Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Chemical models of enzymes' active sites aid our understanding of biological reactions. Such a model of a reaction intermediate promises to advance our knowledge of the biochemistry of iron-containing haem enzymes.
Memory formation is known to occur at the level of synaptic contacts between neurons. It therefore comes as a surprise that another type of brain cell, the astrocyte, is also involved in establishing memory.
Received wisdom about the main driver of the South Asian monsoon comes into question with a report that tests the idea that the Himalayas, not the Tibetan plateau, are the essential topographic ingredient.
The key enzyme in photosynthesis, Rubisco, is a relic of a bygone age. The ability to assemble Rubisco in the test tube offers the prospect of genetically manipulating the enzyme to make it fit for the modern world.
The progenitors of type Ia supernovae, the standard candles that lit the way to dark energy, have been elusive. A largely dismissed scenario has now produced one, but the results aren't what anyone expected.
Retrieving a memory initiates a window of vulnerability for that memory. Simple behavioural methods can modify distressing memories during this window, eliminating fear reactions to traumatic reminders.
The tracks left by organisms are among the most difficult of fossils to interpret. But just such evidence puts debate about the origins of four-limbed vertebrates (which include ourselves) on a changed footing.
The peculiar ultra-fast trembling motion of a free electron — the Zitterbewegung predicted by Erwin Schrödinger in 1930 when he scrutinized the Dirac equation — has been simulated using a single trapped ion.
Retrieving a memory initiates a window of vulnerability for that memory. Simple behavioural methods can modify distressing memories during this window, eliminating fear reactions to traumatic reminders.
A survey of mammalian genomes has unexpectedly unearthed DNA derived from bornaviruses, leading to speculation about the role of these viruses in causing mutations with evolutionary and medical consequences.
