which has improved cycling stability without anode hosts.

Re–Co–Ta–B bulk metallic glasses have high strength, fracture toughness and thermal stability, combining traditionally exclusive properties of metals and ceramics.

A community-wide intervention in northern Nigeria reduced rates of child marriage from 79% to 14%, showing that bundled, big-push approaches can dramatically shift entrenched behaviours.

Assessment of how 16 taxonomic groups in a lowland tropical forest resist and recover from anthropogenic disturbance shows the potential of protecting naturally regenerating secondary forests to reverse biodiversity losses.

A skeleton of the alvarezsauroid Alnashetri cerropoliciensis—representing a highly complete alvarezsauroid skeleton from South America—provides evidence on the evolution of the peculiar anatomy and miniaturization within this unusual theropod dinosaur clade.

A pangenome reference for the phenotypically diverse crop sorghum aims to help accelerate future efforts to breed crops that are better adapted to changing environments.

Mice learning a neurofeedback brain–computer interface task show neuron-specific teaching signals in cortical dendrites, consistent with a vectorized solution for credit assignment in the brain.

Mapping of neurogenesis in human hippocampi across ages and different cognitive abilities using multiomic single-cell sequencing reveals distinct signatures between cognitive preservation and decline.

A common mechanism of inhibition of the essential lipid II flippase MurJ by three distinct phage-encoded single-gene lysis proteins provides insights into potential new targets for antimicrobial development.

Structural and biochemical studies of influenza virus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (FluPol) in complex with transcribing host RNA polymerase II reveal the molecular mechanisms of RNA cap snatching by FluPol.

Mucosal administration of a multivalent, adjuvanted vaccine against Clostridioides difficile promoted bacterial clearance and protected against morbidity, mortality, tissue damage and recurrence in mice.

Microscopic imaging and biochemical studies show that sinuses in mouse and human form a highly dynamic surface that regulates fluid movement and immune cell surveillance via RAMP1-dependent regulation of smooth muscle contraction and RAMP2-dependent regulation of the sinus endothelial barrier.

Early-life exposure to allergens triggers a distinct local mode of dendritic cell activation in neonatal skin without requiring migration to lymph nodes, which shapes responses to allergens in later life.

Merlin, a vision–language foundation model trained on a large dataset of paired CT scans, patient record data and radiology reports, demonstrates strong performance across model architectures, diagnostic and prognostic tasks, and external sites.

The transcription factor ATF4 and its effector lipocalin 2 (LCN2) have a key role in immune evasion and tumour progression, and targeting the ATF4–LCN2 axis might provide a way to treat several types of solid tumour by increasing anti-cancer immunity.

Ageing reprograms the evolutionary trajectory of KRAS-driven lung adenocarcinoma, limiting primary tumour growth while promoting metastatic dissemination through epigenetic activation of the integrated stress response, and a therapeutic opportunity in older patients is revealed.

Evo 2 is an artificial intelligence-based biological foundation model trained on 9 trillion DNA base pairs spanning all domains of life that predicts functional properties from genomic sequences and provides a rich generative model for researchers in biology.

CASP5 expression is restricted to the human intestinal epithelium, and the CASP5C isoform has a key role in promoting Wnt signalling, which is required for epithelial homeostasis, through binding to dishevelled and cleavage of APC to regulate β-catenin turnover.

An orthosteric CSN inhibitor gains nanomolar potency via a molecular-glue mechanism, stabilizing a CSN5–N8–inhibitor complex that confers substrate-dependent inhibition despite weak free-enzyme affinity.

Cryo-electron microscopy suggests a model in which microtubules, rather than adaptors in the cytoplasm, act as the primary platform for dynein–dynactin assembly, while LIS1 stabilizes low-microtubule-affinity intermediates near the pre-assembled complexes.

N-desethyl-fluornitrazene is a µ-opioid receptor agonist derived from nitazenes that has supramaximal intrinsic efficacy that produces analgesia with minimal adverse effects in rodent models.

Analyses of heterogeneous assemblies of native NMDA receptors from whole-brain tissue of mice reveal new characteristics of conformational diversity and channel opening.