Volume 650 Issue 8103, 26 February 2026

Scientific knowledge about the damaging effects of nuclear-weapons testing helped to end such tests. Those findings haven’t changed.

The end of the US–Russia treaty to cap the number of nuclear weapons places the world at risk. Here’s what researchers can do.

Complex 3D structures of cells called organoids could be used to test treatments for spinal-cord damage that can lead to paralysis.

An adhesive inspired by the foot pads of geckos allows a robot to scale both smooth and rough vertical surfaces.

Species richness and fish biomass shot up after a fishing moratorium on China’s biggest river system.

The supermassive object broke away from a nearby galaxy and is now racing through the intergalactic medium.

Staff members have been instructed to scrub this topic and ‘biodefense’ from the agency’s website.

The more mice exercise, the more connections form between some neurons in their brains, study finds.

Analyses will help to reveal how far the West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreated in the past — and what it might do in the future.

Overturning the 2009 decision will lead to billions of extra tonnes of greenhouse-gas emissions over the next three decades.

Researchers use mini plasma explosions to encode the equivalent of two million books into a coaster-sized device. The method could preserve research data for millennia with minimal storage costs.

Fresh restrictions could result in China being less open with foreign collaborators, say some researchers.

AI-driven autonomous robots are coming to biology laboratories, but researchers insist that human skills remain essential.

Researchers identify genetic mutation in small group of people who developed the serious disorder after receiving the AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Advances in organ and computer models are raising the prospect that some animal experiments could be eliminated. But there are still huge hurdles to overcome.

The country is facing a coming wave of dementia for its ageing population, and is investing in research into drugs, diagnostics and even surgery to prepare itself.

Breakthroughs in computing are supercharging a field of science dedicated to building synthetic organisms from scratch.

Andrew Robinson reviews five of the best science picks.

Societies, animals and even machines have music in common. Our varied experiences of it might tell us about the origins of language.

To understand the urgency of emissions reductions, policymakers and citizens need a full analysis of what is at stake.

Researchers summarize key insights from the world’s first comprehensive investigation into how a pandemic started.

Librarians can be key research partners who help to scour the literature, manage data and make science open.

Science sleuths share their common-sense tips for sniffing out fishy articles.

Sensory neurons detect internal and external cues in organs and send this information to the brain. Lung cancer exploits this pathway to lessen immune responses.

Densely packed arrays of electrical components called capacitors can form a high-fidelity vibration sensor that can be worn on the skin.

Clean living conditions that lessen exposure to microorganisms are linked to an increase in allergies. Mouse data reveal how the environment affects allergic immune responses.

A device based on light-confining materials can modify superconductivity using quantum fluctuations, without the need for external illumination.

When shoes slide across a floor, wave-like deformations of the sole can generate squeaking. The pitch of the squeak depends on the rate at which deformations are generated.

Intense, ultrashort X-ray pulses have been used to probe the extraordinary reactions that occur in a light-sensing receptor, resolving a biochemical conundrum.

Measurement of the 2S–6P transition in cryogenic atomic hydrogen using laser spectroscopy reveals a proton radius value that is 2.5-fold more precise than previous determinations and in excellent agreement with the muonic value, and tests the Standard Model to 0.7 parts per trillion.

A continuous-wave narrow-linewidth vacuum ultraviolet laser generated using four-wave mixing in cadmium vapour is shown to improve linewidth by five orders of magnitude compared with previous single-frequency lasers below 190 nm.

A specialized, open-source, retrieval-augmented language model is introduced for answering scientific queries and synthesizing literature, the responses of which are shown to be preferred by human evaluations over expert-written answers.

A new platform making use of hexagonal boron nitride interfaced with the molecular superconductor κ-(BEDT-TTF)₂Cu[N(CN)₂]Br is demonstrated for realizing cavity-altered materials, confirmed by magnetic force microscopy and nano-optical measurements.

Terahertz microspectroscopic imaging at subgap millielectronvolt energies of a two-dimensional superfluid plasmon in few-layer Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O_8+x is demonstrated, allowing the spatial resolution of its deeply subdiffractive terahertz electrodynamics.

An atomic single electron transistor, which utilizes a single atomic defect in a van der Waals material as an ultrasensitive, high-resolution potential sensor, is used to image the electrostatic potential within a moiré unit cell.

A new method is described that uses a periscope to generate high-speed, high-resolution projections of light fields, enabling sub-second volumetric 3D printing of millimetre-scale objects without rotating the sample.

High-speed imaging reveals that the squeak of soft–rigid frictional interfaces, like sneakers sliding on a basketball court, arises from intersonic opening slip pulses—analogous to earthquake ruptures—that thin ridges on the rubber confine to repeat at a musical frequency.

Analysis of the atmospheric H₂ variability over the past millennium suggests that the sensitivity of H₂ to climate change should be considered in estimates of the radiative consequences of rising anthropogenic H₂ emissions.

The first melts generated in any solid-state mantle upwelling are kimberlitic CO₂-rich silicate melts that form at about 250 km depth through oxidation of elemental carbon to CO₂.

Myb1 functions as a switch-like regulator of state transitions in Hortaea werneckii, whereby its expression and degradation are coupled to nutrient conditions, stabilizing unicellular or multicellular growth.

Human genetic variation influences instability of DNA repeats that commonly expand as we age.

Newly developed mouse models that enable cell-specific analyses of proteostasis dynamics across the lifespan of the mice reveal key aspects of neuronal proteostasis with ageing.

The inability of intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells to shift the circadian clock in the suprachiasmatic nucleus during daytime is caused by light-dependent depolarization block of these cells.

Mitochondria that are transported from satellite glial cells in dorsal root ganglia to peripheral sensory neurons through tunneling nanotube-like structures provide protection against peripheral neuropathy.

Treatment with 4′-fluorouridine (also known as EIDD-2749) in an African green monkey (Chlorocebus aethiops) model of Lassa disease resulted in complete clearance of infectious virus in a high proportion of cases and prolonged survival to the pre-determined study end-point in all cases.

EchoPrime, a video-based foundation artificial intelligence model for echocardiography, is presented.

GluFormer, a generative foundation model, uses continuous glucose monitoring data to accurately forecast glycaemia-related health responses, particularly for long-term outcomes.

In a mouse model, environmental immunostimulation in early life led to cross-reactive adaptive immune memory and reduced type II immune responses to allergens, indicating a mechanistic relationship between environmental antigen exposure and subsequent allergy.

Integrated single-cell and spatial data analysis, combined with bidirectional CRISPR screens, identify the transcription factor GLIS3 as a key driver of chronic inflammation and fibrosis and a potential marker of disease severity in patients with ulcerative colitis.

Mouse models demonstrate that vagal sensory neurons transmit signals from lung adenocarcinoma to the brain, increasing sympathetic efferent activity in the tumour microenvironment and thereby creating a immunologically permissive environment for tumour growth.

Many premalignant colorectal polyps in familial adenomatous polyposis arise polyclonally rather than from a single mutated cell, showing diverse early evolutionary trajectories that frequently occur without clonal APC or KRAS driver events.

CFAP20 has a key role in rescuing RNA polymerase II complexes that have arrested during DNA transcription, limiting the accumulation of R-loops and preventing collisions between the transcription and replication machinery.

CLASSIC is a high-throughput genetic profiling platform that combines long- and short-read next-generation-sequencing modalities to quantitatively assess pools of constructs of arbitrary length containing diverse genetic part compositions.

Spatiotemporal insight into photoactivation of the prototypical B₁₂ photoreceptor CarH is revealed across nine orders of magnitude in time, identifying a transient adduct that distinguishes it from thermally activated B₁₂ enzymes.

Different agonists produce equilibria of at least four distinct active states of the G-protein-bound M2 muscarinic acetylcholine receptor, each with a different ability to activate G proteins.