Tying knots in surgical sutures requires precise amounts of force — too little force and the sutured wound will gape and leak, too much and the wound will bloat and blood flow becomes restricted.

Our perceptions of the world are increasingly influenced by online media, which can perpetuate social stereotypes and bias our views. The rise of artificial intelligence — especially large language ...

Neuroblastoma is a highly lethal childhood cancer that develops in the peripheral nervous system with tumour growth fuelled by the biosynthesis of polyamines. The drug difluoromethylornithine, which ...

Cilia are characterized by slender, threadlike projections, which are used by biological organisms to control fluid flows at the microscale. Attempts to mimic these structures and engineer cilia-like ...

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 ...

For more than 50 years, scientists have been trying to understand the relationship between DNA sequence, gene-expression phenotype and fitness to decipher principles of gene regulatory evolution. In ...

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 ...

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.