Volume 641 Issue 8061, 1 May 2025

Global agreement on a pandemic preparedness plan came against all the odds. Now all parties must follow good intentions with concrete actions.

Universities must be frank about barriers to equity, devise clear metrics for what they are trying to achieve and measure progress transparently.

Two studies show the extent of gunshot wounds inflicted by police and link certain police-department policies with a lower death toll.

Tecovirimat, which has been approved to treat mpox, was no better than a placebo in a large trial.

Carbonate mineral is long-sought evidence of conditions that supported liquid water.

Like the Star Wars planet, a distant world follows a path around two stars, both of them small, cool bodies called brown dwarfs.

Mission to decipher Herculaneum scrolls using high-resolution scanning and artificial intelligence scales up rapidly.

Study finds dozens of journals that have hiked their fees and started churning out papers after being acquired by small, recently formed companies.

The ‘off-the-charts saturated’ greenish hue — called olo — has been seen by only five study participants.

Models estimate the ginormous potential impact of foreign-aid cuts.

Researchers who spoke to Nature say they don’t have the money or staff to do fieldwork or process samples.

Researchers pinpoint the genes responsible for the final three pea traits studied by the famed citizen scientist.

An ambitious plan to stop the global threat of AIDS has been derailed. But many are hopeful that progress can be salvaged.

President Donald Trump and his administration have gutted science agencies, terminated research programmes and cancelled billions of dollars in grants to universities. What are the long-term impacts for the United States and the world?

Three books that take on the history of languages have something for everyone.

Andrew Robinson reviews five of the best science picks.

Greater insights into what makes people happy, secure and hopeful will make for a better world.

Scientists must push back against the threat of rising white nationalism and the dangerous and pseudoscientific ideas of eugenics.

Physician Sue Sisley battles to study cannabis and psilocybin mushrooms for pain, addiction and PTSD.

Acceptable image-editing practices are partly a matter of common sense. But researchers say journals and funders could help scientists by standardizing policies.

Jemma Wadham analyses the ever-changing glaciers of the Arctic.

Sequencing of 7,000-year-old human genomes from when the Sahara Desert was green suggest that pastoralism spread through cultural exchange, not large-scale migration.

A new class of organometallic compound has been made that has a distinctive geometry and electronic structure — with potential for catalysis and materials science.

Vaccines containing peptides called antigens are bad at stimulating key immune cells called killer T cells. A molecule now enables antigens to encounter these T cells.

Evidence reveals that people reached Malta 8,500 years ago. Hunter-gatherers made the long trip there 1,000 years before agricultural societies arrived.

A powerful and unbiased way to identify links between genetic variants and biological traits has changed scientists’ understanding of complex diseases and how to treat them.

Global data collected between 2014 and 2024 provide insights into the distribution and potential transport mechanisms of subsurface microplastics throughout the oceanic water column.

The dynamical axion quasiparticle, which is directly analogous to the hypothetical fundamental axion particle, is observed in two-dimensional MnBi₂Te₄, and has implications for quantum chromodynamics, cosmology and string theory.

A new device based on 7-septuple-layer MnBi₂Te₄ covered with an AlO_x capping layer enables the investigation of antiferromagnetic quantum anomalous Hall effect over wide parameter spaces.

Experimental and theoretical exploration of domain walls forming in wurtzite ferroelectrics following the application of electric fields demonstrates their reconfigurable conductivity as well as tunability, showing potential for use in ultrascaled devices.

New fully integrated semiconductor laser architectures are shown to be able to generate bright and background-free picosecond solitons at GHz repetition rates in the mid-infrared range.

A two-dimensional Dirac graphene-channel flash memory based on a two-dimensional-enhanced hot-carrier-injection mechanism that supports both electron and hole injection is used to make devices with a subnanosecond program speed.

Atomic precision lift-off of ultrathin membranes without artificial release layers can be achieved to facilitate the high-throughput production of scalable, ultrathin, single-crystalline, freestanding perovskite systems.

An aromatic metallo-annulene, comprising a 15-carbon macrocycle enclosing an osmium complex, with the metal residing within the plane of the macrocycle is reported.

Using the concept of dynamic orbital selection distinct organic radical species can be differentiated, enabling direct coupling of aromatics with alcohols or carboxylic acids.

Realistic-lithosphere numerical models suggest glacial forcing in the last glacial cycle notably affected plate motions and mid-ocean-ridge spreading rates near major ice sheets, with implications for modern polar deglaciation enhancing magmatism and markedly impacting climate.

Data from a variety of sources—including satellite, climate and soil data, as well as field-collected information on plant traits—are pooled and analysed to map the functional diversity of tropical forest canopies globally.

Archaeological discoveries from Malta suggest that humans were present on the Maltese islands from around 8,500 years ago, providing evidence that Mesolithic hunter-gatherers made sea crossings as long as 100 km.

Pastoralism spread through cultural diffusion into the Green Sahara, where an isolated, distinct North African ancestry persisted.

Behavioural experiments in mice demonstrate that GABAergic (γ-aminobutyric acid-expressing), glutamatergic and serotonergic neurons in the median raphe nucleus have distinct and complementary functions in regulating decision-making resulting in flexible behavioural strategies.

Behavioural-state-dependent pyramidal neurons have a distinct pattern of long-range glutamatergic inputs, with a larger proportion of thalamic versus motor cortex inputs compared with non-behaviour-dependent neurons.

Viral coat proteins are perceived by the RING1–IBR–RING2-type ubiquitin ligase, initiating the first step of the natural antiviral response in rice.

Brief ciprofloxacin exposure in humans drives antibiotic resistance evolution in gut bacteria through selective sweeps, particularly involving DNA gyrase mutations, which persist long after exposure and demonstrate the human gutʼs capacity to promote resistance evolution.

Computational drug discovery is used to identify a 12-mer peptide derived from BRINP2 with potent anti-obesity effects that are independent of leptin, glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor and melanocortin 4 receptor.

STING agonist-based endoplasmic reticulum-targeting molecules can be conjugated directly onto antigens to deliver them to the cross-presentation pathway, improving CD8⁺ T cell responses against tumours and viruses.

A study finds that a protease called granzyme K can activate the entire complement cascade, explaining how it can drive destructive inflammation in inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.

A study leveraging transsynaptic tracing demonstrates rapid and extensive integration of human glioblastoma organoids into the mouse brain.

Sleep-inducing neurons in Drosophila rely on Hyperkinetic, the β-subunit of the K_V1 channel Shaker, to monitor sleep need by translating lipid peroxidation events into changes in the oxidation state of a stably bound NADPH cofactor.

Cryo-electron microscopy structures of DNA helicases in various conformations provide insight into an ATP-hydrolysis-dependent ‘entropy switch’ that drives unwinding of DNA for replication, with probable conservation across viral and eukaryotic systems.

Structural findings define the architecture of the mitochondrial pyruvate carrier, delineate its substrate-binding site and translocation pathway, and reveal its major conformational states, providing the molecular basis for understanding its function and inhibition.

Cryo-electron microscopy structures of the human mitochondrial pyruvate carrier provide insights into its architecture, substrate transport mechanism and inhibition by the drug UK5099, with implications for the development of treatments for various metabolic diseases.