Featured
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Research Highlight |
Male-killing virus leads to more female moths
Virus that quashes survival of male moth embryos arose independently of other microorganisms that skew sex ratios.
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News & Views |
From the archive: why the chicken crossed the road, and a frog in puffed breeches
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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News |
How to keep wildcats wild: ancient DNA offers fresh insights
Ancient-genomics studies are boosting efforts to save Scotland’s endangered ‘Highland tigers’ — and keep them separate from domestic cats.
- Ewen Callaway
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Nature Video |
How would a starfish wear trousers? Science has an answer
Gene expression reveals the story behind starfishes’ strange five-armed body plans
- Shamini Bundell
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News |
Blood-sucking fish had flesh-eating ancestors
Two ‘superbly preserved’ fossil lampreys from the Jurassic period help piece together the past of the unusual jawless fish.
- Xiaoying You
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News |
Menopausal chimpanzees deepen the mystery of why women stop reproducing
Some chimpanzees have been found to experience menopause. But are they the exception or the rule?
- Dyani Lewis
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News & Views |
Dopamine determines how reward overrides risk
Why do animals pursue reward in the face of punishment? Dopamine-releasing neurons that promote reward-seeking behaviour indirectly impair those that encode punishment avoidance, affecting decisions on risk.
- Kristin M. Scaplen
- & Karla R. Kaun
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Article |
Leishmania genetic exchange is mediated by IgM natural antibodies
Genetic exchange of Leishmania parasites in the sand fly host is mediated by natural IgM antibodies, providing insights that will help generate reproducible and increased recovery of backcrosses for research purposes.
- Tiago D. Serafim
- , Eva Iniguez
- & Jesus G. Valenzuela
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News |
Mysterious mouse mummies found atop lofty volcanoes
Naturally freeze-dried leaf-eared mice found above 6,000 metres show mammals can dwell at extraordinary heights.
- Anil Oza
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News & Views |
From the archive: animal behaviour, and Darwin discusses organ loss
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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News |
Australia’s feral horses need ‘urgent’ control: scientists welcome latest report
Ecologists have praised government recommendations, but some say more concrete action — including a cull — is needed.
- Dyani Lewis
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Nature Index |
Three scientists on the front line of climate and conservation research
By bearing firsthand witness to how the climate crisis is affecting life and livelihoods, their fieldwork directly informs policy to protect vulnerable sites.
- Sandy Ong
- & Andy Tay
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Article
| Open AccessBridging two insect flight modes in evolution, physiology and robophysics
Asynchronous flight in all major groups of insects likely arose from a single common ancestor with reversions to a synchronous flight mode enabled by shifts back and forth between different regimes in the same set of dynamic parameters.
- Jeff Gau
- , James Lynch
- & Simon Sponberg
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Nature Podcast |
Audio long read: These animals are racing towards extinction. A new home might be their last chance
Researchers are testing a controversial strategy to relocate threatened animals whose habitats might not survive climate change.
- Clare Watson
- & Benjamin Thompson
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Research Highlight |
Snow-loving flies amputate their own legs for survival
Insects that traipse across winter snowfields use harsh technique to keep their internal organs from freezing.
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News |
How to train your jellyfish: brainless box jellies learn from experience
Researchers have shown that the creatures can learn to avoid obstacles using visual and mechanical cues, despite not having a brain.
- Dyani Lewis
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News & Views |
The neural circuit that makes maternal mice respond to pups’ cries
All newborn mammals cry. The neural circuit that stimulates mothers to look after crying offspring has been identified in mice — along with a mechanism that promotes maternal behaviour only after prolonged calls from pups.
- Flavia Ricciardi
- & Cristina Márquez
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Nature Podcast |
Why does cancer spread to the spine? Newly discovered stem cells might be the key
A stem cell vital for vertebral growth also drives spine metastases, and the use of MDMA in the treatment of PTSD.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Shamini Bundell
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Article
| Open AccessThe oldest three-dimensionally preserved vertebrate neurocranium
Computed tomography reveals that the cranial anatomy of Ordovician stem-group gnathostome Eriptychius americanus from the Harding Sandstone of Colorado, USA, is distinct among vertebrates.
- Richard P. Dearden
- , Agnese Lanzetti
- & Ivan J. Sansom
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News |
Tasmanian tiger RNA is first to be recovered from an extinct animal
Genetic sequences from a museum specimen offer fresh clues about the physiology of thylacines, which went extinct in the 1930s.
- Miryam Naddaf
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Research Highlight |
This parrot taps out beats — and it custom-builds its instruments
Male palm cockatoos prefer certain types of percussion tool, which they create themselves from branches and seed pods.
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News |
Octopuses used in research could receive same protections as monkeys
For the first time in the United States, research with cephalopods might require approval by an ethics committee.
- Sara Reardon
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Nature Podcast |
Our ancestors lost nearly 99% of their population, 900,000 years ago
A roundup of stories from the Nature Briefing, including how human ancestors came close to extinction, historic pollution in Antarctica, and the AI that predicts smell from a compound's structure.
- Benjamin Thompson
- , Dan Fox
- & Shamini Bundell
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News |
‘Weird’ dinosaur prompts rethink of bird evolution
The fossil is as old as the ‘first bird’, Archaeopteryx, and might have specialized in running or wading instead of flying.
- Jude Coleman
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News Feature |
These animals are racing towards extinction. A new home might be their last chance
Some of the most threatened animals might not survive in their current habitat because of climate change. Researchers are testing a controversial strategy to relocate them before it’s too late — starting with Australia’s rarest reptile.
- Clare Watson
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Research Briefing |
Peering into bats’ brains as the animals fly and feed together
Many animals, including humans, live together and move in coordination with others, but little is known about how neurons represent or govern such complex behaviours. By studying free-flying bats, we found that neural activity in a region of the brain called the hippocampus contains a rich representation of the spatial and social environment that could support collective behaviour.
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News |
Most rare kākāpō parrots have had their genome sequenced
DNA from more than 100 of the critically endangered birds could help to save the species from extinction.
- Katharine Sanderson
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Nature Podcast |
Brain-reading implants turn thoughts into speech
Two studies demonstrate how brain-computer interfaces could help people to communicate, and working out how hot it can get before tropical leaves start to die.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Nick Petrić Howe
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Article
| Open AccessReef-building corals farm and feed on their photosynthetic symbionts
Long-term experiments show that corals acquire dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus by feeding on symbiont cells, which provide essential nutrients enabling their success in nutrient-poor waters.
- Jörg Wiedenmann
- , Cecilia D’Angelo
- & Amatzia Genin
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News & Views |
From the archive: Copernicus’s legacy, and a hungry pigeon
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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Research Briefing |
Neural basis of why mammals eat more in the cold
Feeding and the maintenance of internal body temperature are tightly linked in warm-blooded animals, and mammals eat more in the cold to maintain their body heat. Experiments reveal that a small nucleus in the brain’s thalamus controls feeding behaviour specifically in cold conditions by directly activating a reward centre in the brain.
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Nature Podcast |
Fruit flies’ ability to sense magnetic fields thrown into doubt
Study fails to replicate two key papers on fruit flies’ magnetic sense, and what the closing of the Arecibo observatory means for science.
- Nick Petrić Howe
- & Shamini Bundell
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News & Views |
From the archive: a prize for the design of a helicopter, and a venomous caterpillar
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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News & Views |
Replication study casts doubt on magnetic sensing in flies
It has long been thought that the fly Drosophila melanogaster can detect Earth’s magnetic field and offers an ideal system in which to examine this enigmatic sense. However, a rigorous replication of key studies fails to support this idea.
- Eric J. Warrant
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Nature Podcast |
How welcome are refugees in Europe? A giant study has some answers
A survey of 33,000 Europeans suggests overall support towards refugees has slightly increased, and how to get shapes to roll down wiggly paths using mathematics.
- Nick Petrić Howe
- & Shamini Bundell
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News & Views |
From the archive: the tenacity of eels, and weatherproofing St Paul’s
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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Article |
A heavyweight early whale pushes the boundaries of vertebrate morphology
Perucetus colossus, a basilosaurid whale from the middle Eocene epoch of Peru with an extremely pachyosteosclerotic postcranium, is estimated to have a greater skeletal mass than any known mammal or aquatic vertebrate.
- Giovanni Bianucci
- , Olivier Lambert
- & Eli Amson
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News & Views |
From the archive: the problem with physics, and a stealthy attack
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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Research Highlight |
An enigmatic little whale’s habits, from its own mouth
The pygmy right whale does not migrate to feed in cold waters as its larger relatives do, baleen analysis suggests.
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News & Views |
From the archive: pollination, and Charles Darwin ponders scared ants
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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News |
Short arms and lanky legs: the genetic basis of walking on two legs
Genome-wide map reveals regions associated with skeletal changes that enabled humans to walk upright.
- Dyani Lewis
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Book Review |
To save bears, we must learn to live alongside them
With urban areas expanding and climate change shrinking bears’ habitats, the animals’ interactions with humans will make — or break — efforts to preserve their populations.
- Henry Nicholls
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Nature Video |
First glimpses inside octopus’s sleeping brains reveals human-like patterns
Neural activity show an ‘active’ sleep stage similar to REM sleep in mammals.
- Shamini Bundell
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News |
Tasmanian devil cancer vaccine approved for testing
The vaccine was inspired by COVID jabs, but if it is approved, it will be delivered in edible bait.
- Gemma Conroy
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Nature Podcast |
Do octopuses dream? Neural activity resembles human sleep stages
Brain probes reveal complexities of octopus sleep, and a hormone that could help make calorie-restricted diets more effective.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Shamini Bundell
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News & Views |
From the archive: chemical symbols and an octopus baby boom
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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Research Highlight |
Dolphin mums whistle ‘baby talk’ with their calves
The calls of dolphin mothers had a higher pitch when they were accompanied by their young.
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Book Review |
Is ‘speciesism’ as bad as racism or sexism?
We are all complicit in a global farming industry that puts profit before animal welfare — but establishing what moral principles we should be applying isn’t easy, an update of a classic book shows.
- Jonathan Birch
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Research Highlight |
Glow-worms’ ‘come-hither’ signals are lost in the glare of human lights
Artificial lighting could make some populations of these insects wink out.