Stories by Nature magazine

The discovery highlights a need for future missions after NASA puts one on hold

Bailouts mean customers’ deposits are safe, but the Silicon Valley Bank’s demise has sparked concern about future investment in small tech companies

Smoke from the catastrophic 2019–2020 fires in Australia unleashed ozone-eating chlorine molecules into the stratosphere

House Republicans have kicked off an investigation into how the pandemic began with witnesses who largely favor a lab origin

Booming exploration and commercial activity could ruin the quiet, astronomy-friendly environment of the lunar far side

The historic High Seas Treaty aims to preserve marine biodiversity in what has been considered the “Wild West” of the oceans while still encouraging research

A multiyear project studying stray dogs around Chernobyl aims to uncover the health effects of chronic radiation exposure

Researchers worry the Colombian environmental ministry will side with animal-rights activists rather than curb the spread of invasive hippos once kept by drug-cartel leader Pablo Escobar

New studies have revealed the spacecraft’s final moments and the remarkable aftermath of its impact

A judge’s decision could ban mifepristone across the country and weaken the Food and Drug Administration’s authority

Scientists are deciphering how the brain choreographs immune responses, hoping to find treatments for a range of diseases

The risks associated with a bone marrow transplant used to treat HIV mean the procedure is unlikely to be widely used in its current form

Google, Microsoft and Baidu are using tools similar to ChatGPT to turn Internet searches into a conversation. How will this change humanity’s relationship with machines?

Individual atoms trapped by optical “tweezers” are emerging as a promising computational platform

Resins used by ancient Egyptians to prepare bodies for the afterlife are found in vessels in a 2,500-year-old workshop

The “amorphous” solid is denser and could be water “frozen in time”

Some scientists say the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s suggestion of updating COVID vaccines each year, as happens with influenza vaccines, could boost uptake. But others are less convinced

Fireworks display from rare dying star is unlike anything astronomers have seen

SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, is deploying machine-learning algorithms that filter out earthly interference and spot signals humans might miss

Satellite navigation systems for lunar settlements will require local atomic clocks. Scientists are working out what time they will keep

Using modern human DNA to estimate when new generations were born over 250,000 years, scientists suggest that fathers have been having children later in life than mothers throughout human history

Scientists cannot always differentiate between research abstracts generated by the AI ChatGPT and those written by humans

A new algorithm is probably not efficient enough to crack current encryption keys—but that’s no reason for complacency, researchers say

Drugs that reduce excess weight linked to chronic health problems have shown striking results in trials and in practice