Volume 653 Issue 8113, 7 May 2026

A new climate coalition to steer the transition away from fossil fuels is good news, but it must avoid undermining existing global scientific structures.

To avoid sabotaging science, the European Research Council needs more funding and structural change.

Technique determines roast level and strength by applying voltage to the brew.

A biomarker shows which people with certain types of breast cancer are more likely to respond to an immune-based therapy.

Apes, monkeys and their relatives that live in despotic societies are less likely to clown around as adults.

Damage by certain insects and fungi tends to be greatest in US woodlands where maximum temperatures during the warmest months are increasing.

Discovery bolsters theory that ancient mitochondria formed brand-new, specialized ‘sacs’ in cells by shedding their outer membranes.

Pressure on the heart as it pumps blood stops cancer cells from multiplying in mouse hearts.

Members of the National Science Board, which the US Congress founded in 1950, were given no explanation for their termination.

Detailed maps of smell receptors in the nose overturn textbook models of olfactory receptor organization in mice.

Extinct cephalopods might have been up to 19 metres in length and probably dined high up the food chain in ancient oceans.

An analysis of thousands of paper-mill adverts could help journals to crack down on misconduct.

The Fields medallist discusses how ever-evolving technology is transforming mathematicians’ work.

Training AI world models on data about physical environments could improve their real-world capabilities in technologies such as robotics.

Digital distractions are vying for people’s focus, but our underlying capacity to pay attention seems to be undiminished.

Some clinicians are pushing to broaden testosterone use, but there is debate about its benefits and risks.

Unless governments treat fertilizer production as strategic infrastructure, the world will keep lurching from energy shock to harvest failure.

Can you squeeze your graduate programme into a 40-hour working week? These 13 current and former PhD candidates reveal their top time-management tips.

By accelerating the identification of DNA sequences that control gene expression, assays are revealing the hidden grammar of the regulatory genome — and giving scientists the means to rewrite it

When two graphene layers are twisted at a ‘magic angle’, their electrons can behave as both heavy and light particles, depending on momentum.

New cancer therapies are needed that do not harm healthy tissue. An engineered DNA sequence shows promise as one of the tools in a method to target brain tumour cells.

A promising solar-cell architecture, in which two layers of perovskite semiconductors are stacked on silicon, is making strides towards achieving its full potential.

A method for identifying representations of concepts in neural networks could provide a more-effective way to control and monitor artificial-intelligence systems.

A sensational scientific soirée, and reflections on how F. C. L. Wratten advanced photography in this week’s pick from the Nature archive.

The identification of a receptor that is recognized by a subset of alphacoronaviruses provides insights into ‘spillover’ risk and pandemic potential.

A system of protein binders directs energy-generating organelles to targeted cells, potentially improving ways to treat mitochondrial dysfunction.

The past two decades of PARP inhibitor synthetic lethality in cancer is explored.

The DAMPE satellite observed a universal charge-dependent spectral softening in primary cosmic rays, and ruled out mass-dependent softening with >99.999% confidence.

Simulations performed using Quantinuum’s H2 trapped-ion quantum computer for observing thermalization on challenging timescales demonstrate the usefulness of digital quantum computers for investigating continuous-time dynamics in regimes that classical simulation methods find difficult.

Vortices trapped in superconducting granular aluminium films can behave as a quantum two-level system that can be manipulated and read out, suggesting that they could be used for future quantum technologies.

Quantum twisting microscopy is used to directly image the interacting energy bands of magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene, allowing characterization of the dual nature of its electrons at the magic angle.

Using multislice electron ptychography to directly measure the atomic-scale structural evolution of the nickelate La₃Ni₂O₇ under a range of biaxial strains, a theoretical framework is constructed for characterizing the impact of specific structural motifs for stabilizing superconductivity.

A two-dimensional polar hedgehog lattice spontaneously forms in layer-ordered perovskites, showing stable topological ferroelectric states without external constraints and enabling new pathways for functional material design.

The use of a non-volatile additive 4-hydroxybenzylamine to suppress non-radiative recombination, a three-step deposition strategy enabling thick lower-bandgap middle absorber, and low-refractive-index SiO_x-nanoparticles acting as an optical middle reflector together enable the manufacture of perovskite–perovskite–silicon triple-junction solar cells with a certified efficiency of 30.02%.

By tuning graphene’s electronic density of states, the study shows electrode electronic structure—not just the electrolyte—dominates reorganization energy and thus controls outer-sphere electron-transfer rates at solid–liquid interfaces.

A Pd-catalysed method enables regio- and diastereoselective C–H alkylation of diverse alkenes using carboxylic acids, expanding synthetic access to complex substituted alkenes.

Separating the anthropogenic forced thermodynamic and dynamic components from internal variability in winter precipitation trends in the mid-latitudes shows that thermodynamic effects agree with models and observations but the role of dynamic response remains uncertain.

A mummified fossil of the early Permian reptile Captorhinus reveals the potential ancestral amniote breathing mechanism and its impact on terrestrial vertebrate evolution.

In the Uspallata Valley, agriculture was adopted by local populations, as evidenced by genetic continuity from earlier hunter-gatherers to farmers; maize-dependent groups from the same regional population later experienced stress and demographic decline and likely used social organization and migration as resilience strategies.

Analysis of 128 high-coverage Indigenous American genomes shows extensive diversity shaped by several South American dispersals, ancient Australasian admixture, archaic introgression and long-term adaptation, indicating a far more complex evolutionary history than previously assumed.

Face cells in the macaque inferotemporal cortex are initially able to detect faces and then rapidly switch to a face-specific neural code to discriminate between different face identities.

The excitatory neuron diversity and specialized connectivity of complex, multilayered mammalian neocortex are driven by mammalian-specific cis-regulatory elements bound by ZBTB18, deletion of which disrupts gene expression and results in projection patterns resembling those of non-mammalian brains.

A single-cell multiomic atlas of the human maternal–fetal interface across pregnancy reveals cell types, states and spatial niches, developmental tissue architectures and transcriptional programmes, and identifies cell types with roles in pre-eclampsia, spontaneous preterm birth and miscarriage.

Human CEACAM6, which is widely expressed in the lung, is identified as a receptor used by the spike proteins of Cardioderma cor (heart-nosed bat) alphacoronaviruses to enter cells.

The antibody Fab5 cross-neutralizes gammaherpesviruses by binding to a conserved region in the membrane fusion protein gB on the virus; this region could form the basis for a herpesvirus vaccine.

The susceptibility of mouse and human T cells to ferroptosis is determined by the balance of systemic polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids, highlighting a key role for lipid metabolism and dietary composition in regulating T cell function.

Myelopoiesis in response to a parasitic worm infection and the mechanism selective to this form of parasite are revealed.

MitoCatch is a cell-type-specific mitochondrion-targeting system that links mitochondria and the cell surface by protein binders and delivers mitochondria into the target cell.

Synthetic super-enhancers enable specific delivery of anticancer payloads, achieving tumour elimination after a single dose in a mouse model of aggressive glioblastoma.

A study investigating the emergence of squamous tumours in the upper gastrointestinal tract of the mouse shows that an initial tumour stress response triggers fibroblasts to remodel the underlying stroma, creating a fibronectin-rich precancerous niche that supports tumour survival.

Pathologic transformation in Kras^G12D-mutant alveolar type II cells initiates a tumour-permissive niche by orchestrating epithelial, stromal and immune reprogramming through amphiregulin–EGFR signalling, creating a self-sustaining circuit critical for lung tumour initiation and progression.

The Mouse Cancer Cell line Atlas (MCCA) provides major advances towards a mechanistic understanding of cancer genomes.

Specialized σ factors interact with nuclease-dead, CRISPR–Cas12f proteins to form potent, RNA-guided gene activation systems that function independently of fixed promoter motifs.

Cryogenic electron microscopy reveals how dCas12f with σ^E recruits RNAP to targeted DNA, initiating transcription at a fixed downstream distance, bypassing canonical −35 recognition and stabilizing the −10 element in an unusual manner.

PIEZO2 is intrinsically more rigid than PIEZO1, and disparate mechanical stimuli paradoxically evoke opposite conformational and gating responses in each channel.

A combination of isotopic labelling, gene silencing, single-nucleus RNA sequencing and comparative transcriptomics reveal the genes that mediate the biosynthesis of cinchona alkaloids in plants.