A class of biological matter including elongated cells and filaments can be understood in the framework of active nematic liquid crystals. Within these systems, topological defects emerge and give rise to remarkable collective behaviours.

The soil bacterium Myxococcus xanthus lives in densely packed groups that form dynamic three-dimensional patterns in response to environmental changes, such as droplet-like fruiting bodies during starvation1. The development of these multicellular structures begins with the sequential formation of cell layers in a process that is poorly understood2. Here, using confocal three-dimensional imaging, we

Bacteria commonly live attached to surfaces in dense collectives containing billions of cells1. While it is known that motility allows these groups to expand en masse into new territory2,3,4,5, how bacteria collectively move across surfaces under such tightly packed conditions remains poorly understood. Here we combine experiments, cell tracking and individual-based modelling to study the pathogen

Animal morphogenesis arises from the complex interplay between multiple mechanical and biochemical processes with mutual feedback. Developing an effective, coarse-grained description of morphogenesis is essential for understanding how these processes are coordinated across scales to form robust, functional outcomes. Here we show that the nematic order of the supracellular actin fibres in regenerating

Three-dimensional topological insulators are a phase of matter that hosts unique spin-polarized gapless surface states that are protected by time-reversal symmetry. They exhibit unconventional charge and spin transport properties1,2. Intense laser fields can drive ballistic charge dynamics in Dirac bands3,4 or they can coherently steer spin5 and valley pseudospin6. Similarly, high-harmonic generation

Phonon polaritons in van der Waals materials can strongly enhance light–matter interactions at mid-infrared frequencies, owing to their extreme field confinement and long lifetimes1,2,3,4,5,6,7. Phonon polaritons thus bear potential for vibrational strong coupling with molecules. Although the onset of vibrational strong coupling was observed spectroscopically with phonon-polariton nanoresonators8,

Fire-safety researcher Luke Bisby investigates which materials can take the heat.

The viruses, both found in bats stored in laboratory freezers, are the first SARS-CoV-2 relatives to be found outside China.

Canines seem to detect coronavirus infections with remarkable accuracy, but researchers say large-scale studies are needed before the approach is scaled up.

A book traces the shifting lines between sadness and illness, but not who gets to draw them.

Preliminary data suggest that the immunization was more effective in trial participants who received a lower dose.

Search engine’s tool for summarizing studies promises easier skim-reading.

Researchers hope a 60% increase in funds can revitalize their austerity-hit scientific system.

Long hours and a lack of job security, combined with workplace bullying and discrimination, are forcing many to consider leaving science, finds Nature’s inaugural survey of postdoctoral researchers.

Immunizations are speeding towards approval before clinical trials end, but scientists say this could complicate efforts to study long-term effects.

Magnetism typically arises from the joint effect of Fermi statistics and repulsive Coulomb interactions, which favours ground states with non-zero electron spin. As a result, controlling spin magnetism with electric fields—a longstanding technological goal in spintronics and multiferroics1,2—can be achieved only indirectly. Here we experimentally demonstrate direct electric-field control of magnetic

The constituent particles of matter can arrange themselves in various ways, giving rise to emergent phenomena that can be surprisingly rich and often cannot be understood by studying only the individual constituents. Discovering and understanding the emergence of such phenomena in quantum materials—especially those in which multiple degrees of freedom or energy scales are delicately balanced—is of

We study a class of two-dimensional models of classical hard-core particles with Vicsek type “exchange interaction” that aligns the directions of motion of nearby particles. By extending the Hohenberg-Mermin-Wagner theorem for the absence of spontaneous magnetization and the McBryan-Spencer bound for correlation functions, we prove that the models do not spontaneously break the rotational symmetry

The manipulation of the quantum properties of light involves its technically challenging strong interaction with matter. Now, an experiment shows that when light propagates through a waveguide it only takes a weakly coupled line of atoms to single out its photons, or bunch them together, unveiling and controlling its quantum nature.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

A sunlight-powered device equipped with an a lightweight gel makes steam hot enough to kill dangerous microbes.

The damaged Arecibo telescope is to close, how COVID hinders taste and smell and how to communicate science in a way that builds trust.

Scientists who aren’t virologists or vaccinologists can still make crucial contributions to the global effort to battle SARS-CoV-2.

In trying to be rigorous, scientists frequently pack presentations with content from journal articles. The result can be incomprehensible and a lost opportunity.

A molecule on the surface of a common gut microbe helps to activate genes involved in the immune response.

Fire has been a source of global biodiversity for millions of years. However, interactions with anthropogenic drivers such as climate change, land use, and invasive species are changing the nature of fire activity and its impacts. We review how such changes are threatening species with extinction and transforming terrestrial ecosystems. Conservation of Earth’s biological diversity will be achieved

Park et al. question one out of seven findings from Hadzipasic et al.: whether TPX2 allosterically regulates the oldest Aurora. We had already addressed the two concerns raised—sparse sequence sampling and not forcing the gene to the species tree—before publication. Moreover, we believe their ancestral sequence reconstruction would be consistent with a nonallosteric common ancestor, and we show large

In science news around the world, the United States reports record numbers of COVID-19 diagnoses and hospitalizations, with increases across almost all states. The European Parliament negotiates an unexpected €4 billion boost to Horizon Europe, the European Union's next research funding program, but basic science may still see a funding squeeze in 2021. Tristan da Cunha, a U.K. overseas territory,

In 2018, a group of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) pulled off a dazzling materials science magic trick. They stacked two microscopic cards of graphene—sheets of carbon one atom thick—and twisted one ever so slightly. Applying an electric field transformed the stack from a conductor to an insulator and then, suddenly, into a superconductor: a material that frictionlessly

Seven years ago, an understanding of nature inspired a revolutionary new technology, when researchers turned a defense system used by bacteria to thwart viruses into the gene-editing tool now known as CRISPR. But for another emerging gene editor the understanding has lagged the applications. For several years, researchers have been adapting retrons, mysterious complexes of DNA, RNA, and protein found

China will launch an ambitious Moon mission on 24 November that aims to retrieve lunar soil and rock for analysis in terrestrial laboratories. If the technically challenging mission is successful, these will be the first samples retrieved from the Moon since 1976 and only the 10th time material has ever been brought back. The information gleaned from such analyses goes far beyond what can be determined

Over the past 10 years, sea levels have risen 4.8 millimeters per year on average—a rate much higher than the previous 2 decades. This increased rate, driven by greenhouse gas emissions and enhanced melt from Greenland ice, is known thanks to a series of radar satellites, operating since the early 1990s, that have used pulses of reflected radar to measure the ocean's height. The next satellite in this

Just a half-century ago, the trade in Atlantic salmon relied solely on fish caught in the wild. Salmon farming has since become a global business that generates $18 billion in annual sales. It's a trend seen worldwide: Aquaculture supplies nearly as much protein as capture fisheries, and production has been growing fast. Breeding has been key to the aquaculture boom. Now, advances in genomics are poised

Infectious diseases can pose a devastating threat to human health around the globe. As the risk rises, the world is running out of effective drugs to treat infections caused by deadly microbes. Many existing drugs have been rendered obsolete by the rapid emergence and spread of drug resistance. Thus, there is a dire need for new medicines with which to treat infectious disease. This is especially pressing

Allergic diseases, which affect 10 to 30% of the global population, have a high degree of heritability contributed by a combination of parental factors (1). In addition to genetics, such parental factors include the amount of maternal immunoglobulin E (IgE), the antibody type that binds to allergens, which directly correlates with the risk of allergy in offspring (2). On page 941 of this issue, Msallam

Infectious diarrhea is a global health problem that affects more than a billion people and leads to half a million deaths in children annually (1). Among diarrhea-inducing viruses, rotavirus is one of the most important pathogens. Although a rotavirus vaccine has been licensed since 2006 and is part of the standard vaccination plan in more than 100 countries, there are differences in efficacy, particularly

Electronic skins (e-skins) are flexible electronic devices that emulate properties of human skin, such as high stretchability and toughness, perception of stimuli, and self-healing. These devices can serve as an alternative to natural human skin or as a human-machine interface (1–3). For on-skin applications, an e-skin should be multimodal (sense more than one external stimulus), have a high density

Ever since the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded “for the design and synthesis of molecular machines,” growing attention has been aimed at connecting and embedding molecular machines into hierarchically more complex systems for sophisticated applications. Such connections would, for example, enable the targeted delivery of molecules over larger distances. An important question that arises in

In August 2020, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) began implementing new regulations for genetically engineered (GE) organisms, the SECURE (sustainable, ecological, consistent, uniform, responsible, efficient) rule (1). SECURE marks the first comprehensive reform of U.S. genetically modified (GM) crop oversight since the agency's initial approach in 1987 (and after several unsuccessful attempts

Was there a single origin, circa 3100 BCE—either cuneiform in Mesopotamia or hieroglyphs in Egypt—or did writing arise in multiple places independently? When and how did Chinese characters, first identified on Shang oracle bones dated to circa 1200 BCE, originate? And what prompted the invention of the radically simple alphabetic principle, circa 1800 BCE, in a script that contains certain signs resembling

In his provocative new book, Apollo's Arrow, Nicholas Christakis draws on his experience as both a hospice physician and a leading network scientist to integrate societal, technological, and biological data into a single cohesive narrative of the unfolding pandemic. Not surprisingly, the book is far-ranging, covering relevant aspects of epidemiology, human behavior, social networks, technology, immunology

We present a consistency condition for 8D N=1 supergravity theories with nontrivial global structure G/Z for the non-Abelian gauge group, based on an anomaly involving the Z 1-form center symmetry. The interplay with other swampland criteria identifies the majority of 8D theories with gauge group G/Z, which have no string theory realization, as inconsistent quantum theories when coupled to gravity