You have full access to this article via your institution. The ongoing conflict between the US–Israel alliance and Iran has laid bare a crucial vulnerability for states in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC): namely, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait. For some, the Strait of Hormuz is more than a…
I appreciate the mention of recent efforts to strengthen the research system in Hungary in your News article on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s fall from power (see Nature 652, 839–840; 2026). Following my appointment as president of the Hungarian Research Network (HUN-REN) in May 2023, this self-governing research organization of 15 institutions performed a…
World models, like Nvidia’s Cosmos, trained on physics data could help build better AI-controlled robots. Credit: NVIDIA Corporation An ongoing trend in artificial intelligence (AI) could have huge implications for how the technology is used in research. Machine-learning systems such as large language models (LLMs), which turn prompts into text, images and video, are becoming…
Only a small portion of patents owned by universities in China become commercial products.Credit: Xu Changliang/VCG via Getty China’s intellectual-property regulator has been playing matchmaker — connecting researchers with patents to companies that can commercialize them. Last month, the China National Intellectual Property Administration said that as a result of these introductions around 80,000 patents…
Telomere-to-telomere (T2T) phased assemblies are emerging as a benchmark for reference-quality genomes1,17, though they remain technically and financially demanding, particularly at scale. Generating such assemblies for diploid and polyploid genomes typically involves combining high-accuracy long reads, such as PacBio HiFi16 or the now-deprecated ONT Duplex2 reads, with ultra-long ONT Simplex reads. Using multiple platforms or…
Researchers are discovering that mitochondria (blue), known as cells’ power plants, also play parts in cells’ immune responses.Credit: David M. Phillips/Science Photo Library When a parasite invades a cell, the cell’s mitochondria react by shedding their outer layers to form brand-new cellular compartments — or organelles — that digest molecular trash. Cells are swapping their…
Terence Tao has been exploring the intersection between maths and AI.Credit: David Esquivel/UCLA Is mathematics being taken over by generative artificial intelligence? This year, a spate of media reports have suggested that the field is being fundamentally changed by the technology. Many maths researchers say that AI’s actual capabilities are often hyped up, and that…
This dawn shot of biologist Audun Rikardsen following trawlers in a Norwegian fjord was last year’s overall winner.Credit: Emma Vogel Entries are now open for Nature’s 2026 #ScientistAtWork photo competition. Capture a moment in your working day on camera for the chance to win a £500 cash prize (or local-currency equivalent) and the opportunity to…
Edwin Hubble found that distant galaxies travel away from Earth faster than nearer ones.Credit: New York Public Library/SPL Universe: A Guide to Everything Helge Kragh Reaktion (2026) What is the Universe? Should we think of it as a thing or a set of ideas? Acclaimed historian of science Helge Kragh grapples with such deep questions…
You have full access to this article via your institution. Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here. Artist’s impression of an extinct Nanaimoteuthis species, often called krakens, which could have rivalled large marine reptiles in terms of size.Credit: Masato Hattori/Science Photo Library In…