Nature
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This ‘minor’ bird flu strain has potential to spark human pandemic
Attention has been focused on avian influenza virus H5N1 in the past few years, but scientists are concerned about the spread of other bird viruses.Credit: Ralf Hirschberger/AFP via Getty A bird flu virus that has often been ignored because it mostly causes minor disease in birds has the potential to cause a human pandemic, says a team that has tracked…
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do we even need a replacement?
The statue of Alan Turing at Bletchley Park, UK.Credit: Steve Meddle/Shutterstock Today’s best artificial intelligence (AI) models sail through the Turing test, a famous thought experiment that asks whether a computer can pass as a human by interacting via text. Some see an upgraded test as a necessary benchmark for progress towards artificial general intelligence (AGI) — an ambiguous term…
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Economics Nobel prize won by researchers who showed how science boosts growth
The 2025 Sveriges Riksbank Prize for Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel has been awarded to three researchers who have shown how technological and scientific innovation, coupled to market competition, drive economic growth. One half of the prize goes to economic-historian Joel Mokyr of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and the other half is split between the economic theorists…
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why we called our pregnancy-diagnostic company Mirvie
Maneesh Jain is the chief executive and co-founder of biotechnology firm Mirvie.Credit: Mitch Tobias The meaning behind our moniker Mirvie is a biotechnology company in San Francisco, California, that is developing blood tests that can predict pregnancy complications. It hopes its RNA-based technology will offer a non-invasive way to identify those at risk of conditions such as preeclampsia and premature…
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Author Correction: Selenium-alloyed tellurium oxide for amorphous p-channel transistors
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third…
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What drove the rise of civilizations? A decades-long quest points to warfare
The Great Holocene Transformation: What Complexity Science Tells Us about the Evolution of Complex Societies Peter Turchin Beresta Books (2025) When Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés arrived in Mexico in 1519, he found monarchs, cities, roads, markets, schools, astronomers, law courts and much else that also existed in his native Spain. Put another way, two cultural experiments had been running in…
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The chatbots claiming to be Jesus: spreading gospel or heresy?
‘God’s influencer’ Carlo Acutis was canonized on 7 September by Pope Leo XIV. Acutis was known for his use of digital media to promote Catholic devotion.Credit: Vatican Pool/Getty The canonization of Carlo Acutis by Pope Leo XIV on 7 September was a sign of how the Catholic Church is increasingly embracing the digital world. Acutis, who died of leukaemia in…
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These nations are wooing PhD students amid US funding uncertainties
The United States has long been one of the most popular destinations for international students pursuing graduate studies. But pauses to some of the country’s university PhD programmes and the imposition of visa restrictions for students from certain countries have prompted other nations to try to attract those students who have been affected by the changes or who no longer…
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working with farmers to protect a reintroduced species
“Since 2012, I’ve worked with the Tonkawa Foundation, in Nuevo Casas Grandes, Mexico, on the recovery of the Mexican wolf (Canis lupus baileyi), a grey-wolf subspecies that had been hunted to near-extinction by the 1980s. Reintroducing wolves to the Chihuahua region will restore ecological balance and help to regulate other wildlife populations. The Mexican wolf’s return not only helps to…
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Pig lung transplanted into a person in world first
Credit: Xijing Hospital of the Air Force Medical University/Xinhua via Alamy A lung from a genetically modified pig has been transplanted into a person for the first time1. The recipient, a 39-year-old man in China, was brain dead, but the organ survived for nine days. At least half a dozen people in the United States and China have received organs…
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