At industrial scales, chemical reactions are typically driven by applying continuous heat to the reactants. In this week’s issue, Liangbing Hu and his colleaguesshow that pulsed heating and quenching ...

Inscriptions provide an invaluable insight into the ancient world. But over the centuries, many inscriptions have been damaged and exist in fragmented or semi-legible forms, making the job of reading ...

Biaryl compounds, which contain two connected aromatic rings, are common throughout chemistry, medicine and materials science. Joining together the individual molecular components to form these ...

The cover shows human bronchial cells infected with SARS-CoV-2, captured using a scanning electron microscope. In this week’s issue, a collection of six papers reveals key information about the ...

Many potential applications for artificial intelligence require making real-time decisions. Car racing, in which drivers must undertake complex tactical manoeuvres while controlling their vehicle at ...

The US National Cancer Act of 1971 has fostered tremendous progress in our understanding of the biology that underlies cancer. However, scientific and social challenges remain. A new action plan to ...

The cover shows heavy storms over Ostfriesland in Germany. In general, economic assessments of the effects of climate change do not include daily rainfall. In this week’s issue, Leonie Wenz and her ...

The seven planets orbiting the star TRAPPIST-1 were largely spared cosmic collisions, raising questions about where these worlds got their water.

Tunicates, such as sea squirts, are the closest relatives to vertebrates. Most of these marine organisms become sessile — unable to move themselves – when their free-swimming larvae turn into ...

The protein tau is believed to stabilize the skeleton that shapes nerve cells, but in neurodegenerative diseases known as tauopathies, tau misfolds and stacks together to form filaments. In this ...

Launched four years ago, the BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN) aims to identify and catalogue the diverse cells types found in mammalian brains. Across 17 papers in this week’s issue, the ...

A preliminary analysis of viral genomes suggests the COVID-19 pandemic might have multiple animal origins — but the findings still have to be peer reviewed. The 2019–20 wildfires generated 700 million ...