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00:46 Ancient humans made bone tools 1.5 million years ago
A 1.5-million-year-old cache of animal-bone tools reveals that ancient humans systematically crafted with this material much earlier than previously thought. Researchers uncovered 27 bone artefacts in Tanzania honed into sharp tools almost 40 cm long. This discovery pushes back the dedicated manufacture of bone tools by around a million years and could have helped these early humans develop new kinds of technology. “This raises a lot of interesting questions,” says study author Ignacio de la Torre.
Research Article: de la Torre et al.
09:11 Research HighlightsCane toads’ remarkable homing abilities, and evidence that the block of rock that makes up southern Tibet originated in what is now Australia.
Research Highlight: Take me home, country toads
Research Highlight: Lhasa′s rocks reveal an Australian birthplace
11:45 A trove of antibacterial molecules hidden in human proteinsTo help protect against infection, cells in the body will selectively cut proteins to produce molecules known as antimicrobial peptides, according to new research. A team has found that many potential peptides appear to be locked up within proteins — to get them out, cells shift the activity of a waste-disposal system called the proteasome, known for its role in protein degradation and recycling. In tests, one of these peptides showed efficacy at protecting mice from infection, indicating that these molecules could one day have therapeutic potential.
Research Article: Goldberg et al.
News and Views: Protein waste turned into antibiotics as a defence strategy of human cells
21:08 Briefing ChatAn update on two missions heading to the Moon to look for water, and why fears that a crucial ocean-current system will collapse in the face of climate change may be incorrect.
Nature: Meet the ice-hunting robots headed for the Moon right now
Nature: Iconic ocean-current system is safe from climate collapse ― for now
Subscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday.
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Over the past two decades, research has emerged showing that opportunities for risky play are crucial for children's healthy physical, mental and emotional development. However, because play is inherently free-form it has been difficult to study. Now, scientists are using innovative approaches, including virtual reality, to probe the benefits of risky play, and how best to promote it.
This is an audio version of our Feature: Why kids need to take more risks — science reveals the benefits of wild, free play
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00:47 A ‘smart’ way to quickly detect cardiac arrest
Google researchers have developed an AI for a smartwatch that will call for help if its wearer is having a cardiac arrest. Trained, in part, on data gained when patients had their hearts deliberately stopped during a medical procedure, the team’s machine learning algorithm can automatically detect the telltale signs of cardiac arrest. The team think this system could save lives, although more testing is required. "Our hope is that as these capabilities expand it provides a new way to keep people safer,” says Jake Sunshine, one of the researchers behind the study.
Research Article: Shah et al.
09:15 Research HighlightsEvidence that a low dose of yellow fever vaccine might be enough to provide lasting immunity, and the odd umbrella-shaped tree fossil that suggests that early plants may have been more complex than previously thought.
Research Article: Kimathi et al.
Research Article: Gastaldo et al.
11:10 Briefing ChatMicrosoft’s new AI that helps create video game ‘worlds’, and why dogs blink more when other dogs do the same.
Nature: Microsoft builds AI that creates ‘impressive’ video-game worlds
Science: Dogs, like people, may use blinking to bond
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01:14 A simple switch to reduce racist ratings
A study of almost 70,000 ratings showed that racial discrimination could be eliminated from an online platform by switching from a five-star rating system to a thumbs up or down. The platform connected customers to workers who performed home repair jobs, and prior to the shift people categorised by the study authors as ‘non-white’ had lower ratings and got paid less than their white counterparts. Through follow up studies the authors also showed that the five-star system allowed people to impart their personal opinions, whereas a thumbs up or down just focused them on whether a job was good or bad. The team hopes this could be an easy-to-implement shift to tackle racial discrimination.
Research Article: Botelho et al.
News and Views: Racial bias eliminated when ratings switch from five stars to thumbs up or down
11:24 Research HighlightsExperimental evidence that cockatoos like flavouring their food, and the harsh climate of sixteenth century Transylvania.
Research Highlight: Gourmet cockatoos like to fancy up their food
Research Highlight: Transylvanian diaries reveal centuries-old climate extremes
14:05 An analysis of retraction hotspotsA Nature investigation has revealed where the most retractions come from, with hospitals in China and institutions in India and Pakistan topping the list. Retractions are a normal part of science and may be a sign of necessary scrutiny, but they can also signal misconduct and use of paper mills. Features Editor Richard Van Noorden joins us to discuss what this means for science and tackling sloppy research.
Nature: Exclusive: These universities have the most retracted scientific articles
22:43 Briefing ChatLayoffs in the US’s Environmental Protection Agency, reactions to the DEI purge at NASA, and what RFK Jr.’s role as secretary of Health and Human Services could mean for health research.
Nature: ‘Targeted and belittled’: scientists at US environmental agency speak out as layoffs begin
Nature: NASA embraced diversity. Trump’s DEI purge is hitting space scientists hard
Nature: Vaccine sceptic RFK Jr is now a powerful force in US science: what will he do?
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In this episode:
00:45 An elusive, cosmic neutrino with a record-breaking energyAn enormous array of detectors, deep under the Mediterranean Sea, has captured evidence of the highest-energy neutrino particle ever recorded, although researchers aren’t sure exactly where in the cosmos it originated. Calculations revealed this particle had over 30 times the energy of previously detected neutrinos. The team hopes that further study and future detections will help reveal the secrets of high-energy phenomena like supernovae.
Research Article: The KM3NeT Collaboration
11:34 Research HighlightsHow bonobos adjust their communication to account for what other individuals know, and the discovery of a huge collection of beads adorning the attire of the powerful Copper Age women in Spain.
Research Highlight: Bonobos know when you’re in the know ― and when you’re not
Research Highlight: Record-setting trove of buried beads speaks to power of ancient women
14:15 US judge puts NIH grant cuts on holdA judge has blocked a policy that would have slashed billions of dollars of funding for US research institutions, which come as part of President Donald Trump’s controversial crackdown on government spending. We discuss the reasoning behind the proposed cuts and the impacts they may have if enacted. We also look at the effects that President Trump’s executive orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies and funding are having across the US.
Nature: ‘Devastating’ cuts to NIH grants by Trump’s team put on hold by US judge
Nature: Have Trump’s anti-DEI orders hit private funders? HHMI halts inclusive science programme
Nature: Scientists globally are racing to save vital health databases taken down amid Trump chaos
25:50 Briefing ChatWhy the latest odds on asteroid 2024 YR4’s chance of impacting Earth are so hard to calculate, and how the latest version of DeepMind's AlphaGeometry AI has reached the gold-medal level in geometry.
New York Times: Why the Odds of an Asteroid Striking Earth in 2032 Keep Going Up (and Down)
Nature: DeepMind AI crushes tough maths problems on par with top human solvers
Subscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday.
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In episode 2 of 'What's in a name' we look how choosing names can help, or hinder, attempts to communicate important messages.
Categorizing things is central to science. And there are dozens of systems scientists have created to name everything from the trenches on the sea bed to the stars in the sky.
But names have consequences. In our series What’s in a name we explore naming in science and how names impact the world — whether the system of naming species remains in step with society, how the names of diseases can create stigma, or even how the names of scientific concepts can drive the direction of research itself.
In episode two, we're looking at how the names chosen by scientists help, or hinder, communication with the public.
Well chosen names can quickly convey scientific concepts or health messages — in emergency situations they can even save lives. We'll hear how the systems of naming tropical storms and Covid-19 variants came to be, and how they took different approaches to achieve the same outcome.
We'll also consider the language used to talk about climate change, and how the ways of describing it have been used to deliberately introduce uncertainty and confusion.
Listen to the first episode Should offensive species names be changed? The organisms that honour dictators, racists and criminals
For a list of sources please visit the the episode's webpage
Music credits
Premiumaudio/Pond5
Richard Smithson/Triple Scoop Music/Getty Images
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In this episode:
00:45 How arithmetic skills don’t transfer between applied and academic environmentsMathematics skills learnt in real-world situations may not translate to the classroom and vice versa, according to a new study. A team surveyed children in India who work in markets, to see whether the skills they learnt there transferred to the classroom. While proficient at solving market-based arithmetic problems, they struggled to solve problems typically used in schools. The reverse was seen for children enrolled in schools with no market-selling experience. The authors hope this finding could help adjust teaching curricula and bridge the gap between intuitive and formal maths.
Research Article: Banerjee et al.
12:38 Research HighlightsWolverine populations rebound in Sweden and Norway, and why wobbly arrows launch faster than rigid ones.
Research Highlight: Who’s the new furry neighbour? It might be a wolverine
Research Highlight: How a wobbly arrow can achieve superpropulsion
14:59 The unexpected movements seen in super-dense crowdsA study has revealed that when packed crowds reach a certain density, large groups of people suddenly start to move in circular patterns — a finding that could be used to identify dangerous overcrowding. By assessing footage of the densely-packed San Fermín festival, a team observed this spontaneous phenomenon, and modelled the physics underlying it. Studying the movements of giant crowds has been difficult, and the team hope this work could help event organisers to identify and respond to situations where people could get hurt.
Research Article: Gu et al.
News and Views: Crowds start to spin when their densities hit a threshold
Sound effects:
Crowd Cheering - Ambience by GregorQuendel via CC BY 4.0
Cupinzano sounds by Europa Press - Footage News via Getty Images
24:00 Briefing ChatAn update on the US National Science Foundation’s scrutinizing of grants to comply with President Trump’s directives, and why scratching an itch may have unexpected antibacterial properties.
Nature: Exclusive: how NSF is scouring research grants for violations of Trump’s orders
Nature: Why it feels good to scratch that itch: the immune benefits of scratching
Subscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday.
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The explosive improvement in artificial intelligence (AI) technology has largely been driven by making neural networks bigger and training them on more data. But experts suggest that the developers of these systems may soon run out of data to train their models. As a result, teams are taking new approaches, such as searching for other unconventional data sources, or generating new data to train their AIs.
This is an audio version of our Feature: The AI revolution is running out of data. What can researchers do?
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In this episode:
00:46 Evidence of ancient brine reveals Bennu’s watery pastAnalysis of samples taken from the asteroid Bennu reveal the presence of organic compounds important for life, and that its parent asteroid likely contained salty, subsurface water. Collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, these rocks and dust particles give insights into the chemistry of the early Solar System, and suggest that brines may have been an important place where pre-biotic molecules were formed. As brines are found throughout the Solar System, this finding raises questions about whether similar molecules will be found in places like Jupiter’s moon Europa.
Research Article: McCoy et al.
Research Article: Glavin et al.
News: Asteroid fragments upend theory of how life on Earth bloomed
14:22 Research HighlightsHow seaweed farms could capture carbon, and why chimps follow each other to the bathroom.
Research Highlight: Seaweed farms dish up climate benefits
Research Highlight: All together now: chimps engage in contagious peeing
16:31 How maize may have supported a civilizationResearchers have found evidence of intensive maize agriculture that could help explain how a mysterious South American society produced enough food to fuel a labour-force big enough to build enormous earth structures. It appears that the Casarabe people, who lived in the Amazon Basin around 500-1400 AD, restructured the landscape to create water conserving infrastructure that allowed for year-round production of maize. While this work provides new insights into how the Casarabe may have established a complex monument-building culture, these people vanished around 600 years ago, and many questions remain about their lives.
Research Article: Lombardo et al.
Research Article: Hermenegildo et al.
25:52 DeepSeek R1 wows scientistsA new AI model from a Chinese company, DeepSeek, rivals the abilities of OpenAI’s o1 — a state-of-the art ‘reasoning’ model — at a fraction of the cost. The release of DeepSeek has thrilled researchers, asked questions about American AI dominance in the area, and spooked stock markets. We discuss why this large language model has sent shockwaves around the world and what it means for the future of AI.
News: China’s cheap, open AI model DeepSeek thrills scientists
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00:56 How the paths to professorship vary
A huge analysis of hiring practices has revealed that criteria to get a promotion to full professorship is hugely variable around the world. The authors suggest that this variability results in researchers from countries that value one type of metric being locked out of professor positions in others. They hope that the database of hiring practices created in this study could help institutions adjust their hiring policies to create a more diverse science workforce.
Research Article: Lim et al.
News: Want to become a professor? Here’s how hiring criteria differ by country
09:36 Research HighlightsLasers reveal hidden tattoos on ancient mummified-skin, and a new pill that cuts flu symptoms and viral levels in the body.
Research Highlight: Hidden tattoos on mummy skin emerge under a laser’s light
Research Highlight: Got flu? Promising drug shortens symptoms
12:13 Cancer cells’ broken mitochondria could poison immune cellsResearchers have shown that cancer cells can slip their dysfunctional mitochondria into T cells, limiting the immune system’s cancer-fighting capabilities. Cancer cells are known to steal healthy mitochondria from immune cells to help tumours survive and thrive. Now, researchers have shown mitochondria can move in the opposite direction too, with the donor T cells showing signs of various stress responses that make them less effective when inside a tumour. The team showed that blocking this transfer limited this effect, and hopes that this mechanism could offer a new avenue for boosting the immune system’s response to cancer.
Research Article: Ikeda et al.
News & Views: Mitochondrial swap from cancer to immune cells thwarts anti-tumour defences
21:12 Science and the Gaza conflictNoah Baker and Ehsan Masood turn to the war in Gaza, and discuss what comes next for science as a ceasefire comes into force.
Subscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday.
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00:46 Designing new antivenoms to treat snakebites
Researchers have shown that machine learning can quickly design antivenoms that are effective against lethal snake-toxins, which they hope will help tackle a serious public health issue. Thousands of people die as a result of snakebites each year, but treatment options are limited, expensive and often difficult to access in the resource-poor settings where most bites occur. The computer-aided approach allowed researchers to design two proteins that provided near total protection against individual snake toxins in mouse experiments. While limited in scope, the team behind the work believe these results demonstrate the promise of the approach in designing effective and cheaper treatments for use in humans.
Research Article: Vázquez Torres et al.
11:28 Research HighlightsHow male wasp spiders use hairs on their legs to sniff out mates, and how noradrenaline drives waves of cleansing fluid through the brain.
Research Highlight: Male spiders smell with their legs
Research Highlight: How the brain cleans itself during deep sleep
13:53 Earth breaches 1.5 °C climate limit for the first timeNews broke last week that in 2024, Earth’s average temperature climbed to more than 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels for the first time. Although this is only a single year so far, we discuss what breaking this significant threshold means for the 2015 Paris climate agreement and what climate scientists understand about the speed that Earth is heating up.
Nature: Earth breaches 1.5 °C climate limit for the first time: what does it mean?
23:39 Briefing ChatNASA delays deciding its strategy for collecting and returning Mars rocks to Earth, and why papers on a handful of bacterial species dominate the scientific literature.
Nature: NASA still has no plan for how to bring precious Mars rocks to Earth
Nature: These are the 20 most-studied bacteria — the majority have been ignored
Subscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday.
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In this episode of the Nature Podcast, we catch up on some science stories from the holiday period by diving into the Nature Briefing.
00:53 The retraction of a controversial COVID study that promoted unproven treatmentA much-critiqued study demonstrating the now-disproven idea that hydroxychloroquine can treat COVID-19 has been retracted — more than four-and-a-half years after it was published.
Nature: Controversial COVID study that promoted unproven treatment retracted after four-year saga
09:10 The skin’s unexpected immune systemResearchers have discovered that healthy skin — once thought to be a passive barrier — can actually produce antibodies that fight off infections. It’s hoped that the finding could one day lead to the development of needle-free vaccines that can be applied to the skin.
Nature: The skin’s ‘surprise’ power: it has its very own immune system
13:02 Researchers fear Europa’s icy crust may be much thicker than thoughtNew estimates, based on data collected by NASA’s Juno spacecraft, suggest that the ice on the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa may be significantly thicker than previously thought. If these estimates prove accurate it could reduce the chances of Europa being habitable for extraterrestrial life.
Science: Surprisingly thick ice on Jupiter’s moon Europa complicates hunt for life
20:11 Modelling the running prowess of our ancient relatives3D computer simulations of Australopithecus afarensis — an ancient hominin that lived more than three million years ago — reveals that while our relatives could run on two legs, they likely did so at a far slower pace than modern humans.
Nature: Humans evolved for distance running — but ancestor ‘Lucy’ didn’t go far or fast
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In this episode, reporter Miryam Naddaf joins us to talk about the big science events to look out for in 2025. We’ll hear about: the latest Moon missions, 30 years of the United Nations' COP climate summits, the return of Donald Trump, and more.
Nature: Science in 2025: the events to watch for in the coming year
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Marc Abrahams created the Ig Nobel prizes in 1991, after years of collecting examples of weird research that he included in the Journal of Irreproducible Results. The aim of these satirical awards is to honour achievements that “make people laugh, then think”.
While the initial response from the scientific community was mixed, last year the prize received more than 9,000 nominations. Several researchers who have won an ‘Ig’ say that it has improved their careers by helping them to reach wider audiences, and spend more time engaging with the public about their work.
This is an audio version of our Feature: How a silly science prize changed my career
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00:36 How melting ice is affecting global timekeeping
Nature Podcast: 27 March 2024
Research article: Agnew
09:19 Sex and gender discussions don't need to be toxicPodcast extra: 01 May 2024
Collection: Sex and gender in science
18:10 Research HighlightsResearch Highlight: How to train your crocodile
Research Highlight: Ancient fish dined on bats — or died trying
21:09 ChatGPT has a language problem — but science can fix itPodcast extra: 09 August 2024
26:59 A simple solution to tackle a deadly frog diseaseNature Podcast: 03 July 2024
Research Article: Waddle et al.
News and Views: Mini saunas save endangered frogs from fungal disease
39:57 Briefing ChatNature News: Your brain on shrooms — how psilocybin resets neural networks
Nature News: NASA cancels $450-million mission to drill for ice on the Moon — surprising researchers
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02:54 The death star moon and a win for the little guys
The shifting orbit of one of Saturn’s moons indicates that the satellite has a subsurface ocean, contradicting theories that its interior is entirely solid. The finding calls for a fresh take on what constitutes an ocean moon.
Nature Podcast: 14 February 2024
News and Views: Mimas’s surprise ocean prompts an update of the rule book for moons
07:05 Could red mud make green steel?Millions of tonnes of ‘red mud’, a hazardous waste of aluminium production, are generated annually. A potentially sustainable process for treating this mud shows that it could become a source of iron for making steel.
Nature Podcast: 24 Jan 2024
News and Views: Iron extracted from hazardous waste of aluminium production
12:09 A hierarchy of failureA design principle for buildings incorporates components that can control the propagation of failure by isolating parts of the structure as they fail — offering a way to prevent a partial collapse snowballing into complete destruction.
Nature podcast: 15 May 2024
Nature video: Controlled failure: The building designed to limit catastrophe
News and Views: Strategic links save buildings from total collapse
17:57 Programable enzyme for genpme editingRNA-guided recombinase enzymes have been discovered that herald a new chapter for genome editing — enabling the insertion, inversion or deletion of long DNA sequences at user-specified genome positions.
News and Views: Programmable RNA-guided enzymes for next-generation genome editing
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01:11 “Ozempic you’re able”
In the first of our annual festive songs celebrating the science of the past year, we pay homage to Ozempic, or Semaglutide, that's able to tackle obesity, diabetes and potentially a whole lot more.
05:20 A very scientific quizWe gather an all-star cast and see how well they can remember some of the big science stories from 2024 in our annual festive quiz.
21:31 “CAR T Cells”In the second of our festive songs, we look at CAR-T cells. These engineered immune cells have shown great promise at tackling cancer, but these treatments are not without their drawbacks.
25:43 Nature’s 10Every year, Nature’s 10 highlights some of the people who have helped shape science over the past 12 months. We hear about a few of the people who made the 2024 list, including an economist who now needs to run a country, a Russian science-sleuth, a researcher who’s been sounding the alarm on Mpox, and a PhD student who won a salary bump for researchers in Canada.
News Feature: Nature’s 10
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Categorizing things is central to science. And there are dozens of systems scientists have created to name everything from the trenches on the sea bed to the stars in the sky.
But names have consequences — unintended or otherwise. In our new series What’s in a name we’ll explore naming in science and how names impact the world — whether that’s how the names of storms impact public safety, how the names of diseases impact patient care, or even how the names of scientific concepts can drive the direction of research itself.
In this first episode we’re looking at species names. The modern system of species naming began in the 1700s and has played a vital role in standardizing academic communication, ensuring that scientists are on the same page when they talk about an organism. However, this system is not without its issues. For example, there has been much debate around whether species with names considered offensive — such as those named after historical racists — should be changed, and what rule changes need to be made to allow this to happen.
We speak to researchers about the history of this naming system, how it’s applied and how it might evolve in the face of growing pressures.
Sources
For a full list of sources, please visit https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-04200-9
Music credits
Premiumaudio/Pond5
Alon Marcus/Pond5
Groove Committee/Pond5
Opcono/Pond5
Erik Mcnerny/Pond5
Earless Pierre/Pond5
Richard Smithson/Triple Scoop Music/Getty Images
Douglas Romayne/Triple Scoop Music/Getty Images
Sound effects via Pond5
Thick-billed Longspur/Andrew Spencer via CC BY-NC-ND 2.5
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00:45 A potential treatment for pre-eclampsia
Researchers have shown in mice experiments that an mRNA-based therapy can reverse the underlying causes of pre-eclampsia, a deadly complication of pregnancy for which treatment options are limited. Inspired by the success of mRNA vaccines, the team behind the work designed a method to deliver the genomic instructions for a blood-vessel growth factor directly into mouse placentas. This stimulated the production of extra blood vessels reducing the very high-blood pressure associated with the condition. Pre-eclampsia causes 15% of maternal deaths and 25% of foetal and newborn deaths worldwide and although the work is early and human trials will be required, the team hope that this work demonstrates the potential of using this approach to treat pre-eclampsia.
Research Article: Swingle et al.
11:00 Research HighlightsStacks of, mass-produced bowls suggest that people founded, but then abandoned an ancient Mesopotamian civilization, and analysis of Venus’s gases suggests that the planet was always dry.
Research Highlight: Ancient stacks of dishes tell tale of society’s dissolution
Research Highlight: Has Venus ever had an ocean? Its volcanoes hint at an answer
13:29 Programmable cellular switchesA team of scientists have created cellular switches on the surface of cells, allowing them to control their behaviour. Creating these switches has been a long-term goal for synthetic biologists — especially a group of proteins called G-protein-coupled receptors that already control many cellular processes. However, engineering these proteins has been challenging, as modifications can ruin their function. Instead, the team added another molecular component that blocked the receptors activity, but could be removed in response to specific signals. This allowed the researchers to activate these receptors on command, potentially opening up a myriad of new ways to control cell behaviour, such as controlling when neurons fire.
Research Article: Kalogriopoulos et al.
19:35 Google reaches a milestone in quantum computingA team at Google has shown it is possible to create a quantum computer that becomes more accurate as it scales up, a goal researchers have been trying to achieve for decades. Quantum computing could potentially open up applications beyond the capabilities of classical computers, but these systems are error-prone, making it difficult to scale them up without introducing errors into calculations. The team showed that by increasing the quality of all the components in a quantum computer they could create a system with fewer errors, and that this trend of improvement continued as the system became larger. This breakthrough could mean that quantum computers are getting very close to realising the useful applications that their proponents have long promised.
Nature: ‘A truly remarkable breakthrough’: Google’s new quantum chip achieves accuracy milestone
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Zoologist Arik Kershenbaum has spent his career studying animals and how they communicate in the wild. In his book Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication, Arik takes a deep dive into the various forms of communication, from wolf howls to gibbon songs, to look at how different species get their points across, why they do it the way they do, and what insights they provide into our own use of language.
Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication Arik Kershenbaum Penguin (2024)
Music supplied by SPD/Triple Scoop Music/Getty Images
Wolf howl via NPS & MSU Acoustic Atlas/Jennifer Jerrett
Slowed down dolphin whistle via Arik Kershenbaum
Hyrax song via Arik Kershenbaum
Pileated gibbon song via Rushenb CC BY-SA 4.0
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