Genetic analysis reveals that most living genera of mosquitoes emerged around 73 million years ago.

Hopes of securing a United Nations treaty on plastic pollution are fading after the final round of negotiations ended without an agreement.

Barley’s domestication history reveals the genetic legacy that shaped today’s crop.

Laser plasma device could be light enough to be used on the field.

Drones can exchange tools while in flight, enabling them to perform multiple tasks.

This class of synthetic opioids is more potent than heroin and morphine.

Hear the biggest stories from the world of science | 08 October 2025

A big-data analysis shows that online content represents men as older than women in the same occupations and social roles, and that AI reproduces these warped presentations.

Researchers warn against ‘top down’ solutions as US President Donald Trump brokers first phase of peace deal.

Four subtle changes to an enzyme might explain the hairless rodents’ longevity.

The most common destination for eventual Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry and medicine since 2000 is the United States, Nature has found.

Funding crises, bereavement and a supervisor’s relocation can derail your career path, but you can overcome them.

The most common destination for eventual Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry and medicine since 2000 is the United States, Nature has found.

By refusing to bend the rules I set for myself, I created structure and a better environment for my mental health.

A blood test has achieved 96% accuracy in diagnosing the condition in a small study of individuals. What does the test detect, and is it a biomarker of the condition?

Enzymes are the molecular machines of life, and a key property that governs their function is substrate specificity—the ability of an enzyme to recognize and selectively act on particular substrates. This specificity originates from the three-dimensional (3D) structure of the enzyme active site and complicated transition state of the reaction1,2. Many enzymes can promiscuously catalyze reactions or act on substrates beyond those for which they were originally evolved1,3-5. However, millions of known enzymes still lack reliable substrate specificity information, impeding their practical applications and comprehensive understanding of the biocatalytic diversity in nature. Herein, we developed a cross-attention-empowered SE(3)-equivariant graph neural network architecture named EZSpecificity for predicting enzyme substrate specificity, which was trained on a comprehensive tailor-made database of enzyme-substrate interactions at sequence and structural levels. EZSpecificity outperformed the existing machine learning models for enzyme substrate specificity prediction, as demonstrated by both an unknown substrate and enzyme database and seven proof-of-concept protein families. Experimental validation with eight halogenases and 78 substrates revealed that EZSpecificity achieved a 91.7% accuracy in identifying the single potential reactive substrate, significantly higher than that of the state-of-the-art model ESP (58.3%). EZSpecificity represents a general machine learning model for accurate prediction of substrate specificity for enzymes related to fundamental and applied research in biology and medicine.

An approach for making nanoscale high-entropy alloys using liquid metal provides much-needed control over the structure and composition of these remarkable materials.

Through fieldwork and innovative research, he transformed how scientists and the public perceive the prehistoric world.

A new spectroscopic method takes advantage of quantum entanglement to improve the precision of optical-frequency measurement.

DNA found in fossils from southwestern Germany suggests the populations survived in the region much longer than expected.

Analyses of RNA expression reveal molecules underpinning the cancer-associated process of skeletal-muscle wasting, a condition called cachexia.

Scientists have used low-error genome-sequencing methods in normal tissues from large cohorts of individuals to scan for mutations that set the stage for cancer.

The newfound ensemble of neurons could lead to therapies to treat persistent pain, which affects roughly one of five people globally.

Using a new analytical method for tracking gamma band events in mouse visual cortex, flexible encoding of visual information according to behavioural context is shown.

Hear the biggest stories from the world of science | 08 October 2025