While autonomous vehicles are vital components of intelligent transportation systems, ensuring the trustworthiness of decision-making remains a substantial challenge in realizing autonomous driving. Therefore, we present a novel robust reinforcement learning approach with safety guarantees to attain trustworthy decision-making for autonomous vehicles. The proposed technique ensures decision trustworthiness

The United States and China are pursuing parallel scientific tracks. To solve crises on multiple fronts, the two roads need to become one.

Firms commercializing perovskite–silicon ‘tandem’ photovoltaics say that the panels will be more efficient and could lead to cheaper electricity.

What more could you want?

Data from the Nature Index suggest China-based authors are increasingly publishing without international colleagues.

‘Thirsty’ computing hubs could put pressure on already stretched water resources in sub-Saharan Africa. Plus, GPT-4 generates fake data set to support bogus science and what the OpenAI drama means for AI progress — and safety.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights — proclaimed 75 years ago — describes science as fundamental to humanity. Upholding this right has never been more relevant than it is now.

Under the proposal, technology with potential military use would need authorization to be shared with non-Australian colleagues.

A paper claiming that a structure in Indonesia is the oldest pyramid in the world has raised the eyebrows of archaeologists. Plus, some anglerfish species live life upside down and babies start learning language in the womb.

The trick baffles researchers — but they are getting closer to understanding how the songbird does it.

A spike in respiratory illnesses in children is the result of common winter infections — not a novel pathogen. Plus, how to stop waves in their tracks and why we might embrace the feeling of uncertainty.

An energy management strategy (EMS) based on reinforcement learning is proposed in this study to enhance the fuel economy and durability of a fuel cell hybrid bus (FCHB). Firstly, a comprehensive powertrain system model for the FCHB is established, mainly including the FCHB’s power balance, fuel cell system (FCS) efficiency, and aging models. Secondly, the state–action space, state transition probability

Electromagnetic energy harvesters are commonly known for their high performances in terms of power output conversion, and they are suitable for low frequency environmental vibrations. This work reports the study, design, development and experimental validation of a new extremely compact, low frequency, electromagnetic energy harvester based on two stacked ortho-planar springs, which exploits a promising

The paper introduces a novel approach for mitigating CO2 emissions in blast furnaces by integrating top gas recycling, an oxy-fuel regime, power to gas, and biomass pyrolysis. Various case studies were conducted, involving the adjustment of pyrolysis temperatures (300 °C, 500 °C, 700 °C, and 900 °C) and varying the quantity of blast furnace gas directed to methanation for carbon recycling. Pinus radiata

Letter to the Editor

Snippets from Nature’s past.

Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor

California governor Gavin Newsom’s delegation is building on existing research and policy initiatives with China, showing that effective climate action can happen below the national level.

Why people take to the streets to march against global heating is relatively well documented. But it’s unclear why certain tactics work better than others in reaching the public and policymakers.

Putting the specific needs of individuals and communities at the heart of HIV/AIDS care, by harnessing behavioural science, is key to building on the progress already been made.

An advocacy group is pushing for more ‘human challenge’ trials to spur vaccine discovery. Following COVID-19 and Zika studies, hepatitis C could be next.

The massive buried structures at Gunung Padang in Indonesia would be far older than Egypt’s great pyramids — if they’re even human constructions at all.

Scientists expected a surge in respiratory disease, but what is happening in China is unusual.

Advances made since the era of genome analysis of cancer cells commenced.

Can the world get back on track with efforts to stay under 1.5 ℃ of warming? Plus: The US is set to announce its strategy for international partnerships to commercialize nuclear-fusion power.

Co-electrolysis of water and carbon dioxide using solid oxide electrolysis cell combined with the catalytic reactor to produce renewable synthesis fuel is considered as a promising strategy for carbon dioxide utilization. However, in order to achieve a target product with a remarkable system-level efficiency, a certain proportion of carbon monoxide and hydrogen from solid oxide electrolysis cell must

High-resolution imaging with compositional and chemical sensitivity is crucial for a wide range of scientific and engineering disciplines. Although synchrotron X-ray imaging through spectromicroscopy has been tremendously successful and broadly applied, it encounters challenges in achieving enhanced detection sensitivity, satisfactory spatial resolution, and high experimental throughput simultaneously

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) remains a major public health threat with nearly 300 million people chronically infected worldwide who are at a high risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma. Current therapies are effective in suppressing HBV replication but rarely lead to cure. Current therapies do not affect the HBV covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA), which serves as the template for viral transcription

The Lysinibacillus sphaericus proteins Tpp49Aa1 and Cry48Aa1 can together act as a toxin toward the mosquito Culex quinquefasciatus and have potential use in biocontrol. Given that proteins with sequence homology to the individual proteins can have activity alone against other insect species, the structure of Tpp49Aa1 was solved in order to understand this protein more fully and inform the design of

The decision to stop growing and mature into an adult is a critical point in development that determines adult body size, impacting multiple aspects of an adult’s biology. In many animals, growth cessation is a consequence of hormone release that appears to be tied to the attainment of a particular body size or condition. Nevertheless, the size-sensing mechanism animals use to initiate hormone synthesis

Postintegration transcriptional silencing of HIV-1 leads to the establishment of a pool of latently infected cells. In these cells, mechanisms controlling RNA Polymerase II (RNAPII) pausing and premature transcription termination (PTT) remain to be explored. Here, we found that the cleavage and polyadenylation (CPA) factor PCF11 represses HIV-1 expression independently of the other subunits of the

In both humans and NOD mice, type 1 diabetes (T1D) develops from the autoimmune destruction of pancreatic beta cells by T cells. Interactions between both helper CD4 + and cytotoxic CD8 + T cells are essential for T1D development in NOD mice. Previous work has indicated that pathogenic T cells arise from deleterious interactions between relatively common genes which regulate aspects of T cell activation/effector

Uncontrolled type 2 immunity by type 2 helper T (Th2) cells causes intractable allergic diseases; however, whether the interaction of CD4 + T cells shapes the pathophysiology of allergic diseases remains unclear. We identified a subset of Th2 cells that produced the serine proteases granzyme A and B early in differentiation. Granzymes cleave protease-activated receptor (Par)-1 and induce phosphorylation

A hallmark of concentrated suspensions is non-Newtonian behavior, whereby the viscosity increases dramatically once a characteristic shear rate or stress is exceeded. Such strong shear thickening is thought to originate from a network of frictional particle–particle contact forces, which forms under sufficiently large stress, evolves dynamically, and adapts to changing loads. While there is much evidence

Activation of neuronal protein synthesis upon learning is critical for the formation of long-term memory. Here, we report that learning in the contextual fear conditioning paradigm engenders a decrease in eIF2α (eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2) phosphorylation in astrocytes in the hippocampal CA1 region, which promotes protein synthesis. Genetic reduction of eIF2α phosphorylation in hippocampal

Motion perception is a fundamental sensory task that plays a critical evolutionary role. In vision, motion processing is classically described using a motion energy model with spatiotemporally nonseparable filters suited for capturing the smooth continuous changes in spatial position over time afforded by moving objects. However, it is still not clear whether the filters underlying auditory motion

The tumor suppressor protein p53 accumulates in response to cellular stress and consequently orchestrates the expression of multiple genes in a p53-level and time-dependent manner to overcome stress consequences, for which a molecular mechanism is currently unknown. Previously, we reported that DNA torsional flexibility distinguishes among p53 response elements (REs) and that transactivation at basal

Marine dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) is one of the planet’s largest reservoirs of fixed N, which persists even in the N-limited oligotrophic surface ocean. The vast majority of the ocean’s total DON reservoir is refractory (RDON), primarily composed of low molecular weight (LMW) compounds in the subsurface and deep sea. However, the composition of this major N pool, as well as the reasons for its

When two people coincidentally have something in common (such as a name or birthday), they tend to like each other more and are thus more likely to offer help and comply with requests. This dynamic can have important legal and ethical consequences whenever these incidental similarities give rise to unfair favoritism. Using a large-scale, longitudinal natural experiment, covering nearly 200,000 annual

Establishing the fundamental chemical principles that govern molecular electronic quantum decoherence has remained an outstanding challenge. Fundamental questions such as how solvent and intramolecular vibrations or chemical functionalization contribute to the decoherence remain unanswered and are beyond the reach of state-of-the-art theoretical and experimental approaches. Here we address this challenge

Smoothened (SMO) is an oncoprotein and signal transducer in the Hedgehog signaling pathway that regulates cellular differentiation and embryogenesis. As a member of the Frizzled (Class F) family of G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs), SMO biochemically and functionally interacts with Gi family proteins. However, key molecular features of fully activated, G protein–coupled SMO remain elusive. We present

Primary ferroicities like ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism are essential physical properties of matter. Multiferroics, with coexisting multiple ferroic orders in a single phase, provide a convenient route to magnetoelectricity. Even so, the general trade-off between magnetism and polarity remains inevitable, which prevents practicable magnetoelectric cross-control in the multiferroic framework.

Špela Borko tells how cave-diving enhanced her appreciation of the myriad life forms that teem in underground lakes.

Severe wildfires expected to profoundly affect wildlife habitats.

From classrooms to laboratories and conferences, working in chemistry presents huge challenges to disabled, chronically ill and neurodivergent people. Some simple fixes can help to shift the dial.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought home the value of cheap, ‘good enough’ methods of detecting disease. Extending that approach to other illnesses could improve health care in low- and middle-income countries.

Deep learning is driving the rapid evolution of algorithms that can automatically find and trace cells in a wide range of microscopy experiments.

Tornadoes, earthquakes and wildfires don’t have to lead to death and destruction. Plus, the most powerful cosmic ray since the Oh-My-God particle and a ‘treasure trove’ of new CRISPR systems holds promise for genome editing.

Accurate sensing and responding to physical microenvironment are crucial for cell function and survival, but the underlying molecular mechanisms remain elusive. Pollen tube (PT) provides a perfect single-cell model for studying mechanobiology since it’s naturally subjected to complex mechanical instructions from the pistil during invasive growth. Recent reports have revealed discrepant PT behaviors

Immune escape is a prerequisite for tumor growth. We previously described a decline in intratumor activated cytotoxic T cells and T cell receptor (TCR) clonotype diversity in invasive breast carcinomas compared to ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), implying a central role of decreasing T cell responses in tumor progression. To determine potential associations between peripheral immunity and breast tumor

Anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent psychiatric disorders, causing significant suffering and disability. Relative to other psychiatric disorders, anxiety disorders tend to emerge early in life, supporting the importance of developmental mechanisms in their emergence and maintenance. Behavioral inhibition (BI) is a temperament that emerges early in life and, when stable and extreme, is linked

Using a longitudinal approach, we sought to define the interplay between genetic and nongenetic factors in shaping vulnerability or resilience to COVID-19 pandemic stress, as indexed by the emergence of symptoms of depression and/or anxiety. University of Michigan freshmen were characterized at baseline using multiple psychological instruments. Subjects were genotyped, and a polygenic risk score for