Month: August 2026

Cascading continental-scale floods across Europe in 1342–1343

Nature, Published online: 12 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10888-8Tracing cascading continental-scale medieval megafloods across Europe indicates that current flood management is unprepared for such sequences, highlighting the ur…

Nature, Published online: 12 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10888-8

Tracing cascading continental-scale medieval megafloods across Europe indicates that current flood management is unprepared for such sequences, highlighting the urgent need for proactive flood risk management strategies that account for unusual series of extreme flood events.

Structural mechanism governing the directionality of bridge recombination

Nature, Published online: 12 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10903-yCryo-electron microscopy structures show how IS621 bridge recombinase mediates DNA excision, explaining its natural preference for insertion and informing the desi…

Nature, Published online: 12 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10903-y

Cryo-electron microscopy structures show how IS621 bridge recombinase mediates DNA excision, explaining its natural preference for insertion and informing the design of programmable bridge-editing technologies.

Shared principles of human and bacterial antiviral immunity

Nature, Published online: 12 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10756-5The Review describes shared ancient, conserved mechanisms between human antiviral immunity and bacterial anti-phage systems, outlining universal principles of path…

Nature, Published online: 12 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10756-5

The Review describes shared ancient, conserved mechanisms between human antiviral immunity and bacterial anti-phage systems, outlining universal principles of pathogen sensing, signalling and effector function that reveal common rules governing host–virus interactions across life.

Degree-of-polarization modulation for high-dimensional optical computing

Nature, Published online: 12 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10891-zBy engineering the statistics of light at the micrometre scale using phase-only spatial light modulators, both the state and degree of polarization become spatiall…

Nature, Published online: 12 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10891-z

By engineering the statistics of light at the micrometre scale using phase-only spatial light modulators, both the state and degree of polarization become spatially programmable, enabling direct encoding of information in a high-dimensional space.

Temporal uncoupling of radial glia lineage progression in cortical organoids

Nature, Published online: 12 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10916-7RGP lineage tracing in stem-cell-derived organoids shows highly plastic proliferation and reduced clonal neuronal diversity, indicating that missing non-cell-auton…

Nature, Published online: 12 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10916-7

RGP lineage tracing in stem-cell-derived organoids shows highly plastic proliferation and reduced clonal neuronal diversity, indicating that missing non-cell-autonomous niche cues are essential for faithful temporal control of cortical lineage progression.

Luminescent-reaction-enabled super-resolution imaging

Nature, Published online: 12 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10889-7A new chemistry-based super-resolution imaging framework is described, enabling 3D, laser-free, highly sensitive and ultralong-term imaging of live cells which ove…

Nature, Published online: 12 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10889-7

A new chemistry-based super-resolution imaging framework is described, enabling 3D, laser-free, highly sensitive and ultralong-term imaging of live cells which overcomes the limitations in spatiotemporal resolution associated with reaction-based imaging methods.

Agentic profiles for effective AI governance

Nature, Published online: 12 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10805-zA framework comprising four dimensions—autonomy, efficacy, goal complexity and generality—is proposed for characterizing AI agents, supporting the construction of …

Nature, Published online: 12 August 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-026-10805-z

A framework comprising four dimensions—autonomy, efficacy, goal complexity and generality—is proposed for characterizing AI agents, supporting the construction of agentic profiles for the effective governance of different AI agents.