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A geochemical analysis suggests that Stonehenge’s Altar Stone came from northern Scotland — plus, chemists have finally discovered how to break selenium bonds unevenly.

Analysis of stone tools and DNA reveals when modern humans reached northern Europe, and why human brain cells grow so slowly.

A soya-oil-derived adhesive matches the strength of conventional glues, and reassessing the extent and impacts of childhood malnutrition.

New evidence may push back the date on human arrival to the Americas, and an examination of science’s flaws.

Mineral ages and chemical analysis of fragments of the Altar Stone from the Neolithic stone circle at Stonehenge suggest that it was transported from northeast Scotland, more than 750 km away, probably by sea.

The rise of AI-generated fakes, evidence of the earliest-known wooden structure, and how NASA’s OSIRIS-REx brought asteroid samples back to Earth.

Research suggests a combination of behaviours underlie the evolution of human cooperation, and researchers make an optical disc with enormous storage capacity.

A 31,000-year-old skeleton shows evidence of complex surgery, and the latest from the Nature Briefing.

An artificial intelligence that restores illegible inscriptions, and the project that's reintroducing lost species in Argentina.

Study fails to replicate two key papers on fruit flies’ magnetic sense, and what the closing of the Arecibo observatory means for science.

An estimate of the deaths associated with COVID-19, and the lack of ethnic diversity in UK academia.

A hormone discovered in mice could help keep bones healthy during lactation, and a new way to edit genes in the gut microbiome.

Tactic could be co-opted to make gene-editing more precise, and how much melting of Greenland’s ice sheet can be prevented.

Researchers try to unpick the complex relationship between sensory pollutants and bird reproduction, and how to combat organised crime in fisheries.

Research reveals system underlying behaviour change towards young, and identifying the source of fast solar wind.

Here, the authors present archaeological excavations from two sites paired with life-size rock engravings from 12,800 to 11,400 years ago in the Nefud desert of northern Arabia. These engravings, depicting camels, ibex and more, combined with stone tools from associated archaeological deposits and sediment analyses of playa deposits, provide evidence of human populations exploiting seasonal waterbodies.

Study refutes claim that mismanagement of natural resources led to population crash — plus a tiny wasp that’s been found in an unexpected place.

Probing the superconducting properties of graphene and bacteria that can use manganese to grow.

Data suggest menopause evolved to enable older female whales to help younger generations survive, and how researchers made a cellular map of the developing human heart.

Baked sediment, heat-shattered artefacts and introduced pyrite in a 400,000-year-old Palaeolithic occupation site in Suffolk, UK provide evidence of intentional fire-making, marking a pivotal moment in human development.

Skin's unusual response to stretching is finally explained, and the latest in a huge effort to map DNA.

Genome-wide ancestry profiles of four individuals, dating to 8,000 and 3,000 years before present, from the archaeological site of Shum Laka (Cameroon) shed light on the deep population history of sub-Saharan Africa.

2023 CX1 is the only L-chondrite-like asteroid analysed from space to ground. It catastrophically fragmented in the atmosphere, depositing 98% of its energy in one burst—an unusual, high-risk fragmentation mode with implications for planetary defence.

Stable carbon and oxygen isotope analysis of mammal teeth associated with stone tools and cut-marked bone dated to between 300,000 and 500,000 years ago reveals that, at the time of the earliest-known hominin presence, the Arabian peninsula was home to productive grasslands similar to modern-day African savannahs.

A study shows that the rapid diversification of cichlids in African lakes is driven by their ability to evolve between having simple or complex teeth.

Ancient DNA reveals how the explosive expansion of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists began with a small community north of the Black Sea speaking ancestral Indo-European, and detects genetic links with Anatolian speakers, stemming from a common Indo-Anatolian homeland in the North Caucasus–lower Volga region.

Dated palaeolake sequences show that there were at least five Pleistocene hominin expansions into the Arabian interior, coinciding with windows of reduced aridity between 400 and 55 thousand years ago.

Severe summer aridification caused freshwater scarcity and the decline of Homo floresiensis and its prey at Liang Bua 61,000 years ago, as revealed by a rainfall record based on speleothem geochemical data from the island of Flores, Indonesia.

Archaeological evidence shows that ancient people ate bread, beer and other carbs, long before domesticated crops.

A directly dated Homo sapiens phalanx from the Nefud desert reveals human presence in the Arabian Peninsula before 85,000 years ago. This represents the earliest date for H. sapiens outside Africa and the Levant.

A climatic record from desert speleothems shows that the central Arabian interior experienced recurrent humid intervals over the past 8 million years, which likely facilitated mammalian dispersals between Africa and Eurasia.

Fine-mapping of causal variants and integration of epigenetic and chromatin conformation data identify likely target genes for 150 breast cancer risk regions.

Stratigraphic, chronological, environmental and faunal context are provided to the newly discovered fossils of hominins that lived in the So’a Basin in Flores, Indonesia, 700,000 years ago; the stone tools recovered with the fossils are similar to those associated with the much younger Homo floresiensis from Flores, discovered in Liang Bua to the west.

This paper highlights the potential for improved monitoring and physical understanding to identify windows of opportunity for more confident seasonal forecasts and early warnings of regional climate extremes, such as the Pakistan floods of 2022.

Genome-wide data from 400 individuals indicate that the initial spread of the Beaker archaeological complex between Iberia and central Europe was propelled by cultural diffusion, but that its spread into Britain involved a large-scale migration that permanently replaced about ninety per cent of the ancestry in the previously resident population.

DNA analysis of 6 individuals from eastern and south-central Africa spanning the past approximately 18,000 years, and of 28 previously published ancient individuals, provides genetic evidence supporting hypotheses of increasing regionalization at the end of the Pleistocene.

Using DNA from a finger bone, the genome of an archaic hominin from southern Siberia has been sequenced to about 1.9-fold coverage. The group to which this individual belonged shares a common origin with Neanderthals, and although it was not involved in the putative gene flow from Neanderthals into Eurasians, it contributed 4–6% of its genetic material to the genomes of present-day Melanesians. A tooth whose mitochondrial genome is very similar to that of the finger bone further suggests that these hominins are evolutionarily distinct from Neanderthals and modern humans.

Whole-genome sequencing, transcriptome-wide association and fine-mapping analyses in over 7,000 individuals with critical COVID-19 are used to identify 16 independent variants that are associated with severe illness in COVID-19.

An analysis of 24,202 critical cases of COVID-19 identifies potentially druggable targets in inflammatory signalling (JAK1), monocyte–macrophage activation and endothelial permeability (PDE4A), immunometabolism (SLC2A5 and AK5), and host factors required for viral entry and replication (TMPRSS2 and RAB2A).

A structure-guided fragment screen identified a compound, which interacts with a ligand-binding site of unknown function in eukaryotic initiation factor 4E (eIF4E). X-ray crystallography was used to characterise binding and target engagment was shown in cells.

A global network of researchers was formed to investigate the role of human genetics in SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity; this paper reports 13 genome-wide significant loci and potentially actionable mechanisms in response to infection.

An analysis involving the shotgun sequencing of more than 300 ancient genomes from Eurasia reveals a deep east–west genetic divide from the Black Sea to the Baltic, and provides insight into the distinct effects of the Neolithic transition on either side of this boundary.

Data suggest that breast cancer could be more susceptible to chemotherapy in a phase when progesterone is low — plus, why the debate around whether AI is close to human-level intelligence is hotting up.

Analysis of ancient human DNA from the Swahili coast reveals that predominantly African female ancestors and Asian male ancestors formed families after around ad 1000 and lived in elite communities in coastal stone towns.