Volume 655 Issue 8121, 2 July 2026

Public trust in science can’t be sustained by the support of narrow constituencies at one end of an ideological spectrum.

Football's most nail-biting feature can reveal ways for everyone to manage stressful situations better.

The bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae has evolved resistance to most antibiotics used to treat it, but a machine-learning screen reveals potential therapies.

Carbon dioxide bubbling up from underground material can solidify into formations of up to five metres tall.

Species in the Heliconius genus are among the longest-lived butterflies, thanks to a diet of pollen.

Stretching protein samples in all directions pulls molecules farther apart, allowing them to be visualized using only light microscopy.

Existing global efforts to reduce harms caused by smoking have targeted tobacco smoking, but vapes containing nicotine are also harmful.

Reliance on artificial-intelligence tools degrades the abilities of physicians and software engineers, studies show.

Embryonic ‘organizer cells’ can tell embryos of various phyla what kind of body to build.

Two research teams have created a new, long-awaited type of timekeeper.

Four antibiotic compounds produced in Streptomyces bacteria attack multiple parts of an essential metabolic pathway.

A two-drug combination induces hypothermia in mice by lowering metabolism and dilating blood vessels.

Two people were the first to receive the therapy for a condition that damages the spinal cord and optic nerve.

Some say there’s a global crisis of trust — but research reveals where the real problems lie.

A handful of start-up firms are testing therapies that target specific epigenetic markers to treat everything from high cholesterol to a rare muscular disorder.

An ambitious analysis challenges the view that a nation’s pursuit of economic growth alone can deliver long-term prosperity.

Andrew Robinson reviews five of the best science picks.

Science is a complex, interconnected, deeply human enterprise involving hard grind — and funding cuts and grant delays have come as a sucker punch to many.

Trust in elite institutions is on the wane globally. Building public participation into research and government advice can turn the tide.

Video blogger’s viral accusations of data manipulation in Nature journals have sparked intense debate and speedy institutional investigations.

The FAIR guidelines laid a solid foundation for ensuring data accessibility and reproducibility. A decade on, researchers are thinking beyond them.

A microscale gripper that can be opened and closed using light can fit into tight spaces and perform tasks linked to clinical applications.

Training a neural network to collate data from several sources provides a high-resolution view of how people are moving around the world.

A quantum computer based on trapped ions can connect any two quantum bits, reaching performance levels that conventional computers cannot match.

A machine-learning model trained on thousands of electrocardiogram recordings identifies a previously unrecognized group of at-risk people.

The finding that spermine molecules in cells bind to iron to prevent it unleashing ferroptosis, a type of cell death, opens up strategies for treating tissue damage and cancer.

This Perspective examines the challenges and opportunities of genomic sequencing across multiple clinical applications, including genetic therapies, and calls for the establishment of new, centralized reference standards to improve consistency and accuracy in the field of precision medicine.

A virtual yeast, an artificial intelligence-driven agent for modelling eukaryotic cellular behaviours, is described.

The observation of a direct wave after the merger of two black holes reveals signatures associated with the remnant black-hole horizon, establishing an observational channel to directly measure frame-dragging effects in black-hole ergospheres and probe the horizon surface gravity.

Transmission spectroscopy of the planet WD 1856 b, orbiting a white dwarf, with the James Webb Space Telescope reveals the presence of hydrocarbons and aerosols in its atmosphere, providing insight into its mass and heating history.

A new quantum computer, Quantinuum Helios, which is a 98-qubit trapped-ion quantum processor built on the QCCD architecture, demonstrates performance well beyond classical capabilities and provides a path for scaling up quantum computing.

A versatile platform of miniaturized Fourier-optics-based diffractive elements enables multifunctional pixels that fully control and sense the amplitude, phase and polarization of optical wavefronts for advanced photonic applications.

A miniature three-dimensional optical fibre gripper enables powerful, precise micromanipulation of particles and single cells in confined spaces, bridging the gap between optical and mechanical tweezers.

Bottom-up synthesis from molecular nanographenes produces ultrasmall, uniform nanodiamonds for quantum colour centre incorporation, enabling scalable fabrication of high-quality quantum sensing materials.

A boron-stabilized oxide-strengthened tantalum alloy combines exceptional room-temperature ductility with record ultrahigh-temperature strength, enabling load-bearing applications above 2,000 °C.

Fast formation in lithium-ion batteries outperforms conventional slow formation, lowering costs and improving battery capacity, stability and cycle life, offering broader application to electrode systems.

Permafrost thaw on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau increases rock-weathering rates while reducing river CO₂ emissions, suggesting geological carbon fluxes may eventually outpace thaw-driven emissions.

Plant community properties affect ecosystem functioning via energy fluxes in food webs, with the leaf and root resource economics of dominant tree species controlling soil food web multifunctionality.

Palaeoproteomic analysis of ancient enamel proteins extracted from Middle Pleistocene Homo erectus specimens from the Zhoukoudian, Hexian and Sunjiadong sites in China suggests that they are a new genetic monogroup, and super-archaic introgression in Denisovans is likely to have originated from H. erectus.

A global annual migration-flow dataset (1990–2024) is produced using deep-learning models and diverse sources to estimate movements across 230 countries with improved temporal resolution, coverage and uncertainty estimates.

Processing ultra-long Oxford Nanopore Technologies Simplex reads with the HERRO (haplotype-aware error correction) framework greatly increases read accuracy, enabling improved diploid telomere-to-telomere genome assemblies from small amounts of genomic DNA using a single sequencing platform.

A genome assembly method called hifiasm (ONT) allows the assembly of chromosomes from telomere to telomere without the need for ultra-long reads, and outperforms conventional methods on most evaluation metrics.

This work provides a mechanistic understanding of how certain prefrontal circuits in the rodent brain permit flexibility to selectively stop learned behaviours through interactions with core subcortical reward systems.

Communication between distant brain regions is mediated by plastic networks of gap junction-coupled astrocytes.

Hippocampal–neocortical communication reconfigures predetermined circuit motifs to flexibly encode experiences.

Genome-wide selective sweeps commonly occur in the human gut microbiome and can spread across the world within decades to produce epidemic-like population structures.

A deep-learning model trained on electrocardiogram (ECG) waveforms identifies an easily visible biomarker that predicts sudden cardiac death more accurately than the current clinical state of the art.

The phase 1b NIVIPIT trial shows that in combined therapy with intravenous nivolumab (anti-PD1), intratumoural administration of ipilimumab (anti-CTLA4) offers improved safety and greater efficacy compared with intravenous delivery.

Cas12a2 enables RNA-triggered, sequence-specific killing of eukaryotic cells via widespread DNA shredding, allowing selective elimination of cells on the basis of gene expression, including virus-infected or mutation-bearing cells.

A non-canonical metabolic route for spermine synthesis mediated by ALDH18A1 limits iron availability and lipid peroxidation in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Researchers designed two-component proteins forming quasisymmetric cages via geometric frustration, enabling tunable virus-like assemblies for cargo delivery, cellular uptake and studying intracellular diffusion and protein localization.

Quasisymmetry could arise from spontaneous symmetry breaking in a system of strongly interacting building blocks with programmed curvatures, and this principle, coupled with a design approach, can generate a rich array of quasisymmetric assemblies.