Bioplastics derived from biomass show promise as sustainable alternatives to petrochemical plastics, but their adoption is hindered by their inferior mechanical properties and processability. Here, the authors report a deep eutectic solvent treatment process which yields bamboo plastics with high mechanical properties and processability.

Early-career scientists face a tough choice: chase “hot” topics for quick publications or pursue risky, innovative ideas. Limited resources worsen this dilemma. To foster true innovation, funding agencies and institutions must support diversity in research beyond short-term outputs.

Tandem electro-biocatalytic systems present a versatile platform for producing a variety of synthetic products using CO2 as a starting material. Here direct ocean carbon capture is incorporated into an electrolysis scheme to produce formic acid from CO2 dissolved in seawater that is subsequently converted to succinate in a bioreactor.

Carmen García-Chávez monitors the activities of wolves after their reintroduction to Chihuahua, northern Mexico.

Scientists are uncovering how your gut might be shaping your thoughts, feelings and cravings.

In his new book, Daniel Yon explains how our brain is constantly constructing reality

This study finds a decrease in severe hail across Europe under a high emissions scenario using km-scale climate model projections. However, very large hail remains a threat, particularly due to the emergence of tropical-like thunderstorms around the Mediterranean coasts.

Among the animals on this planet, dogs are uniquely adapted for life with humans, a status that exposes them to risks of human-mediated traumatic experiences. At the same time, some lineages of dogs have undergone artificial selection for behavioral phenotypes that might increase risk or resilience to stress exposure, providing an opportunity to examine interactions between heritable and acquired traits. In a large-scale study (N = 4,497), English-speaking dog guardians reported on their dogs’ life histories, current living environments, and provided observer ratings of dog behavior using the Canine Behavior Assessment and Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ). Our analysis revealed that adverse experiences in the first six months of life, such as abuse and relinquishment, were significantly associated with increased aggression and fearfulness in adulthood, even when accounting for factors such as acquisition source, sex, and neuter status. Additionally, effects of adversity on fearful and aggressive behavior systematically varied at the breed level, suggesting heritable factors for risk and resilience for developing particular phenotypes. Our findings establish that breed ancestry and individual experience interact to show fear and aggressive behavior in pet dogs, confirming that socioemotional behavior is shaped by gene-environment interactions.

On the left-hand side of the Communities, you can explore all 42 of our subject-level Research Communities; from Astronomy to Zoology & Veterinary Science. Within each Community you can choose how in depth you want to go - using features such as channels and topics. Read on to find out more.

The art of kirigami allows programming a sheet to deform into a particular manner with a pattern of cuts, endowing it with exotic mechanical properties and behaviours. Here we program discs to deform into stably falling parachutes as they deploy under fluid–structure interaction. Parachutes are expensive and delicate to manufacture, which limits their use for humanitarian airdrops or drone delivery. Laser cutting a closed-loop kirigami pattern18 in a disc induces porosity and flexibility into an easily fabricated parachute. By performing wind tunnel testing and numerical simulations using a custom flow-induced reconfiguration model19, we develop a design tool to realize kirigami-inspired parachutes. Guided by these results, we fabricate parachutes from the centimetre to the metre scale and test them in realistic conditions. We show that at low load-to-area ratios, kirigami-inspired parachutes exhibit a comparable terminal velocity to conventional ones. However, unlike conventional parachutes that require a gliding angle for vertical stability20 and fall at random far from a target, our kirigami-inspired parachutes always fall near the target, regardless of their initial release angle. These kinds of parachutes could limit material losses during airdropping as well as decrease manufacturing costs and complexity.

Today's guest bloggers share analysis on the relationship between impact and policy during Global Goals Week 2025.