Comparing yourself with your partner is more common than you'd think. Psychologists even have a term for it: mate value discrepancy (MVD), which is the gap between how attractive, smart or successful each partner feels compared with the other.
Scientists have long wondered whether loud, human-caused noise interferes with wild animals' cognition—their ability to think and learn—by causing stress, distraction or making it harder for them to focus. The results of a novel study of eastern bluebirds conducted by a team of researchers at Penn State suggest that, at least in some cases, short-term noise doesn't affect them much.
Using cargo recovered from one of Australia's most infamous shipwrecks, new Curtin University-led research has revealed how surprisingly sophisticated global supply chains helped source and transport construction materials in the 17th century.
In a world searching for more sustainable ways to manage waste, the promise of turning "trash into treasure" is hard to ignore. Take nitrate pollution, for example. Every year, nitrogen fertilizers help feed billions of people. But not all of that nitrogen stays where it is needed. Some is washed from farms into rivers, streams and groundwater, where it can contribute to environmental problems, including harmful algal blooms.
The wildfire that engulfed Spain's Ávila region, northwest of the capital, Madrid, is now considered the largest in the country's modern history, with around 50,000 hectares (193 square miles) burned, the government said this week.
For most theories in physics, the order of operations has little impact on the result. When setting a dial to a certain position, for example, it doesn't matter whether it's turned clockwise or counterclockwise—the result will always be the same. Yet for non-Abelian gauge theories, order does matter. These theories underpin the Standard Model, but to test their more subtle predictions, researchers have so far relied on enormous particle accelerators.
Feeding wild animals is a popular activity at tourist destinations. While these interactions often appear harmless, scientists are recognizing how supplemental feeding of wild animals can alter ecosystems in unexpected ways.
Winters in Antarctica's Ross Sea have become stormier in recent decades, affecting sea-ice conditions and field operations, new University of Otago—Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka research shows.
Scientists at Imperial College London and the University of Manchester have developed a promising new way to create safer and more effective treatments for life-threatening fungal infections. The research, published today in Nature, describes a new family of antifungal agents that—when tested in mice—were more potent and less toxic than existing treatments.
The vast majority of proteins in our bodies contain regions that are in a constant state of wiggling, shape-shifting every few nanoseconds to completely change how they look. Information on how these shape-shifting proteins work is critical to understanding health and disease and developing drugs for cancer, neurodegeneration and myriad other conditions. However, it has been challenging for scientists to pin down precisely how these regions function and how they go awry in disease.
Historians have for decades chronicled instances of discriminatory practices under Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Administration mortgage programs, but the extent of these biases has been unknown. The first national-level analysis of early FHA and VA lending practices, reported in Nature, offers a fuller picture.
The octopus is a biological oddity. It can use tools, open jars, and its complex nervous system supports as many neurons as a small primate. Now Harvard biologists have discovered a mysterious distinction in octopuses' core biology: Some octopuses have an unusual adaptation in the protein-making machinery of their cells that helps ensure accuracy, perhaps an evolutionary byproduct of their acute sensory system.
Researchers at Duke University School of Medicine have developed an artificial intelligence framework that can redesign proteins on a scale previously seen only in natural evolution. The tool can create shorter, longer and highly modified versions of proteins while preserving their structure and function.
A remarkably preserved fossil from Mongolia's Gobi Desert is reshaping scientists' understanding of mammal evolution during the age of dinosaurs.
Researchers at Colorado State University have developed a process to transform naturally occurring, highly stable carbon dioxide into recyclable, high-performance materials that could replace today's plastics in many situations. Their catalytic process, described in the journal Nature, is another step toward a circular economy that reduces plastic waste and supports environmental sustainability.
Chinese researchers have successfully charged a drone using just a laser, in a breakthrough that could change how we approach unmanned flight
Electronic motion sets the stage for virtually every light-induced process in nature, from the first step of a chemical reaction to the flow of charge in a solid. Yet these processes unfold so rapidly that they can be observed only with flashes of light lasting a few hundred attoseconds—billionths of a billionth of a second.
In November 2025, NASA's Mars-bound ESCAPADE (Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral with special cargo on board: two camera systems designed and built by faculty and students at NAU, with support from the University of California, Berkeley, and Rocket Lab.
A team of researchers has discovered that winds generated by supermassive black holes are 100 times more powerful than previously thought, carrying energy across distances of approximately 300,000 light-years. The discovery demonstrates that these explosive winds affect the vast expanse of space beyond the galaxies they inhabit.
Why do some people who embrace conspiracy theories simply hold those beliefs, while others act on them? A new study published in the British Journal of Social Psychology identifies three characteristics that help determine when conspiracy beliefs are most likely to shape real-world behavior: how certain people are that the belief is true, how personally important they consider it, and whether they see it as "actionable"—useful for deciding what to do.
Many viruses can infect both humans and animals, including hepatitis E virus. This virus is often transmitted to humans via contaminated meat products, such as by ingesting raw or undercooked pork or wild game. However, mouse liver cells are not a suitable host for hepatitis E viruses. Researchers have now discovered why.
At picnics and World Cup watch parties across the United States this summer, people have been reaching for bowls of chips and guacamole. Most of that guacamole is made from avocados grown in Mexico—on orchards that, in what might come as a surprise, contribute less water pollution today than they did a decade ago.
Astronomers have built the first three-dimensional map of gas temperature in the space surrounding our solar system, revealing a far messier and more dynamic picture than current models predict. The study was submitted to the arXiv preprint server on July 16.
For the first time, a research team from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology and Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany, has demonstrated that insects can mimic floral scents to manipulate pollinators.
Researchers at the University of Warwick and spinout company Verdel Instruments have successfully demonstrated two-dimensional mass spectrometry (2DMS) on a benchtop instrument, making this powerful technique practical and affordable for everyday laboratory use.
New research has found that 6.5 million Americans live in homes on or near landslide-prone slopes. With a single map, local governments and residents can now see landslide hazard hotspots at the regional, state and county levels to ensure they are aware of and prepared for an emergency.
Ancient single-celled red algae that thrive in scalding, acidic waters are emerging as far more than specialized survivors.
How to watch "Expedition X: Atomic Sharks" online, as Phil Torres and Heather Amaro investigate the effects of nuclear fallout on the Marshall Islands' waters.
Long-term records documenting the colors of penguin guano shed light on how declining sea ice may be affecting penguin diets.
The connections are still cloudy, but scientists are beginning to reveal ways in which disappearing sea ice may affect the annual monsoon thousands of kilometers away.
Scientists have found a genetic switch that could shave years off avocado breeding by allowing researchers to identify one of a young tree's most important traits long before it flowers.
Ethanol is an alcohol used in a vast number of industrial and household applications. When dehydrogenated—in this case, stripped of some of its hydrogen atoms—it yields another important compound: acetaldehyde, which is used to make resins, dyes, perfumes and synthetic flavors, among many other products. But currently available catalysts for ethanol dehydrogenation suffer from deactivation, poor performance over time and unwanted side reactions.
A liquid brushed onto cavities in seconds may spare many young children from pain, infection, and surgery. A major U.S. trial found that silver diamine fluoride stopped decay in more than half of treated baby teeth. The treatment requires no drilling, shots, or sedation, although it does permanently darken the decayed area.
Introducing demon cavefish ( Demogorgonichthys arcanus ); the rare eyeless predators that have been hiding in plain sight below a military base for decades.
Signals traveling from the gut to the brain may help turn meals into lasting memories. Rats showed stronger memory activity after consuming nutritious foods, but not after drinking sweet liquids with little or no nutritional value. Blocking the vagus nerve erased this effect and made it harder for the animals to remember where food had been located. Over time, diets high in fat and sugar also weakened this memory system.
If you've ever tried to read a scientific paper, you've almost certainly run into a p-value. And if you found it confusing, you're in good company: Plenty of working scientists misunderstand it too.
Quantum technologies are devices and systems that exploit the laws of quantum mechanics and could perform tasks that are difficult or impossible to tackle using their classical counterparts. These technologies process and store information using qubits (i.e., quantum bits), which can exist in a superposition of multiple states simultaneously.
Bumblebees naturally have short lives, but extreme heat and human activity are making survival harder. Pesticides can poison bees or destroy the flowers they depend on, while habitat loss leaves them with fewer safe places to live and feed. Protecting native plants and using fewer chemicals could help these vital pollinators recover.
A whole-atmosphere model simulation shows that rising CO 2 changes how the upper atmosphere and ionosphere respond to a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW), with implications for future space weather.
Rice University chemists have found a new way to make neodymium, a rare-earth metal, interact with oxygen. Using a specially designed molecular structure described as a “basket,” the team positioned the atoms so they could form a bond once thought unlikely. The breakthrough produced highly reactive compounds that could eventually give chemists alternatives to iron-based molecules used in biological reactions and chemical manufacturing.
From eclipse glasses to smart telescopes, here are eight safe ways to experience the Aug. 12, 2026, solar eclipse
A new cooking method could make French fries crispier in less time while significantly limiting how much oil they absorb. Researchers propose combining microwave heating, which keeps oil out, with conventional frying, which provides the crunch consumers expect.
July's full moon will be at its best on the night of July 29. It's the last regular full moon before a total solar eclipse and partial lunar eclipse in August.
When an 8-year-old suddenly lost the ability to walk, doctors ruled out infection and autoimmune disease before uncovering a rare explanation.
Experts are still investigating but note that an earlier discovery nearby identified part of the wing of a British Lancaster bomber
Health editor Nicoletta Lanese spoke with trauma surgeon Dr. Selwyn Rogers Jr. about his new book, "Healing the Gun Violence Epidemic."
Pronunciation: Ah-LEEL'
In June 2026 I recorded 48 fatal landslides causing 131 fatalities. 2026 continues to be atypical in terms of the temporal pattern of fatal landslides. This is my regular update for the number of fatal global landslides, focusing on June 2026. As usual, this data has been collected in line with the methodology described in Froude […]
Sleeping well during a heatwave starts with stopping the home from overheating. Close blinds against strong sunlight, ventilate when the air outside becomes cooler, and avoid using heat-producing appliances during the hottest hours. Moving to a cooler room, choosing light bedding and using fans or ice packs safely can also make hot nights more manageable.
Europa’s hidden ocean has made the icy moon one of the solar system’s most promising places to search for habitable conditions. Scientists have hoped that water from this deep ocean might rise through cracks and form shallow reservoirs that future spacecraft could more easily study. New simulations suggest that journey is unlikely because turbulent water would rapidly lose heat, form ice crystals, and clog the fractures, sometimes within hours.
Deep beneath submarine volcanoes, Earth may be running a natural “gold kitchen.” By analyzing volcanic glass from the Kermadec island arc north of New Zealand, researchers found that water-rich mantle repeatedly melts beneath subduction zones, gradually concentrating gold in rising magma. The process works because intense melting breaks down sulfur-rich minerals that normally trap gold, releasing the metal into the melt.
A grocery-store audit found that many foods marketed for toddlers may be far less healthy than parents expect. Of nearly 2,800 products examined in Texas, 81% were ultra-processed, and almost half failed at least one World Health Organization nutrient standard, often because they contained too much sugar, sodium, fat, or too many calories.
Deep beneath Japan’s mostly submerged Kikai caldera, scientists have discovered a vast magma reservoir that appears to be filling again. The volcano produced the largest eruption of the Holocene 7,300 years ago, and seismic surveys now show that fresh magma has likely entered the same underground system responsible for that catastrophe.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10945-2 Author Correction: A ductile solid electrolyte interphase for solid-state batteries
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02367-x Discovery of almost 400 structures may help to redefine the true scale of the Aquiry civilization — plus, tiny fossils of the earliest fossil squid ancestor.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02179-z The field seems to be on the cusp of big advances, but a concerted effort is needed to realize its true potential.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02359-x New discoveries at famous archeological site add to mystery of ancient human culture.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10845-5 The piezochiral effect, a new member of the family of strain-responsive functionalities alongside piezoelectricity and piezomagnetism, is introduced, enabling control of chirality through mechanical strain, with future applications in photonics, spintronics, biosensing and quantum information.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10852-6 Systematic analysis of prokaryotic STAND NTPases — relatives of animal and plant immune receptors — uncovers diverse antiviral sensors that detect most of the core structural and replicative proteins of bacteriophages.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10791-2 In senescent cells, mitochondria-derived acetyl-CoA promotes histone acetylation and increases chromatin accessibility at inflammatory gene loci. Inhibition of SLC25A1 attenuates these effects, underscoring the therapeutic potential of targeting mitochondrial metabolism and its epigenetic crosstalk to delay age-related functional decline.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10848-2 A simple organic catalyst enables direct alternating copolymerization of CO2 with bicycloalkanes to produce high-performance polyesters that can be selectively depolymerized and recycled in a closed-loop lifecycle.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10862-4 Operando optical microscopy shows avalanche-like lithium deintercalation (intercalation) processes as the dilute stages of graphite are emptied (filled), showing how local disorder governs phase-transition dynamics and ion transport in lithium-ion battery electrodes.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10881-1 A nanopore-based ‘chop and measure’ method sequences peptides at single-amino-acid resolution by using enzymatic digestion to progressively shorten the N terminus one residue at a time, together with repetitive N-terminus re-reading.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10839-3 Perpendicular switching of the polarization state in the layered ferroelectric Bi4Ti3O12 is demonstrated by means of trilinear coupling, allowing manipulation of the in-plane polarization component with an out-of-plane electric field.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10850-8 New data on homebuying loan records around the Second World War in the USA, linked to race and immigration status, show that Black borrowers were disproportionally excluded from mortgage programmes.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10766-3 A silicon spin-qubit device comprising a shuttling bus for transporting qubits is used to achieve parity checks up to weight four, highlighting the feasibility and benefits of incorporating shuttling into semiconductor quantum processors.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10834-8 Pathways to previously undescribed polyenes, including unusual enzymes that introduce more sugars onto polyene scaffolds, are discovered, and their accessibility through clean and efficient fermentation and potential for safe use as antifungal treatments is described.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10754-7 A silicon quantum processing unit executes high-fidelity multiqubit circuits, with all time-varying control signals generated by a digitally programmed cryogenic complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor controller and delivered to the low-noise, exchange-only qubit device through a high-density superconducting ribbon cable.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10841-9 Complete sequencing of more than 2,000 centromeres from diverse humans reveals structures and elevated mutation rates that shape the evolution of these critically important regions.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10849-1 GOOSE enables the design and testing of thousands of disordered protein region sequences to reveal distinct sequence-to-function relationships.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10856-2 Cryo-electron tomography uncovers the structure of a conserved hexameric ‘portal complex’ that spans the core wall in vaccinia virus, and shows how it is associated with viral functions such as assembly, mRNA release and genome uncoating.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10825-9 A plasmonic metamaterial driven at terahertz frequencies achieves strong, ultrafast temporal modulation and shows a transition to the photonic time crystal regime with reduced plasmonic losses.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10868-y Early Cambrian Eoceras shaanxiense gen. et sp. nov. preserves septa and a segmented tube resembling a primordial siphuncle, extending cephalopod origins and revealing early assembly of chambered shells used for buoyancy regulation.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10851-7 A new trigonal-phase Co3O4 manufactured using a vacuum-mediated molten-alkali mechanochemical method is described, demonstrating edge-shared octahedral coordination and achieving lower overpotential than spinel-type Co3O4 in the acidic oxygen evolution reaction, with reduced dissolution of cobalt.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10847-3 The cryo‑EM structure of the Oryza sativa photosystem II–light harvesting complex II supercomplex in its native membrane reveals the intact plant photosystem architecture, retaining physiologically relevant proteins and lipids that are otherwise lost during purification.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10866-0 A strategy using polymeric carbon nitride crystals induces out-of-plane carrier migration by means of internal electric fields applied on facet-selective nanofilms placed on polymer photocatalysts, increasing the apparent quantum efficiency for overall water splitting.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10795-y A process-rich global biogeochemical model is used to determine the trade-offs between carbon dioxide removal efficiency and ecosystem impacts in ten ocean ocean biomes following ocean iron fertilization.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10835-7 Using canopy-penetrating LiDAR data, the northern part of southwestern Amazonia appears to contain as many earthworks as previously estimated for the whole of Amazonia.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10842-8 Probabilistic sequence encoding from language model embeddings within a generative AI framework enables protein miniaturization, modification and augmentation while maintaining native architecture and functional integrity.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10861-5 New Mongolian fossil evidence shows zhelestids were not placental-like herbivore relatives, but a dental variant within Zalambdalestoidea, with distinctive molars alongside zalambdalestid skull and limb traits.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10814-y In Drosophila, cell fate switching in adult intestinal stem cells is determined through an epigenetic mechanism in which these cells count divisions, switching from producing enterocytes to producing an enteroendocrine mother cell every ninth division.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10840-w Climate and econometric modelling reveal that human-induced climate change is shifting the burden of childhood malaria in Africa.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02124-0 Two demonstrations of silicon-based quantum processors tackle the engineering challenges of building scalable quantum computers.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02310-0 Quantum computing exists because governments funded risky bets. Capitalism can carry it the rest of the way — if quantum scientists are supported.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02282-1 Researchers say that transparent publishing practices could be associated with research quality, but more evidence is needed.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02183-3 A description of the terminology and methodology used in this supplement, and a guide to the functionality that is available free online at natureindex.com.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02308-8 Eliminating polio is within reach — if countries see it as an essential public-health priority.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02254-5 A lost world.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02127-x Coupling between horizontal and vertical electric polarization enables an unconventional ferroelectric material to be controlled using standard device geometry.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02341-7 Rigorous trials suggest they reduce the risk of long-term disease after coronavirus infection.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02181-5 The smallest building blocks are enabling next-generation solutions.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02325-7 Ants and bees are known to use spatial memories to navigate to fixed locations, such as a nest. Virtual-reality experiments in which Drosophila fruit flies follow fictive odour plumes now show that these insects use components of a similar memory-guided navigational toolkit to track the edge of a plume towards its source.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02335-5 Model modifies existing proteins using probability approach.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02128-w In the fly gut, stem cells keep the balance of cell types by undergoing eight rounds of cell division to form absorptive cells, then one round to form secretory cells.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-03966-w Mosquito-borne diseases are breaking records as climate change and other human influences allow the insects to expand their range.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02182-4 Nanoparticle technologies hold promise for delivering gene therapies to children with few treatment options.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02319-5 The locomotion of modern cephalopods, such as squid and cuttlefish, relies on buoyancy control achieved mainly by a specialized structure called a siphuncle. The discovery of fossils of Eoceras — a millimetre-sized cephalopod with a siphuncle — suggests that the group had already emerged in the early Cambrian, around 520 million years ago.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02321-x Aerial laser-scanning data reveal that, from ad 100 to ad 300, an area spanning less than 3% of the Greater Amazonia region probably supported between 1.25 million and 3 million people and contained more than 20,000 human-made earthworks. These findings call for a re-evaluation of the density of pre-colonial Amazonian populations and the influence these civilizations had on present-day tropical soils and forests.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02246-5 Newly digitized mortgage records from 38 US states reveal the profound racial inequality of two mortgage programmes during the 1930s and 1940s. These loans, supported by the Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans Administration, were mainly responsible for the emergence of a US society that idealized home ownership. However, Black households were systematically excluded from receiving such loans. By contrast, immigrants received mortgages proportional to their number.
Nature, Published online: 29 July 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02126-y Adding iron to the ocean to stimulate carbon-absorbing phytoplankton could have ecological consequences that reach far beyond the intervention site.