
Asteroid Ryugu Poses Landing Risks for Japanese Mission
Mission planners have chosen the first landing sites on boulder-strewn body for Hayabusa 2 and its rovers to touch down
First published in 1869, Nature is the world's leading multidisciplinary science journal. Nature publishes the finest peer-reviewed research that drives ground-breaking discovery, and is read by thought-leaders and decision-makers around the world.

Asteroid Ryugu Poses Landing Risks for Japanese Mission
Mission planners have chosen the first landing sites on boulder-strewn body for Hayabusa 2 and its rovers to touch down

The Battle for the Soul of Biodiversity
An ideological clash may undermine a crucial assessment of the world’s disappearing plant and animal life

World’s First Wind-Mapping Satellite Set to Launch
Data from the long-awaited Aeolus mission will address a major gap in the global forecasting system

Climate Change Has Doubled the Frequency of Ocean Heat Waves
Extreme heat events wreak havoc on marine ecosystems and will only get worse in coming decades

Autism and DDT: What 1 Million Pregnancies Can—and Can't—Reveal
Analysis finds prenatal exposure to the pesticide is associated with a higher risk of severe autism with intellectual impairment

Sex, Drugs and Self-Control
It's not just about rebellion. Neuroscience is revealing adolescents' rich and nuanced relationship with risky behavior

The Bat Man: Neuroscience on the Fly
How does the brain know where it is? Nachum Ulanovsky hopes his flying friends can help him find the answer

Industry Trumps Peer-Reviewed Science at EPA
Critics outraged over changes to chemical-safety review guidelines

LHC Physicists Embrace Brute-Force Approach to Particle Hunt
The world’s most powerful particle collider has yet to turn up new physics—now some physicists are turning to a different strategy

Gene-Silencing Technology Gets First Drug Approval after 20-Year Wait
The U.S. FDA decision comes after fits and stops for RNA-interference therapies

Thousands of Exotic "Topological" Materials Discovered through Sweeping Search
Haul thrills physicists, who previously knew of just a few hundred of these peculiar materials

War Zone Complicates Ebola Vaccine Rollout in Latest Outbreak
Health workers must plan vaccination effort amidst fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo

Genome Study Upends Understanding of How Language Evolved
Research casts doubt on the idea that a gene linked to language evolution is special to modern humans

Number-Theory Prodigy among Winners of Most Coveted Prize in Mathematics
The Fields Medals have been awarded to four researchers who work on number theory, geometry and network analysis

Trump Taps Meteorologist as White House Science Advisor
Nomination of Kelvin Droegemeier could end long drought at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Droughts, Heat Waves and Floods: How to Tell When Climate Change Is to Blame
Weather forecasters will soon provide instant assessments of global warming’s influence on extreme events

Push to Weaken U.S. Endangered Species Act Runs into Roadblocks
Policymakers have tried, unsuccessfully, to change this law for decades

Speeding Up Evolution to Save an Australian Marsupial from Toxic Toads
The strategy could also be used to aide Tasmanian devils and corals on the Great Barrier Reef

Milky Way's Black Hole Provides Long-Sought Test of Einstein's General Relativity
An observation decades in the making confirms predictions about how light behaves in an immense gravitational field

Big Bang Telescope Finale Marks End of an Era in Cosmology
With the end of Europe’s major Planck mission, researchers are moving to smaller projects studying different aspects of the cosmic microwave background

China Expands Surveillance of Sewage to Police Illegal Drug Use
Privacy concerns, cultural differences fuel skepticism about this approach in other settings

Science under Siege: Behind the Scenes at Trump's Troubled Environment Agency
Uncertainty, hostility and irrelevance are now part of daily life for scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

South Africa Celebrates Completion of Gigantic, Supersensitive Telescope
MeerKAT has drawn astronomers, engineers and data scientists from around the world

Deforestation Ticks Up in Brazil's Savanna
The Cerrado is the most threatened biome in Brazil, environmentalists proclaim