Volume 646 Issue 8085, 16 October 2025

Khaled El-Enany, the agency’s first director-general from an Arab state, will lead the UN’s education, science and cultural organization through one of its most severe tests.

The publishing ecosystem must do more to tackle inequities; quotas and partnerships with societies can help.

Innovation is key to meeting today’s global challenges. This is why the University of Botswana, originally a teaching institution, is now fostering research, and others should take the leap.

Genetic analysis reveals that most living genera of mosquitoes emerged around 73 million years ago.

DNA found in fossils from southwestern Germany suggests the populations survived in the region much longer than expected.

Cha 1107-7626 is devouring matter during its solo drift across the Galaxy.

Laser plasma device could be light enough to be used on the field.

Mary Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi discovered cells that protect the body from autoimmune diseases.

Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi pioneered the creation of metal–organic frameworks, which can capture and store molecules such as carbon dioxide.

John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis discovered quantum physics on a macroscopic scale, paving the way for quantum computing.

To keep the mind young, dance the tango.

Recipient diagnosed with brain death received a type-O organ, which is compatible with all blood types.

Data reveal how the global challenge to reduce deaths and infections from drug-resistant bacteria is not going according to plan.

MetaGraph compresses vast data archives into a search engine for scientists, opening up new frontiers of biological discovery.

CRISPR-based tools can’t easily access the DNA in these organelles, but researchers are finding other ways in.

Sex cells made from scratch could revolutionize human reproduction. But researchers are struggling to translate promising results in mice into benefits for humans.

A spirited tour of alchemy shows how it bridged everything from chemical reactions, medicine and craft to philosophy, art and religion.

Historian brings icy climate warnings and warm personal memories.

She was a tireless advocate for conservation, the welfare of captive chimpanzees and the protection of habitats.

The idea that emissions can be offset through projects that claim to avoid releases or to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is fatally flawed.

The metals industry must confront metals’ scarcity, rising demand and climate impacts. Sustainable solutions exist that must be embraced.

Confused by research evaluation and its potential impact on career progression? Here are some pointers as to how things work in different parts of the world.

‘Digital twins’ of real-world objects are moving from manufacturing to wildlife management.

Melina Maldonado Sandoval, a member of the Mayo-Yoreme Indigenous community, assists researchers in studying the risks of petrochemical manufacturing in the Sinaloa region.

Metal nanoparticles have been made with polymer patches accurately placed on their surfaces — enabling them to self-assemble into otherwise inaccessible 3D structures.

The role of tissue that forms between the head and trunk of a fly embryo has been unclear. It turns out that it absorbs forces when nearby cells move and divide.

Diverse bird species recognize the same vocalization to rally neighbours against invading cuckoos. The finding plays into a broader debate about the emergence of language.

Water has extraordinary electrical properties when trapped in tiny channels — a finding that calls for a re-think about key processes in biology, climate and nanotechnology.

Modelling suggests that most Caribbean coral reefs will erode by the year 2100 as sea-level rise outpaces reef growth and limits potential reef restoration.

Nature’s pages feature evidence that rodents reach refreshment through wily means, and a review of a book that celebrates everything honey.

Mouse studies show that depriving neuroblastoma of certain amino acids causes a switch in protein synthesis to suppress tumour growth and promote cell differentiation.

An efficient quantum thermal simulation algorithm that exhibits detailed balance, respects locality, and serves as a self-contained model for thermalization in open quantum systems.

RAFAEL is a sub-ångström ultra-high-transmittance snapshot spectroscopic imaging sensor leveraging electro-optic reconfigurability in integrated lithium niobate photonics.

A cooperative aerial manipulation system, called FlyingToolbox, can work stably with sub-centimetre-level docking accuracy under vertical-stack flight conditions. 

Experimental evidence demonstrates long-distance remote epitaxial interactions of thin films even through thick amorphous carbon buffer layers and shows that these can be induced through dislocations in the substrate.

An atomic stencilling method based on the co-adsorption of iodide and 2-naphthalenethiol on gold is described, yielding more than 20 different types of nanoparticle with masked and painted regions and patchy particle morphologies not reported previously.

The release of triplet or singlet oxygen is governed by individual Marcus normal and inverted region behaviour.

Scanning dielectric microscopy of nanocapillaries filled with water reveals that interfacial and strongly confined water exhibits a large in-plane dielectric constant and an in-plane conductivity approaching superionic values. 

A transition from carbon sink to source for the aboveground woody biomass of moist tropical Australian forests has occurred, driven by increasingly extreme climate anomalies.

An analysis of coral reefs in the tropical western Atlantic suggests that nearly all will be eroding by 2100 if global warming exceeds 2 °C, which will worsen the effects of sea-level rise.

In Drosophila, the cephalic furrow counteracts mechanical stress as the developing head and the trunk tissues meet, providing evidence for how mechanical forces influence the evolution of morphogenetic innovations in early development.

Flies have evolved two distinct strategies for managing mechanical stresses during embryogenesis: out-of-plane cell division in midges and transient out-of-plane tissue folding in fruit flies.

A novel multistep strategy reveals how parent-of-origin effects shape complex traits in large-scale biobanks.

Sequencing analyses of human prefrontal cortex from donors ranging in age from 0.4 to 104 years show that ageing correlates with an accumulation of somatic mutations in short housekeeping genes and a reduction in the expression of these genes.

In Drosophila, coherent slow-wave activity between sleep-promoting and locomotion-promoting neural networks provides a brain state structure that allows for quiescent behaviours.

Microglia-derived IGF1 promotes the proliferation of GABAergic progenitors and neuroblasts in the human medial ganglionic eminence, contributing to the extended production of GABAergic neurons and an expanded cognitive capacity in the human brain.

Haematopoietic stem cell numbers are restricted at both systemic and local levels.

Studies in mice show that acute stress activates hyperglycaemia via activation of a medial amygdala–ventral hypothalamic circuit that controls glucose metabolic responses in the liver, independently of adrenal and pancreatic hormones.

Enhanced polyamine depletion in neuroblastoma models decreases translation of mRNA codons with adenosine in the third position, reprogramming the tumour proteome away from cell cycle progression and towards differentiation.

Human collaboration with a team of artificial intelligence (AI) agents powered by large language models was used to efficiently design a complex interdisciplinary research project leading to the design of novel nanobodies against SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

The activity of the tumour-suppressor protein p53 is repressed in the thymus to augment fluctuations in background chromatin accessibility as a means of mediating ectopic gene expression and immune tolerance.

Dual cyclin A/B RxL inhibitors selectively kill small cell lung cancer cells and other cancer cells with high E2F activity.

Cocaine chemogenetics in rats is a selective approach for countering drug reinforcement by clamping dopamine release in the presence of cocaine.

Crystal structures of human CB₁ bound to two cannabinoid agonists reveal key features, including a twin toggle switch and binding pocket reduction, advancing understanding of receptor dynamics and guiding cannabinoid drug design.