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The most probable scenario is likely not what you think.

Starting my doctoral research over with a brand-new project was the best option.

An enzyme reconstructed from a three-billion-year-old bacterium widens gene editing capabilities to even more regions of the genome.

The Paper2Agent system makes it easier for researchers to reproduce papers and understand work in unfamiliar fields, authors say.

Despite their name, Tasmanian devils could be found across mainland Australia thousands of years ago.

Filling every spare moment with a podcast, message or social-media scroll may deny the brain a useful window for consolidating new memories.

An AI system trained on more than 20,000 protein structures from pharmaceutical companies outperforms AlphaFold-like models that use only public data.

The awards highlight weird, funny and improbable research that also makes you think.

As a truly binational public media station, Buffalo Toronto Public Media (BTPM) has proudly served the people of Western New York and Southern Ontario for over half a century, providing a community-su...

Spread of diseases between humans and animals is an issue around the world. But AI models can be used to monitor their progress.

Understanding the true magnitude of the current H5N1 outbreak is key to curbing its spread.

Edible bait vaccines made Europe virtually free from rabies. The approach could work against bird flu – if we invest in new vaccines.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

Australian physicists are anxiously awaiting the arrival of precious crystals, which have been a decade in the making...

Proponents argue that the current system creates a false sense of precision, but critics fear that the change could increase political interference.

We were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Emeritus Professor Michael Alpers AO CSM FAA FRS (St Mark’s 1953-54). Honoured internationally as a “pioneering scientist and compassionate humanitar...

New research suggests crocodiles used to have hot blood and fast metabolisms, but gave it all up to lurk underwater waiting for prey.

Is the evolution of excrement the reason we exist?

Viral sequences from Chilean mummies confirm the disease was introduced from Europe.

Mosquito-borne diseases are breaking records as climate change and other human influences allow the insects to expand their range.

Researchers say that transparent publishing practices could be associated with research quality, but more evidence is needed.

A shift from nomadic lifestyles could have triggered linguistic diversity before it then declined rapidly.

Forecasters predict that the monster climate pattern will combine with global warming to push global temperatures in 2027 to new heights.

Other researchers say that non-infectious viral samples in luggage posed no risk, but might have violated import rules.

Unlike all other mammals, seals can hear both in the air and underwater. How do they do this?

A handful of tiny fossil jaws fill a missing chapter in the evolutionary history of Australia’s most successful marsupial predators.

Natural selection may not be the only force that has contributed to the evolution of channel millet’s unusual genetics.

Is it possible to study the history of viruses that emerged several hundred million years ago? An international team of INRAE and CIRAD researchers answered this question by exploring plant genomes to find the molecular fossils of viruses.

by Guan-Ping Chen, Di Li, Xing Zhang, Ming-Yang Yu, Jing-Ru Zhang, Wilmer J. Cuellar, Xiao-Wei Wang, Shu-Sheng Liu, Yin-Quan Liu, Li-Long Pan The outbreak of vector-borne plant viruses entails both efficient in planta virus infection and productive vector-mediated transmission. Yet, the factors that concurrently regulate these two key viral traits remain understudied. Here we examine the role of viral proteins and the salicylic acid (SA) signaling pathway in modulating virus infection and vector preference to virus-infected plants. Infection of plants by the bipartite begomovirus, Sri Lankan cassava mosaic virus (SLCMV), dramatically induces the accumulation of SA, a positive regulator of antiviral defense. As countermeasures, SLCMV DNA-B and the BV1 protein encoded therein interfere with SA-induced antiviral defenses and SA signal transduction. Furthermore, whilst SA induces plant repellence to whitefly vectors, this repellence is mitigated by SLCMV DNA-B and BV1. Mechanistic explorations in N. benthamiana plants reveal that BV1 downregulates the transcription of BTB/POZ and TAZ domain-containing protein 1 (BT1), a positive regulator of plant SA signal transduction, antiviral defenses and repellence against whitefly. Finally, these principles of plant-bipartite begomovirus interactions are also documented for another bipartite begomovirus. Together, our data highlight the role of virus-SA interplay in enabling competent interactions among plant hosts, bipartite begomoviruses and their whitefly vectors, and advance our understanding of the molecular mechanisms that promote the persistence of vector-borne plant viruses.

Author summary Viruses have infected plants for hundreds of millions of years, but tracing their long-term evolution is difficult because viruses never leave direct fossil evidence. However, fragments...

Central conclusions rarely change when biomedical preprints go on to be published in journals.

The month’s sharpest science shots, selected by Nature’s photo team.

Science is a complex, interconnected, deeply human enterprise involving hard grind — and funding cuts and grant delays have come as a sucker punch to many.

From AI to biotechnology, today’s scientific breakthroughs raise ethical and social challenges that technical expertise alone cannot solve.

Stretching protein samples in all directions pulls molecules farther apart, allowing them to be visualized using only light microscopy.

An ecologist explains how Australia can curb the spread of the H5N1 strain.

Current pesticides are already failing – but science points to a way forward.

The ballista spider only feeds on extremely fierce green tree ants – so it has evolved sophisticated tools to safely catch its prey.

Embryonic ‘organizer cells’ can tell embryos of various phyla what kind of body to build.