Dogwhistles and Figleaves Jennifer Mather Saul Oxford Univ. Press (2024) This timely book on racist and conspiratorial language in politics draws on Donald Trump’s election as US president in 2016 and his continued popularity. Philosopher Jennifer Saul examines “dogwhistles” — coded terms such as ‘88’, used by white supremacists to mean ‘Heil Hitler’ — and … Read more
No one wants to eat when they have an upset stomach. To pinpoint exactly where in the brain this distaste for eating originates, scientists studied nauseated mice. The work, published in Cell Reports on 27 March1, describes a previously uncharacterized cluster of brain cells that fire when a mouse is made to feel nauseous, but … Read more
Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here. NASA’s Perseverance rover collects a sample from a Martian rock using a drill bit on the end of its robotic arm.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA is seeking fresh ideas for delivering Mars rocks collected by the Perseverance rover … Read more
Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here. A breast cancer cell (artificially coloured) climbs through a supportive film in a laboratory experiment.Credit: Steve Gschmeissner/SPL An artificial intelligence (AI) tool could help to identify the origins of cancers that have spread from a previously … Read more
Nature’s Where I Work photo-essay section has profiled more than 200 scientists so far, working in settings that range from Vatican City to the University of the West Indies. Now, 50 of the published images are appearing in an outdoor public exhibition in London. The selection of portraits, which are also collated online, features working … Read more
When China locked down the city of Shanghai in April 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the ripples from that decision quickly reached people receiving treatment for cardiac conditions in the United States. The lockdown shut a facility belonging to General Electric (GE) Healthcare, an important producer of ‘iodinated contrast dyes’, used to make blood visible … Read more
It is the world’s thinnest gold leaf: a gossamer sheet of gold just one atom thick. Researchers have synthesized1 the long-sought material, known as goldene, which is expected to capture light in ways that could be useful in applications such as sensing and catalysis. Goldene is a gilded cousin of graphene, the iconic atom-thin material … Read more
Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here. Dust storms turned skies yellow on 27 March 2024 in Erenhot, Inner Mongolia.Credit: VCG via Getty Many Asian countries are facing an annual problem: dust storms linked to increased deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory conditions. These … Read more
Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every week? Sign up here. A woman plays Go with an AI-powered robot developed by the firm SenseTime, based in Hong Kong.Credit: Joan Cros/NurPhoto via Getty AI systems can now nearly match (and sometimes exceed) human performance in tasks such as … Read more
Machine learning and robotics have shed new light on one of the most sophisticated skeletal structures in the animal kingdom: the insect wing hinge. Read the paper: Machine learning reveals the control mechanics of an insect wing hinge Unlike birds or bats, which evolved wings by adapting existing limbs, insect wings are wholly original appendages, … Read more