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Whence dragons?

Nature, Published online: 03 November 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-03277-8 The ecology and evolution of winged legendary beasts, and monkeys that show their behinds to their buddies, in this week’s pick from the Nature archive.

Nature News · EN

Vibrating mattress helps clear Alzheimer’s protein from the brain

Lying on a vibrating mattress for 40 minutes, combined with taking two pills that release nitric oxide into the body, enhanced the clearance of an Alzheimer's-related protein via the brain's waste-disposal system

New Scientist · EN

Do cats fart? An investigation into the mysteries of feline flatulence

Dogs are constantly passing gas. So why don’t cats seem to?

Scientific American · EN

The 2026 midterms are today—here’s what scientists say is at stake

The second Trump administration has dismantled, disrupted or weakened many of the country’s scientific bodies

Scientific American · EN

Self-flying cargo planes are coming. Can they be safe with no one aboard?

A start-up valued at more than $1 billion wants to fly cargo planes with no one in the cockpit. First it needs to prove to regulators that they’re safe without a human aboard

Scientific American · EN

New York’s first measles death in 30 years is an omen of worse to come

A child died after contracting the disease amid the largest national measles outbreak in more than three decades

Scientific American · EN

A drug-free diabetes treatment? An implant lowers blood sugar in mice

The wireless implant rids mice's bodies of excess sugar on demand, and helps them shed weight. It could one day help treat diabetes and obesity.

Science News · EN

Your voice can now say things you never said

Synthetic voices can restore speech, enable scams and outlive their owners. These uses raise questions about trust, consent and control.

Science News · EN

NASA’s Voyager 1 is about to reach a historic one-light-day milestone

NASA’s Voyager 1 is approaching an extraordinary milestone nearly 50 years after its launch, even as engineers battle dwindling power and mysterious technical problems. A clever energy-saving maneuver has extended the spacecraft’s scientific mission, while an unexplained 48-hour communications blackout recently gave NASA a scare. On November 18, Voyager 1 will reach a distance of one light-day from Earth, making even the simplest round-trip communication take 48 hours.

ScienceDaily · EN

NASA smashed into an asteroid. Now Hera is closing in to see what happened

Europe’s Hera spacecraft has captured its first clear view of two asteroids involved in NASA’s historic 2022 experiment to redirect a potentially dangerous space rock. Now approaching the pair, Hera will investigate the mysterious aftermath of the collision and uncover why the asteroid shifted far more than scientists predicted.

ScienceDaily · EN

All 5 genetic “letters” of DNA and RNA discovered in a 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid

Scientists have discovered all five essential nucleobases used in DNA and RNA in pristine samples from asteroid Ryugu, revealing that key ingredients for life existed in space billions of years ago. The remarkable finding adds to growing evidence from other asteroids and meteorites that these molecules were widespread throughout the early Solar System.

ScienceDaily · EN

Scientists identify two overlooked skills that predict reading success

A massive new study reveals that intelligence plays a surprisingly limited role in children's reading success, while visual processing showed no meaningful connection at all. Instead, the strongest predictors are sound recognition, vocabulary, and background knowledge, offering new clues about how to help struggling readers.

ScienceDaily · EN

Scientists discover surprising heart benefits of eating avocado and mango every day

Eating an avocado and a cup of mango every day may provide surprising benefits for heart health, according to a new study involving adults with prediabetes. After just eight weeks, participants experienced significant improvements in blood vessel function and diastolic blood pressure, particularly among men. These benefits occurred without weight gain or changes in calorie intake, suggesting that the nutrient-rich combination could support cardiovascular health through a simple dietary adjustment.

ScienceDaily · EN

Scientists discover a surprising clue to autism's origins hidden in the placenta

Scientists have uncovered an unexpected connection between inflammation during pregnancy, placental damage, and autism-like traits in male mice, while females appeared naturally protected. The discovery could help explain why autism is diagnosed more frequently in boys and reveal new opportunities for early intervention.

ScienceDaily · EN

A 50-year-old mystery of vanishing frogs reveals a hidden killer

A nearly 50-year-old mystery involving disappearing frogs in Brazil may finally be solved, with scientists uncovering evidence that a deadly fungus swept through the region and devastated vulnerable species. Remarkably, many frog populations have since rebounded, suggesting they developed greater tolerance to the disease that once threatened their survival.

ScienceDaily · EN

The brain’s hidden fear mechanism may explain anxiety and PTSD

A surprising new discovery suggests that fear may cause the brain to blur the line between danger and safety rather than distinguish them more clearly. By observing brain activity in mice using augmented reality, scientists found that memories of threatening and harmless environments began to overlap, potentially allowing faster responses to danger. This "better safe than sorry" survival mechanism could help explain why people with anxiety or PTSD sometimes experience intense fear in completely safe situations.

ScienceDaily · EN

Why are we so squeamish about eating hagfish?

When fishers are out working their boats, they are typically targeting a specific type of fish. However, other species often end up in their nets or trawls as well. This is known as "bycatch"—seafood for which the fishers receive no payment. Although it is illegal to discard bycatch back into the sea, it still happens.

Phys.org · EN

Why we give flowers to those in grief—or buy them for ourselves when we're sad

During his renowned excavations at the Shanidar Cave in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, American archaeologist Ralph Solecki located burial sites containing pollen and flower fragments from various species of wildflowers. He interpreted this as evidence that Neanderthals may have placed flowers around their dead at their burial sites around 60,000 years ago.

Phys.org · EN

Beetle poop may have helped shape millions of years of yeast evolution

University at Buffalo scientists have found evidence that different species of yeast have shared genes originally acquired from an ancient virus—and the guts and droppings of beetles may have helped make it happen.

Phys.org · EN

Many local communities know how to communicate during disasters. Let's learn from them

It was a frightening time.

Phys.org · EN

'Evolution in the act': Forest lizards reveal rapid adaptation in a warming world

Yale research scientist Saúl Domínguez-Guerrero didn't set out to catch "evolution in the act" when he traveled to the Caribbean with a team of Yale researchers a few years ago. At the time, the team from the lab of evolutionary biologist Martha Muñoz planned to do fieldwork on Caribbean anoles, colorful, tree-dwelling lizards native to warmer regions of the Americas.

Phys.org · EN

JWST may have found where heavy black hole seeds formed

Astrophysicists think that the supermassive black holes (SMBH) we see in the modern universe are the result of a long, drawn-out process. That process is referred to as the hierarchical black hole mergers framework. It explains how some SMBHs can reach such staggering masses. Some of the most massive appear to have billions of solar masses.

Phys.org · EN

Forgotten flint tools reveal how Egypt's farmers organized work before the pharaohs

More than a century after they were excavated from beneath Cairo, almost 3,000 stone tools from Heliopolis show that specialized work was already reshaping village life before Egypt became a state.

Phys.org · EN

Afforestation reshapes wildfire activity across temperate regions worldwide

Tree planting provides wood, biomass and climate benefits, but the location where those new forests are established matters. An international study by researchers in Spain, Chile and Finland shows that converting nonforested land into planted forests can increase wildfire activity, with contrasting outcomes across temperate regions.

Phys.org · EN