The science of superintelligence and why AI is still a useful word

Nature, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-03198-6President Donald Trump wants to replace ‘artificial intelligence’ with ‘Super Intelligence’ — but there are questions about whether we’re there yet.

Nature, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-03198-6

President Donald Trump wants to replace ‘artificial intelligence’ with ‘Super Intelligence’ — but there are questions about whether we’re there yet.

Nobel Prizes 2026: brain switches, ‘ghost’ particle hunter, and ‘the chemistry of life’

Nature, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-03208-7Nature rounds up the Nobel Prizes for science — plus, hints of the ancestral human gut microbiome.

Nature, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-03208-7

Nature rounds up the Nobel Prizes for science — plus, hints of the ancestral human gut microbiome.

Cryo-EM structure of a methanogen nitrogenase–PII protein supercomplex

Nature, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-11116-zCryo-electron microscopy of a nitrogenase supercomplex from a methane-producing archaeon reveals a mechanism in which PII proteins drive assembly of such structur…

Nature, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-11116-z

Cryo-electron microscopy of a nitrogenase supercomplex from a methane-producing archaeon reveals a mechanism in which PII proteins drive assembly of such structures to regulate nitrogenase activity in response to nitrogen availability.

Observation of critical topological phase transition

Nature, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-11067-5Using an acoustic metamaterial platform, a critical topological phase transition is experimentally demonstrated establishing a hierarchical phase transition organ…

Nature, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-11067-5

Using an acoustic metamaterial platform, a critical topological phase transition is experimentally demonstrated establishing a hierarchical phase transition organization, in which topology shapes criticality beyond the conventional Landau–Ginzburg paradigm and standard topological phase transitions.

A nuclear clock synchronized to <sup>229</sup>Th

Nature, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-11122-1A nuclear clock synchronized to 229Th establishes laser-addressed nuclei as operational clock references and 229Th:CaF2 as a stable, reproducible solid-state plat…

Nature, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-11122-1

A nuclear clock synchronized to 229Th establishes laser-addressed nuclei as operational clock references and 229Th:CaF2 as a stable, reproducible solid-state platform for compact nuclear clocks and nuclear quantum sensors.

Human lung organoid modelling of tissue-resident antiviral T cell responses

Nature, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-11114-1Lung organoids containing endogenous resident immune cells show that SARS-CoV-2 infection elicits protective, tissue-resident memory T cell responses, demonstrati…

Nature, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-11114-1

Lung organoids containing endogenous resident immune cells show that SARS-CoV-2 infection elicits protective, tissue-resident memory T cell responses, demonstrating local recall immunity and providing a platform for the study of human tissue-resident antiviral defence.

Structural basis for regulating lipopolysaccharide transmembrane transport

Nature, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-11129-8Structures of the protein machinery in Gram-negative bacteria that transports lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from the cytoplasmic membrane to the outer leaflet of the o…

Nature, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-11129-8

Structures of the protein machinery in Gram-negative bacteria that transports lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from the cytoplasmic membrane to the outer leaflet of the outer membrane reveal how conformational changes in response to the presence of LPS promote its transport.

A thorium-229 optical nuclear clock with feedback loop

Nature, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-11084-4A thorium-229 nuclear clock is realized by stabilizing a continuous-wave laser to the 148-nm nuclear excitation with a rapid feedback loop based on absorption spe…

Nature, Published online: 07 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-11084-4

A thorium-229 nuclear clock is realized by stabilizing a continuous-wave laser to the 148-nm nuclear excitation with a rapid feedback loop based on absorption spectroscopy.