Volume 645 Issue 8080, 11 September 2025

The US administration is attempting to undermine efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. It will ultimately leave that country, and the world, worse off.

The academic community has looked at how artificial-intelligence tools help researchers to write papers, but not how they distort the literature scientists choose to cite.

Construction of tidal irrigation systems helped to drive the formation of city states some 5,000 years ago.

Swiss birth data from 1750 to 1870 reveal that girls who had lots of older brothers close to their own age were less likely to survive than were those who did not.

Bifocals for the touchscreen era accommodate users who mix near- and far-sightedness.

Treatment with henagliflozin is linked to an increase in the length of telomeres, chromosomal caps that shorten over time.

Raising millions upon millions of disease-fighting mosquitoes per week is no easy task, Nature learnt during its visit to the facility.

Some researchers say that US-agency policies provide opportunities for political interference.

A map of DNA methylation changes in human organs could help researchers to discover more targets for anti-ageing therapies.

Genetic-sequencing techniques have uncovered the oldest host-associated microbial DNA ever recorded — inside samples of teeth and bones from woolly and steppe mammoths.

System that searches for signs of bad practice could help to weed out questionable titles.

Bluesky posts about science garner more likes and reposts than similar ones on X.

Paralvinella hessleri is the first known animal to create orpiment, which was used by artists for centuries.

Through lawsuits, grant tracking, whistle-blowing and more, resistance to the US war on science is growing.

Momentum is building for regenerative agriculture, a set of approaches that could help farms to weather the changing climate and make them more profitable.

By clearing the confusion, this comprehensive guide can help businesses to do more for nature.

Physicist who spearheaded the construction of the LIGO observatory to detect Einstein’s predicted ripples in space-time leaves a legacy of persistence and mentorship.

Hoarding of health data is common across Africa, owing to well-founded concerns about exploitation and misuse of biomedical information. A charter that guarantees responsible data stewardship would help to allay such fears.

Researchers, funders, universities and governments must work together to build scientific collaborations that are resilient to rapidly evolving international sanctions.

Fans of the global social-media platform explain how best to harness its career-boosting and collaboration potential.

From large national databases to bespoke sample collections, biobanks offer a wealth of avenues for scientific enquiry.

Zoologist Amy MacLeod supports conservation efforts by using drones to survey endangered species.

The Perseverance rover on Mars has observed unusual minerals associated with organic matter — raising questions about the geochemistry of ancient Mars.

Sometimes, cancer cells that have spread become ‘dormant’ but can start proliferating again later. A cue that can reactivate them has been discovered.

A computational model of the early-to-present-day Universe predicts that some of the first stars formed in structures that challenge conventional classification.

Why do only certain molecules drive allergies? A feature now identified among some allergy-causing proteins is their ability to form pores in cells.

An encounter with blood-suckers persuades a researcher to back a new scientific institute, and an effort to standardize the printing of mathematical formulae, in our weekly dip into Nature’s archive.

A generative artificial-intelligence tool has designed a synthetic CRISPR system that successfully edits human DNA and sharply reduces off-target effects.

The emissions of leading fossil-fuel and cement producers have been systematically linked to particular heatwaves. Three scientists discuss the methodology behind the result and its potential impact on climate-liability court cases.

The results from a state-of-the-art suite of hydrodynamical cosmological zoom-in simulations show how globular clusters naturally emerge in the Standard Cosmology and also reveal the existence of a new class of object called globular-cluster-like dwarfs.

A geological, petrographic and geochemical survey of distinctive mudstone and conglomerate outcrops of the Bright Angel formation on Mars reveals textures, chemical and mineral characteristics, and organic signatures that warrant consideration as potential biosignatures.

Digital quantum simulations of Kitaev’s honeycomb model are realized for two-dimensional fermionic systems using a reconfigurable atom-array processor and used to study the Fermi–Hubbard model on a square lattice.

A superconducting quantum computer is used to realize an out-of-equilibrium topologically ordered state, which hosts anyonic excitations.

An analog optical computer that combines analog electronics, three-dimensional optics, and an iterative architecture accelerates artificial intelligence inference and combinatorial optimization in a single platform, paving a promising path for faster and sustainable computing.

High-resolution 3D printing technology making use of two-photon polymerization instead of traditional machining is described, allowing low-cost and scalable production of large arrays of high-quality 3D Paul traps.

An electrically driven perovskite laser is constructed by vertically integrating a low-threshold single-crystal perovskite microcavity sub-unit with a high-power microcavity perovskite LED sub-unit.

A real-time in situ magnetization reprogramming method for magnetic soft robots enables dynamic shape control, cooperative multi-tool manipulation and expanded actuation abilities.

Dual-scale chemical ordering in CoNiV-based alloys improves the synergy of strength and ductility at cryogenic temperatures, providing an approach for obtaining high-performance metallic materials for cryogenic applications.

Climate change made 213 historical heatwaves reported over 2000–2023 more likely and more intense, to which each of the 180 carbon majors (fossil fuel and cement producers) substantially contributed.

A new network approach maps every street block in sub-Saharan Africa using high-resolution building and street data, pinpointing infrastructure needs and revealing development gradients from neighbourhoods to cities and rural areas.

By analysing the smartphone data of 2,112,288 participants, in particular observing and comparing the activity of the same individual in two different environments, we find that increases in the walkability of environments result in increases in daily physical activity, providing evidence of the importance of the built environment on physical health.

Machine-learning algorithms trained on 25,000 geolocated soil samples are used to create high-resolution global maps of mycorrhizal fungi, revealing that less than 10% of their biodiversity hotspots are in protected areas.

We analyse a global dataset of genomic DNA sequences for Ophiuroidea to gain an understanding of phylogenetic divergence and biotic movement across oceans, finding phylogentically divergent faunas at shelf depths but greater connectivity of species at deep-sea depths.

A study describes the assembly and analysis of a haplotype-resolved pangenome of bulbous barley with the potential to improve domesticated barley and illustrates its use in evolutionary research and trait mapping.

Visual threat triggers contrasting freeze and escape defensive responses in two species of deer mice as a result of different activation thresholds downstream of the superior colliculus in the dorsal periaqueductal grey.

A stereotaxic atlas of the whole mouse brain, based on a Nissl-stained cytoarchitecture dataset with isotropic 1-μm resolution, achieved through continuous micro-optical sectioning tomography, promises to be a versatile brainsmatics tool for studying the whole brain at single-cell level.

Tracking of individual place cells in mouse CA1 shows that representational drift is not influenced by changes in environment or behaviour, and is lower for more excitable place cells.

Decreased brain coenzyme Q₁₀ levels cause encephalopathy and are associated with neurodegeneration; supplementation with 4-HMA or 4-HB restores coenzyme Q₁₀ synthesis in mice and humans with HPDL variants, improving survival and neurological symptoms in HPDL-driven mitochondrial encephalopathy.

The ability to form pores in the plasma membrane of host airway epithelial cells is a common feature of many structurally diverse allergens that induce type 2 immune responses by stimulating IL-33 release and causing Ca²⁺ influx.

Neutrophils actively induce tumour necrosis, driving vascular occlusion, pleomorphic necrosis and metastasis.

Mouse models show that respiratory infections from viruses such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2 can trigger metastasis of dormant breast cancer cells in the lungs, a finding supported by epidemiological data from two large human cohorts.

Using metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis-driven hepatocellular carcinoma mouse models, an ATP citrate lyase inhibitor reduces tumour burden and enhances efficacy of current standards of care.

Gene editors designed using artificial intelligence can undertake precision editing of the human genome.

Cryo-electron microscopy analyses of calcium-permeable AMPA receptors from rat brain show that they are composed primarily of GluA1 and GluA4 subunits, and biochemical studies show that noelin promotes inter-receptor interactions without modulating receptor function.

The GluA3 homomer substantially diverges from other AMPA-type glutamate receptors.