Volume 659 Issue 8139, 5 November 2026

It might seem counterproductive to put more people in nature, but sometimes human activity nurtures biodiversity.

To find evidence-backed ways to improve grant-funding processes, metascientists need freedom and money to experiment, as well as leaders who are willing to make change.

Previous US administrations fell short on promised improvements to women’s-health research — here’s what real change will take.

The theoretical objects would have left a larger imprint on cosmic radiation if they were a source of the invisible force pulling together the galaxies.

Genomic analysis shows that the owls spread from Eurasia to the Caribbean, then colonized the rest of the Western Hemisphere.

Vaccination rates dropped after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted public-health programmes and their funding.

Output of the greenhouse gas from the Permian Basin has remained near constant over a period during which oil and gas production tripled.

Scientific organizations in Brazil had rallied around Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defied expectations to defeat his opponent in a run-off.

As poor publishing practices proliferate, scholarly databases are under pressure to ensure the titles they list are reputable.

The emerging science — and industry — of animal longevity is attracting interest from companies and academics alike.

Faulty neurons can contribute to various neurological conditions, but researchers have uncovered a system that might clean them up.

A marked rise in submissions for the European Research Council’s grants is pushing down success rates.

Some say the concept is complete fantasy, but a detailed analysis suggests that the falling cost of rocket launches might make it feasible in a few decades.

Monkeys’ brain activity flips 15 times per second between patterns linked to objects of which the monkeys are aware and patterns for objects outside their awareness.

Physicians were excited about several therapies that slash levels of lipoprotein(a) — an important cardiovascular risk factor. One major trial failed to show a benefit, and now scientists are scrambling to work out what that means.

For decades, conservation has worried about the risks of too many people. In some places, depopulation is the real threat.

Two books explore the damage caused by our unsustainable extraction of raw materials.

An account of how nineteenth-century studies aiming to find a biological basis for human races were dismantled by good scientific practices — although their effects are still felt today.

Climate change is reshaping urban environments. Architect Carlo Ratti tells Nature that technology offers solutions, but citizens must get the final say.

Current measures to track emerging epidemics have a key limitation: they don’t work if the disease causes unusual or unexpected symptoms.

Verified information from trusted experts is crucial to help the public and governments navigate rapid changes and increasing complexity.

The scale of today’s challenges demands a fresh approach — across all disciplines. Here’s how we’re making space for researchers to generate new ideas.

A researcher in Latin America seeks advice on the best way to present themselves when applying for faculty positions in Europe and North America.

From rodents to humans, tools that enable large-scale, single-cell neuronal recordings are exposing the inner workings of the brain.

An exciting imaging approach reveals how discs of soft tissue in the spine respond to compressive force at the micrometre and nanometre scales.

The use of artificial-intelligence tools in medicine is increasing. What types of technology might be on the horizon and how can such health-advice tools be tested?

A 3D-printing method has made single crystals of metals and alloys in complex shapes and up to one metre in length, as needed for advanced technological applications.

How similar are vertebrate and invertebrate sleeping behaviours? An analysis of spiders offers insights about how sleep evolved.

A re-examination of a randomized controlled trial for a health-advice intervention reveals ripple effects and altered relationships in communities in rural Honduras.

As fish evolved into four-limbed creatures, their skull separated from their shoulders to form a neck. Now we learn that this early neck was surprisingly rigid.

Recent progress in photovoltaics has been investigated to translate state-of-the-art cells in the laboratory into deployable products suited to real indoor conditions, focusing on wide-bandgap absorbers, reduced non-radiative voltage losses and reshaping module design.

A new physics-based method combining the use of automatic differentiation to optimize millions of model parameters with a flexible physical model is described for starlight subtraction from real, on-sky coronagraphic images to greatly improve sensitivity.

An experimental concept enabling attosecond-precision, subcycle band-structure videography covering the entire first Brillouin zone is demonstrated and used to visualize the lightwave-driven electron motion of Landau–Zener–Majorana transitions in graphene.

Experiments show that altermagnetic Mn₅Si₃ generates spin currents despite zero net magnetization, demonstrating a central prediction of altermagnetic spintronics.

Pseudo-direct bandgap character in bismuth sulfide retards bimolecular electron–hole recombination while preserving strong light absorption.

A method for growing infrared image sensors directly from solution using raw materials by monolithic in situ integration of high-performance semiconductor PbS photodetectors on readout integrated circuits is described, yielding films with excellent electronic properties.

The X-ray visualization platform TomoSAXS, demonstrated here on intervertebral spinal discs, can visualize nanoscale to macroscale mechanics in intact biological organs and fibrous materials.

A free-form additive manufacturing method that uses alternating and pulsed heat inputs is described for fabricating metre-tall, centimetre-diameter single crystals of Ti-6Al-4V, as well as hard-to-process refractory metals, including W, Mo, Nb and MoNb alloys.

Continental-scale uplift and subsidence associated with long-wavelength dynamic topography due to mantle convection drove the formation and preservation of the Great Unconformity.

A randomized controlled trial involving a health-education intervention in rural villages in Honduras shows that the intervention changed social network connections, including not only health-related connections but also friendships and financial ties.

Climate-driven drought and prey decline triggered lynx predation on raptors, reducing raptor fitness and abundance and producing cascading effects across lower trophic levels.

Biomechanical analysis of several early tetrapods using sturgeon as an analogue revealed that early tetrapods had limited neck mobility despite separation of the head and shoulders.

This study uses a within-family design to identify significant ancestry differences in complex traits such as height and type 2 diabetes in a genetically diverse population from Mexico City.

GPN-Star, a genomic language model with a phylogeny-aware architecture for whole-genome alignment data, is shown to be a scalable and flexible tool for genetic variant effect prediction across species.

Collective escape in Danionella cerebrum arises from visual detection of rapid, biologically realistic motion of other fish, with midbrain and thalamic neurons encoding social offsets that enable fish to infer danger from others’ behaviour.

MEIS2, encoding a transcription factor linked to intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder, is a key hub of a retinoic-acid-associated gene regulatory network.

A mechanistic basis for how the hormone salicylic acid promotes transcriptional activation during plant immune responses is described.

Deciphering a dual receptor pathway of salicylic acid signalling in plants offers a comprehensive view of salicylic acid-mediated defence gene activation, triggering transcriptional activation through NPR1 and relieving transcriptional repression by NPR3 and NPR4.

Identification of a cross-compartmental cellular mechanism for bronchiolar epithelial repair informs therapeutic strategies for airway injury.

A multi-agent framework that coordinates data science, medical reasoning and health coaching over longitudinal wearable and clinical data to provide holistic personal health support is described.

A machine-learning algorithm, PreGame, is developed to identify tumour-reactive γδ T cells from single-cell CITE sequencing data, and expansion of this cell population can be used as a biomarker of therapeutic response.

A rapid autopsy programme provides valuable resources to enable detailed molecular and genetic analyses of the temporal evolution of aggressive histological subtypes and therapy resistance in metastatic bladder cancer.

Metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) in the liver that lack the enzyme necessary to synthesize serine can reprogram hepatocytes to produce this amino acid, thus promoting tumour growth and survival.

Proteomic and phosphoproteomic analyses of lysosomes identify a nutrient-independent regulatory arm of mTORC1 signalling that mediates lysosomal adaptation to stress and whose deregulation underlies tumorigenesis in follicular lymphoma.

A coordinated sequence of RNA helicases and associated factors dismantles normal and defective spliceosome complexes to enable intron degradation and ensure accurate gene expression.