This tiny solar-powered flyer weighs less than a paper plane nature video 2024-07-17 | Researchers have overcome efficiency and power issues to create what they believe to be the lightest and smallest sunlight-powered rotorocraft in the world.Micro aerial vehicles or MAVs could have a host of applications from environmental monitoring to search and rescue. But currently, these tiny flying machines have a problem — endurance. MAVs that weigh less than 10 grams are normally limited to around 10 minutes of flying time.To increase flying time, other types of propulsion have been tested, but these still require bulky power systems on the ground to take off, preventing any craft from freely flying.One solution could be solar power. But until now no solar powered MAV has been capable of untethered sustained flight in natural sunlight.So to solve this, researchers have developed CoulombFly, a solar-powered MAV propelled by a new extremely efficient electro-static motor and powered by incredibly light solar panels.Read the paper: nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07609-4
How To Win A Nobel Prize: A three minute guide nature video 2024-10-11 | So you want to win a Nobel prize? Nature has crunched the data on previous science prize winners to find out what you need to do (or be) to have the statistically best chance of winning.From age, gender and even location Kerri Smith breaks down how to increase your chance of becoming a laureate.Read the full article at nature.com/immersive/d41586-024-02897-2/index.html
Mysterious GAMMA-RAY flickers spotted in tropical thunderclouds ⚡️ ☢️ ⛈️ nature video 2024-10-05 | Did you know that tropical thunderclouds can emit invisible gamma rays? Scientists already knew about two types of gamma-ray phenomena in clouds — long glows and momentary flashes. Now, by flying a plane over a storm, researchers have shown that these gamma-rays are much more common than we thought.Find out more in the Nature Podcast youtube.com/watch?v=y9vrBdHhmSQ
How to battle Alzheimers in Africa nature video 2024-09-30 | Researchers are looking to find interventions for Alzheimer's in Africa, a region that's historically overlooked.Research in Alzheimer's is progressing rapidly, opening up more interventions and treatments, but there are concerns that not everywhere in the world will benefit from such advances. In fact, most of the dementia cases in the world are in low- and middle-income countries, a number that will only increase as their populations age. The new research will identify the best interventions to try and prevent the progression of Alzheimer's in Africa and allow better brain ageing for all.Read more about Alzheimer's disease nature.com/collections/adgggicdcaRead the paper: alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/alz.079009This Nature Video is editorially independent. It is produced with third party financial support. Read more about Supported Content here: partnerships.nature.com/commercial-content-at-nature-research
Watch this octopus ‘punch’ a freeloading fish 🐙🐙 nature video 2024-09-28 | When looking for their next meal, new footage shows that octopuses collaborate with different species.Researchers were able to observe 13 instances of cross-species group hunting, in which a big blue octopus worked with different fish species to capture prey. Each species was shown to take on a different role. For example, goatfish, especially blue goatfish, were often seen exploring different areas and encouraging the group to follow suit. However, octopuses seemed to help the group decide whether to move or not. Thanks to their eight arms, octopuses were able to suss out hidden prey, and encourage the group to stay in place.The researchers also found that certain fish species, such as blacktip groupers were seen as opportunistic. They would join the hunting group without supporting the group's efforts. When this happened, the octopuses weren’t afraid to tell them off with a quick punchRead the full article at nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03127-5Reporter: Helena Kudiabor
Detecting Alzheimers 20 years before onset nature video 2024-09-27 | Biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease begin to change many years before symptoms present and a diagnosis is made.Shuheng Wang and Bote Zhao worked on a long term study tracking these changes. The team took samples from participants' cerebrospinal fluid, imaged their brain and carried out cognitive assessments over a 20 year period. They found one biomarker (amyloid-beta 42) began to differ, compared to participants who didn't go on to develop the disease, 18 years prior to diagnosis and many others would deviate in the years preceding. It's hoped these findings will lead to early diagnosis and intervention for those with Alzheimer's disease.Read more about Alzheimer's disease nature.com/collections/adgggicdcaRead the paper: nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2310168?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmedThis Nature Video is editorially independent. It is produced with third party financial support. Read more about Supported Content here: partnerships.nature.com/commercial-content-at-nature-research
How Alzheimers mutates the immune system nature video 2024-09-26 | David Gate studies how neurodegenerative disease changes the immune system And for people with Alzheimer's disease, some of the changes he and his colleagues have identified are at the genetic level - with one modification to T cells potentially leading to an abnormal inflammatory response in the brain. Now he thinks that understanding and targeting these changes could be a route to treating the disease.Read more about Alzheimer's disease nature.com/collections/adgggicdcaRead the paper: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38340719This Nature Video is editorially independent. It is produced with third party financial support. Read more about Supported Content here: partnerships.nature.com/commercial-content-at-nature-research
The macabre wasp that lays its eggs *inside* live fruit flies 🪰 nature video 2024-09-21 | Drosophila fruit flies are well studied insects. For over a century, these tiny animals have been at the centre of some of the biggest molecular and genetic breakthroughs in science. But despite being under the microscope all this time, it looks like researchers have missed something. And that something is a minuscule wasp that preys on them.This wasp species, named Syntretus perlmani, was discovered by chance in an infected fruit fly collected in a Mississippi backyard. Only a couple of millimetres long, it lays its eggs inside adult fruit flies. These eggs develop into larvae which grow and feast inside the host before bursting out to continue their lifecycle.Despite being new to science, genomic analysis suggests its widespread across much of the US.youtube.com/watch?v=cvQVh5vnDQw&t=1170s
These black hole jets are HUNDREDS of Milky Way galaxies long 🕳️ nature video 2024-09-18 | Black holes are often thought of in terms of sucking things in, but in some cases they also fling stuff out as well. When this happens matter gets ionized and fired out from the top and bottom of the black holes. These violent and powerful phenomena are known as black hole jets. The biggest of these are made by supermassive black holes and can be up to several million light years in size. And now a team has seen the biggest yet. It’s around 7 megaparsecs, or 23 million light years, in size. To put that another way, if you take the Milky Way as being 100,000 light years across then that's like 233 milky way galaxies stacked on top of each other end to end. That is a full six and a half million light years bigger than the maximum size astronomers theorised these jets to be.youtube.com/watch?v=V2Bx91IG0xA
Should we rename an SI unit after Emmy Noether? nature video 2024-09-07 | The unit of momentum is currently known as kilogram metres per second (kg m/s) according to the International System of Units. However, in a letter to the American Journal of Physics a teacher has started a campaign for it to become know as the noether.Emmy Noether was a mathematician who changed physics with her discovery that symmetries are at the heart of physical laws.
One of Stonehenges megaliths comes from Scotland 🏴 nature video 2024-09-03 | Stonehenge, the Neolithic stone circle on Salisbury Plain in southern England, has captivated archaeologists, antiquarians and sightseers for centuries. For decades researchers have tried to find the origins of the stones, with some being sourced to the surrounding landscape and some from the Preseli Hills in Wales.But new geochemical analysis of the Altar Stone, a partially buried slab of sandstone at the centre of the stone circle, suggests that this stone originally came from the Orcadian Basin in Scotland over 700 kilometres away.Read the full article at nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07652-1
Underwater bridge gives clues to ancient human arrival nature video 2024-08-30 | Mallorca is the largest of the Balearic islands and the sixth-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, but despite its size and location research suggests that it was among the last Mediterranean islands to be settled by humans. But exactly when people arrived on the island is a subject of much debate, with current estimates placing it at around 4,400 years ago.However, an ancient stone bridge in a flooded cave may call that timeline into question. By dating mineral deposits in the cave scientists have given a new window for when they suggest humans actually reached the island — at least 1,000 years earlier than previously thought.Read the paper: nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01584-4
The future of detecting gravitational waves: A three minute guide nature video 2024-08-21 | Observatories, experiments and techniques are being developed to spot ripples in space-time at frequencies that currently can’t be detected. LIGO and Virgo are laser interferometers: they work by detecting small differences in travel time for lasers fired along perpendicular arms, each a few kilometres long. But physicists are also exploring entirely different techniques to detect gravitational waves. These strategies, which range from watching pulsars to measuring quantum fluctuations, hope to catch a much wider variety of gravitational waves, with frequencies in the megahertz to nanohertz range.Read more at nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02003-6
New research highlights Scottish origin for part of Stonehenge nature video 2024-08-14 | Stonehenge, the Neolithic stone circle on Salisbury Plain in southern England, has captivated archaeologists, antiquarians and sightseers for centuries. For decades researchers have tried to find the origins of the stones, with some being sourced to the surrounding landscape and some from the Preseli Hills in Wales.But new geochemical analysis of the Altar Stone, a partially buried slab of sandstone at the centre of the stone circle, suggests that this stone originally came from the Orcadian Basin in Scotland over 700 kilometres away.Read the full article at nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07652-1
We tested ChatGPT in different languages. It failed in Tamil and Tigrinya nature video 2024-08-09 | Chatbots like ChatGPT perform very well in English, but when put to the test in a range of languages the performance was sometimes poor. Lack of training data and other resources can reduce performance in these chatbots with implications for how accessible they are worldwide.Check out our related podcast for a more in depth look at this topic: youtube.com/watch?v=fxxdO1o9iLM
The physics of fish hearing nature video 2024-07-31 | It's known fish have directional hearing but the exact mechanism has eluded researchers for decades.Now a team of researchers have demonstrated that some fish can independently detect two components of a soundwave — pressure and particle motion — and combine this information to identify where a sound comes from.Read the paper: nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07507-9
A glass that builds and heals itself nature video 2024-06-12 | Researchers have discovered that a peptide, when mixed with water, can self assemble into a rigid glass. Peptides are chains of amino acids, like smaller versions of proteins, and they make for attractive chemical building blocks due to their ability to self-assemble into structures with unique properties. Normally these structures are crystalline in nature — not much use if you want a glassy material.But while looking for something else entirely, a team of researchers discovered that a certain peptide will develop unusual bonds with water, allowing it to form into a glass-like structure. What’s more, the unique properties of this peptide glass allow it to self heal if cracked, and act as a strong adhesive between water-loving surfaces.Read the paper: nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07408-x
Laser-powered bullets reveal surprising metal hardness nature video 2024-05-22 | Conventional thinking suggests that metals soften as they warm. But this isn't always true, as researchers have succeeded in demonstrating that under extreme conditions, metals actually get harder as they get hotter.By shooting metal targets with tiny, laser-powered projectiles, this team was able to create incredibly high strain rates. Under these conditions a property called drag strengthening comes into play giving rise to metals that behave in counterintuitive ways, and could inform high speed manufacture or aerospace engineering.Read the paper: nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07420-1
Controlled failure: The building designed to limit catastrophe nature video 2024-05-15 | Catastrophic building collapse can have many causes, but the outcome is all too familiar; a loss of lives and the destruction of infrastructure that can have a long lasting effect on a community.Current guidelines suggest extensive structural connectivity within a building is the best way to prevent disaster. This allows for a redistribution of weight should part of a structure be damaged. But in certain circumstances, this interconnectedness can be a building's downfall. With a large enough initial failure, collapsing parts of the building can pull down the rest of the connected structure.So this team of researchers took a new approach, focusing not only on preventing collapse, but also managing failure if it happens. Their idea is inspired by how some lizards shed their tails to escape being eaten by a predator - a tactical sacrifice. They call it hierarchy-based collapse isolation, and they tested their theory using an experiment two storeys high.Read the paper: nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07268-5
Should the Maldives be creating new land? nature video 2024-04-24 | As climate change leads to sea level rise, low-lying island nations like the Maldives are facing an existential threat. One solution is to 'reclaim' land by relocating sediment from the ocean floor. This can provide more space for development and increase resilience to rising oceans. But many are concerned about the environmental and social impacts of such projects. In this film we explore the process, the impacts and the uncertainties around this race to adapt.Read more in the feature:
AI and robotics demystify the workings of a flys wing nature video 2024-04-17 | Machine learning and robotics have shed new light on one of the most sophisticated skeletal structures in the animal kingdom: the insect wing hinge. Unlike birds or bats, which evolved wings by adapting existing limbs, insect wings are wholly original appendages, and understanding how the complex hinge that links the insect wing to its body works has been a challenge.But now a team of researchers have combined cutting edge imaging, machine learning and robotics to build a model that is shedding new light on the structure. Read the paper: nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07293-4
No sweat: Moisture-wicking device keeps wearable-tech dry nature video 2024-03-27 | Wearable electronics have a sweat problem. Most electronic materials aren’t permeable, and if a device isn’t breathable, sweat can start to build up on the skin. That’s uncomfortable for the user, and not great for the device which could lose signal quality, or just fall off.Breathable electronics do exist, but the technology is in its infancy. Now though a team of researchers have developed a new breathable platform that could be easily integrated with cutting edge electronics.Read the paper: nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07161-1
Cancer-busting vaccines are coming: heres how they work nature video 2024-03-27 | Most vaccines work by teaching the immune system to recognize harmful viruses or bacteria before a person gets infected and becomes unwell. A few cancer vaccines do this, too. For example, a vaccine is given to young people as protection against human papillomaviruses that can cause cervical cancer. But scientists are also developing cancer vaccines that could be used as treatments, after cancer has been found. These vaccines work by teaching the body's immune system to distinguish between healthy cells and abnormal cancer cells. To do this, researchers need to identify proteins that are made by cancer cells but not by healthy cells. These proteins can be used like a barcode. The vaccine teaches the body's immune cells to 'read' the barcode, as a way of identifying the cancer. This video explains how these vaccines are made, and the pros and cons of various types of cancer vaccine.Read more here: nature.com/collections/cancer-vaccines-outlineThis Nature Video is editorially independent. It is produced with third party financial support. Read more about Supported Content here: partnerships.nature.com/commercial-content-at-nature-research
Building a heart atlas nature video 2024-03-13 | The heart is the first organ to develop, but despite its importance, scientists know surprisingly little about exactly how its cells are arranged.Now a team of researchers have combined RNA sequencing and cutting edge imaging technology to map the heart in more detail than ever before.They hope that this ‘atlas’ will allow scientists to tackle congenital defects, which are a leading cause of death in infants.Read the paper: nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07171-z
The bees that can learn like humans nature video 2024-03-06 | Scientists have long accepted the existence of animal culture, be that tool use in New Caledonian crows, or Japanese macaques washing sweet potatoes.One thing thought to distinguish human culture is our ability to do things too complex to work out alone — no one could have split the atom or travel into space without relying on the years of iterative advances that came first.But now, a team of researchers think they’ve observed this phenomenon for the first time outside of humans, in bumblebees.Read the paper: nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07126-4
Why human brain cells grow so slowly nature video 2024-01-31 | Growing human neurons in the lab can be a time-consuming process. Some cortical cells take years to reach maturity - many times slower than the equivalent cells in a mouse. Researchers have been exploring some of the mechanisms that could be behind these very different timescales of growth - and have found a kind of epigenetic ‘braking’ effect that slows maturation. Manipulating this ‘brake’ could allow scientists to speed up the study of older brain cells in a dish.Read the paper: nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06984-8
‘Like a moth to a flame’ — this strange insect behaviour is finally explained nature video 2024-01-30 | Moths love a light bulb. And it’s not just moths — all sorts of insects congregate around artificial lights at night. But what makes these lights so apparently attractive?Previous explanations have included the idea that confused insects are attempting to use the moon to navigate, or that they’re being drawn to the heat rather than the light itself. Now, advances in camera technology have allowed researchers to study the flight of these insects in more detail than ever before, and revealed a new solution to the mystery.Footage shows that flying insects seem to be twisting to keep their back to the light - a reflex known as a dorsal light response. Rather than being attracted towards it, they find themselves stuck in a loop flying around it…Read the paper in full nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44785-3For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVF
Super-propulsion: How sharpshooting insects flick their pee nature video 2023-12-27 | Sharpshooters are tiny insects capable of extraordinary feats. They feed on xylem fluid which is about 95% water and as a result they produce a lot of urine which they need to expel, and they do so using some pretty nifty physics called super propulsion. By taking advantage of the unique properties of water at this scale, sharpshooters can flick droplets of urine away from their bodies at speeds faster than they can move, saving energy and allowing them to keep feeding. This is the first time super propulsion has been seen in a natural system and researchers say it could provide inspiration for new ways to keep tech dry.Read more: nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36376-5
What ChatGPT is and what its not: A three minute guide nature video 2023-12-20 | AI chat bots like Chat GPT and its cousins have taken the world by storm in 2023. To a casual user, large language models are creating increasingly human-like responses - and yet this does not represent the reality of what is going on under the hood. In this video we are going to explore what Chat GPT and other like it are actually doing, what the future may looks like for these programs and ask whether it is fair to call them artificial intelligences at all?
The rubber that stops cracks in their tracks nature video 2023-12-13 | Modern manufacturing needs stiff rubbers that can resist deformation for components like shock absorbers and drive belts.But the stiffer rubber becomes, the more likely it is to crack under stress, which is a tough problem for researchers; the point at which cracks begin to propagate under repeated stress, known as the fatigue threshold, has stayed the same for decades.But now a team of researchers have created a new type of rubber with a fatigue threshold 10 times higher than before, by entangling polymers in the rubber’s structure.Read the paper here nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06782-2For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVF
Super hot plasma made easy with stabilising fibres nature video 2023-11-29 | CORRECTION: The video incorrectly states that an 'extremely high voltage' is used to create the plasma. In fact the use of carbon fibres in this device decreases the required voltage to less than 50 volts.In a plasma electrons separate from atoms and create a soup of charged particles that can be extremely hot and bright. This is particularly useful for manufacturing certain types of high temperature materials - and for experimenting with new materials. But plasmas can be hard to control, and existing methods require specialist equipment. Now a new technique using carbon fibres has been shown to be able to create a stable plasma with a uniform temperature - and the researchers say their kit will be much easier to construct in physics labs around the world.Read the paper here: nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06694-1
The 3D printer that crafts complex robotic organs in a single run nature video 2023-11-15 | 3D printing technology has made huge breakthroughs in recent years, able to quickly produce everything from small plastic components to entire buildings. But one area that remains a challenge is the construction of intricate mechanical devices which require multiple materials and moving parts.This new printer combines inkjet printing technology with error correction guided by machine vision to tackle this challenge and construct sophisticated functional devices.By scanning and adjusting layer by layer as it prints, it can maintain speed and accuracy while its multiple print heads lay down different materials side by side. And while the researchers behind the technique, called vision-controlled jetting, have started by demonstrating prints with soft and rigid plastics, the machine has the potential to print electronics or even cellular scaffolds for tissue engineering.Read the research paper here: nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06684-3For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVF
Could a robot chemist create oxygen on Mars using AI? nature video 2023-11-15 | If humans are ever to build settlements on Mars, they will need oxygen, to breathe, but also to allow rocket fuels to burn, to allow for return missions. But oxygen makes up only a tiny percentage of the Martian atmosphere, and transporting oxygen there from Earth is not a practical solution. Instead scientists have pinned their hopes on generating oxygen on the red planet, and this new robotic chemist aims to do just that. Powered by AI, it autonomously creates catalysts using locally sourced materials, capable of producing as much oxygen as a tree.Read more:
How would a starfish wear trousers? Science has an answer nature video 2023-11-01 | Starfishes are weirdly shaped animals. Scientists have long puzzled over how a starfish body equates to the more typical animal arrangement of a head on one end and trunk or tail on the other. Humans wear trousers on the bottom of their trunks, so you could extrapolate out from that to suggest solutions to the 'trouser question' for dogs, horses, spiders and even slugs. But what about a starfish? Now there's a new possible answer based on the expression of their genes...Read the research paper here: nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06669-2For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVF
The very first beat: How a heart starts to pulse nature video 2023-09-27 | One moment there's nothing, the next... a heartbeat. As a vertebrate embryo grows, its heart tissue starts to pulse well before it's needed. But how does the developing heart actually co-ordinate that very first beat? Using microscopes and glowing fluorescent proteins, researchers have been able to watch zebrafish embryos during this key point in development and examine the process in real time.Read the paper: nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06561-zFor more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVF
Neuroimmunology: Can you think yourself healthy? nature video 2023-09-13 | Hai Qi studies the connections and interactions between the brain and the immune system, a field called neuroimmunology. The hope is that one day our thoughts could help fight infection.Hai and his colleagues have identified nerves in mice that transmit signals from the brain to modulate production of immune cells, and found a physical stimulus that triggers this response.They hope that their work could open the door to new drugs designed to enhance the immune system by targeting the brain and nervous system, or even to prescribed thought exercises like meditation or qigong that might improve drug effectiveness.Learn more about T cells here http://www.nature.com/collections/t-cells-milestones
How to supercharge T cells against cancer nature video 2023-09-06 | T cells play a crucial role in fighting cancer something well appreciated by Lionel Apetoh who showed that they were essential for the efficacy of chemotherapies during his PhD. Since then, he's been interested in trying to improve the efficacy of these vital cells.However, increasing the efficacy of these cells against cancers comes with challenges; if they become too aggressive they could damage the body. So now Lionel's lab is working to fine tune their responses.Learn more about T cells here: nature.com/immersive/d42859-022-00032-7/index.html
AI finally beats humans at a real-life sport — drone racing nature video 2023-08-30 | For the first time an AI pilot has beaten champion-level humans at drone racing.Until now, the lighting reflexes, quick decision-making and complex planning required to race around a track at the standard of elite human racers has proved insurmountable for artificial intelligences.But this new system, called Swift, combines the simulation training that has allowed other AIs to triumph at chess, or video games, with onboard sensors and computation to outrace its human opponents in the real world.Read the paper in full nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06419-4For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVF
Mind-reading computers turn brain activity into speech nature video 2023-08-23 | For people with paralysis and other conditions, brain-computer-interfaces could provide a way to communicate without needing to be able to speak. The technology to do this has developed rapidly over the past few years, and two new studies show impressive results in converting brain activity into text, sounds and even facial expressions.Read the Stanford University based paper here: nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06377-xRead the University of California San Francisco based paper here: nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06443-4Read a News & Views article about the results here: nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02546-0For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVF
These shapes roll in peculiar ways thanks to new mathematics nature video 2023-08-09 | Thanks to a complex mathematical algorithm, these plastic shapes follow a very specific route as they roll. In fact, researchers have shown that a shape can be designed to follow almost any path you can think of. What started out as just an interesting challenge for the researchers could have unexpected applications in quantum physics.Read more in the paper: nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06306-y For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVF
Malaria in the Amazon: Battling a health crisis nature video 2023-07-20 | A public health emergency is unfolding among indigenous communities in the Brazilian state of Roraima, with a deadly malaria outbreak playing a major role. Health workers trying to tackle the problem must engage with the complex mixture of biological and political factors that have led to the current situation and which may act as obstacles to potential solutions. This documentary explores how mining, migration and changing government policies interact with the spread of malaria and discovers the methods, new and old, being used to bring it under control.
Do octopuses dream? Brain recordings provide the first clues nature video 2023-06-28 | When octopuses sleep, strange patterns sometimes flicker across their skin. Now, neuroscientists have been able to peer into the brain of a sleeping octopus for the first time - and explore this strange sleep state. They find remarkable similarities to the way that humans and other vertebrates sleep, despite the millions of years of evolution separating the two groups.Read more in the paper: nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06203-4For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVF
The bio-inspired transformer that crawls, rolls and flies nature video 2023-06-27 | Robots are often designed for a particular purpose, but what if they could transform to tackle new challenges. Enter M4, the multi-modal mobility morphobot. It draws inspiration from the natural world by adapting how it uses its limb-like rotors and wheels to move in a wide range of ways, saving energy and making it more versatile.You can read more about M4 in the research paper: nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39018-y
A robotic raspberry teaches machines how to pick fruit nature video 2023-06-23 | Fruit-picking robots need a gentle touch. While a huge number of crops are harvested by machines, soft fruit like raspberries are usually collected by hand. To help robots gain the skills needed to pluck raspberries from the stem without crushing them, researchers have developed a robotic raspberry. It's a fake fruit containing a sensor which can measure and feed back on the pressures involved when both humans and robots grasp it. The idea is to allow researchers to work on developing their fruit-picking devices in the lab all year round.Read the paper here: nature.com/articles/s44172-023-00089-wFor more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVF
Neurotech DIY: fixing your own implant nature video 2023-06-09 | In 2013 Markus Möllmann-Bohle was fitted with an electronic implant to treat debilitating cluster headaches. Six years later the manufacturer ceased trading and Markus was left to maintain his device by himself. In this film, we hear his story.The multi-billion dollar neurotechnology market is predicted to expand by around 75% in the coming years. But as commercial investment grows, so too do commercial failures, abandoning thousands of people, like Markus, who have come to depend on the now unsupported devices.You can read more on this topic here nature.com/immersive/d41586-022-03810-5/index.htmlThis video was produced using footage recorded with financial support from FII Institute. Nature retains full responsibility for all editorial content, and is editorially independent of sponsors. Read more about Supported Content here: partnerships.nature.com/commercial-content-at-nature-research
How to recycle a wind turbine in a test tube nature video 2023-04-26 | Wind turbine blades are huge, strong and hard to recycle. As the world's use of wind energy grows, researchers are searching for better ways to make use of old, decommissioned wind turbine blades. Now researchers in Denmark are using chemistry to find ways to break down the tough epoxy plastic that make up the blades, and recover useful materials for producing future wind turbines.Read the paper: nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05944-6
Mutated neuroreceptor lets octopuses taste with their arms nature video 2023-04-12 | Octopuses hunt for prey in cracks and crevices along the seabed using ‘taste-by-touch‘ - the ability to detect chemical signals simply by touching them. Now researchers have identified the molecular makeup of a chemo-tactile receptor that makes this possible. In this film we explore the surprising origins of this receptor, and ask whether molecular evolution can explain octopuses’ unique behaviours. Read the papers:nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05808-znature.com/articles/s41586-023-05822-1For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVF
Acute kidney injury explained nature video 2023-03-29 | Acute kidney injury, known as AKI, is surprisingly common, especially among people in hospital.It happens when the kidneys stop working properly, often because of a change in blood flow due to surgery or an infection. If the kidneys do not recover quickly, it can turn into a chronic condition. Therefore, physicians would like better ways to prevent, diagnose and treat AKI.In this animation, we explain how risk algorithms, research into biomarkers and new drugs offer hope to patients and physicians.Learn more about AKI nature.com/collections/acute-kidney-injury-outlineThis Nature Video is editorially independent. It is produced with third party financial support. Read more about Supported Content here: partnerships.nature.com/commercial-content-at-nature-research
The driving test for driverless cars nature video 2023-03-22 | How do you test whether a fully autonomous, self-driving car can cope with dangerous situations? In the real world accidents and near-misses are relatively rare — rare enough that it would take a lot of testing to see how a driverless car might react to different scenarios. Now a group of researchers has developed a new way to test autonomous vehicles, by surrounding them with virtual reality obstacles controlled by AIs. These virtual cars, trucks, deer, cyclists and pedestrians have been trained to recreate a variety of dangerous events based on real world data. The system is already being used to test and train autonomous vehicles currently in development.Read the paper: nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05732-2 For more stories like these sign up for the Nature Briefing: An essential round-up of science news, opinion and analysis, free in your inbox every weekday: go.nature.com/371OcVF
The mystery of the disappearing lymphocytes nature video 2023-03-15 | Lymphocytes are immune cells that play vital roles in fighting infections. The most well-known lymphocytes are the T cells and B cells of the adaptive immune system. In the 1950s and 1960s, scientists performed experiments to follow lymphocytes on their journey around the body, which helped us to work out where they go and what they do. This work laid the foundation for everything we know about T cells today, including how they become activated to fight infections and how they form memory populations that provide long-lasting immunity. Learn more about T cells here http://www.nature.com/collections/t-cells-milestonesThis Nature Video is editorially independent. It is produced with third party financial support. Read more about Supported Content here: partnerships.nature.com/commercial-content-at-nature-research
