Nature

Noah Baker and Ewen Callaway discuss the latest on teh Oxford, Astra-Zeneca COVID vaccine. Your browser does not support the audio element. Download MP3 Since the beginning of the pandemic the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been plagued by confusion and controversy. The vaccine has been authorised in over 100 countries, tens of millions of doses have

Subjected to pressures found 4 kilometres below the ocean surface, bacteria fare better (bottom) when fed the compound trimethylamine than bacteria that go without (top). Credit: Q. L. Qin et al./Sci. Adv. Microbiology 26 March 2021 How deep-sea bacteria thrive under pressure Microbes that survive in the dark depths import and process a molecule in

The light of young galaxies has given astronomers a glimpse of some of the interwoven tendrils of gas (illustration) filling the Universe. Credit: NASA/ESA/STScI/Science Photo Library Astronomy and astrophysics 26 March 2021 Faint galaxies light up the dark web filling the cosmos Dim, distant collections of stars hint at the early evolution of the Universe.

In this 60-minute webinar, first broadcast live in May 2020 and now available to view on demand, Nature speaks to researchers who had their world turned upside down by the pandemic, and asks for some of their advice. Although many scientists are now used to working from home after a year of pandemic life, the

The Victoria Building at the University of Liverpool, UK.Credit: Getty A university in the United Kingdom is facing criticism over the responsible use of research metrics, after it used information about scientists’ research income and publication records to identify dozens of jobs that are ‘at risk’. Critics say that using metrics in such a decision

The sauteur d’Alfort rabbit, which cannot hop, walks on its front paws when it needs to move quickly or cover long distances. Credit: M. Carneiro et al./PLOS Genet. (CC BY 4.0) Genetics 25 March 2021 Rabbits that do ‘handstands’ help to find a gene for hopping A rare breed of acrobatic bunny enables a giant

Storm clouds that spawn lightning are becoming more common in the warming Arctic, where such light shows have been rare. Credit: Ivan Kmit/Alamy Atmospheric science 25 March 2021 Rising temperatures spark boom in Arctic lightning Warming in the frozen north leads to more clouds that can produce electrical discharge. Share on Twitter Share on Twitter

InSight snapped this dusty selfie in early 2019 after deploying its seismometer. Much more dust has now settled on its solar panels. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Scientists have peered into the heart of Mars for the first time. NASA’s InSight spacecraft, sitting on the Martian surface with the aim of seeing deep inside the planet, has revealed

1. Luyssaert, S. et al. Old-growth forests as global carbon sinks. Nature 455, 213–215 (2008). ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar  2. Odum, E. P. The strategy of ecosystem development. Science 164, 262–270 (1969). ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar  3. Pan, Y. D. et al. A large and persistent carbon sink in the world’s forests. Science

László Lovász (left) and Avi Wigderson were jointly awarded the 2021 Abel Prize.Credits: left, Hungarian Academy of Sciences/Laszlo Mudra/AbelPrize; right, Cliff Moore/Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton/AbelPrize Abel prize celebrates union of maths and computer science Two pioneers of the theory of computation have won the 2021 Abel Prize, one of the most prestigious honours in

A xenon atom’s electrons (grey circles; illustration) have been observed and even manipulated as they shifted their position. Credit: Carlos Clarivan/Science Photo Library Atomic and molecular physics 24 March 2021 An atom shuffles its electrons at ultrahigh speed — and is caught in the act Scientists capture the movement of electrons in a xenon atom,

An irrigation canal in the dry and intensively farmed San Joaquin Valley of California. Solar panels over such canals are more efficient than those on dry land. Credit: Citizens of the Planet/Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Renewable energy 23 March 2021 Solar panels that throw shade on canals are an environmental win–win Placing solar arrays over

When steel manufacture in Pakistan is buoyed by Chinese infrastructure investments, how to account for the emissions released?Credit: Asim Hafeez/Bloomberg via Getty Joe Biden’s presidency of the United States is an opportunity to realize a long-discussed approach to global warming: a climate club. The United States, the European Union and China together emit half of

Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here Ron Levine/Getty Puppies are hardwired to understand us Nearly 400 adorable puppies have helped researchers to show that dogs’ ability to understand human pointing — a rarity in the animal kingdom — appears to be hardwired

In this photo, taken in December 2020, I am reviewing students’ progress in a computer networking course at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, where I teach electrical engineering and telecommunication policy. The students are learning to configure computers to accommodate Voice over Internet Protocol, or online telephony. We’ve also explored the programming language Python, and

Astronomer Vera Rubin studying photographic plates in 1974.Credit: Carnegie Institution for Science Vera Rubin: A Life Jacqueline Mitton & Simon Mitton Belknap Press (2021) The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, under construction in Chile, is scheduled to begin scientific operations in 2023. Its ten-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time hopes to “see more of the

An illustration of the spike proteins that the SARS-CoV-2 virus uses to break into human cell membranes.Credit: Design Cells/Science Photo Library Penny Moore was one of the first scientists to show that a coronavirus variant identified in South Africa could dodge the immune system. So the virologist was expecting more grim news when she tested

Joe Biden congratulates the team of scientists responsible for landing NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars during a virtual call on 4 March.Credit: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty After winning the US presidential election, Democrat Joe Biden moved quickly to begin naming the experts who will advise him on a range of issues — including science. He

Rick Bright speaks at a congressional hearing on protecting scientific integrity during the pandemic in May 2020.Credit: Shawn Thew/Getty Rick Bright put his career on the line when he blew the whistle on how former president Donald Trump’s administration was handling the coronavirus pandemic last year. Bright — who was then director of the US

The Summer Internship for Indigenous Peoples (SING) Consortium hosts workshops to engage students and tribal members in genomics.Credit: Rene Begay In lamenting the “broken promise that undermines human genome research”, this journal implies that researchers have a right to access information across databases (see Nature 590, 198–201; 2021). In our view, this problematically frames ‘equity’