Nature News & Views Year in Review 2024: Highlights from Nature’s Roundup

Overview

Nature’s annual round-up of News & Views perspectives highlights a diverse set of topics from 2024, including space-derived insights from Bennu, biology-focused critiques of cellular identity in zebrafish, climate-health intersections in Mumbai, and AI-guided materials science with underwater adhesives. Hosted by Tommy Tiernan’s team and featuring Nature editors, the episode shows how expert commentaries contextualize ongoing science across disciplines and connect space exploration to life sciences and engineering.

Key takeaways include how water loss in Bennu informs solar-system history, why RNA snapshots may not fully define cell function, and how practical applications of hydrogels could transform wet environments, with a memorable rubber-duck demonstration underscoring real-world testing.

Overview and approach

This episode presents a year-end roundup of Nature News & Views articles, with conversations led by Andy Mitchinson, Chief News and Views editor, and Holly Smith, Senior News and Views editor. The structure mirrors a curated tour through biology, chemistry, and space science, illustrating how expert commentaries translate primary research into accessible context for non-specialists. The hosts emphasise that News & Views pieces are designed to explain the significance of papers across Nature and other journals, helping readers grasp the broader implications of complex studies.

In the first highlighted story, the Bennu asteroid samples returned to Earth are used to illuminate early solar-system history. The discussion clarifies why Bennu’s samples, preserved in pristine form, allow researchers to study materials that precipitated planet formation and the emergence of water-bearing minerals. A key takeaway is the suggestion that water may have been lost from the parent planetesimals through evaporation driven by internal heating, a finding that helps address long-standing questions about water distribution among inner planets. The News & Views author also notes that the presence of water is chemically challenging for forming life’s basic building blocks, and the data imply a plausible mechanism by which life’s precursors could form in the absence of water at certain stages.

“Water was lost from the body Bennu was formed from through evaporation,” - Andy Mitchinson. “The samples preserved pristine states reveal how planetesimals shed water and what that means for inner planets.” - Holly Smith.

Cell identity and transcriptomics in zebrafish

The second featured item dives into modern biology: the use of RNA snapshots to define cell types and the reliability of transcriptomic atlases. The zebrafish optic tectum, a brain region that processes visual information, serves as a model to compare transcriptomic cell types with actual neuronal function. The discussion emphasizes that transcriptional identity does not always align with functional identity because cellular states evolve over development and local environmental inputs shape activity. This challenges a long-standing assumption that RNA profiles are definitive proxies for cell roles, and it suggests that functional assays remain essential for understanding neural circuits across species.

“Snapshot RNA expression might not always reflect what a cell is doing,” - Holly Smith.

Public health and climate in Mumbai

The Mumbai study foregrounds the human dimension of climate change by quantifying how extreme rainfall affects mortality, with disproportionate impacts on women, young children, and residents in informal settlements. The article integrates public health with climate science and urban planning, highlighting long-term health consequences such as waterborne diseases. The author cautions that forecasting and urban development must be paired with attention to vulnerable communities, underscoring equity as a central component of climate adaptation. The piece also discusses the importance of early warning systems and targeted infrastructure improvements to mitigate risk in rapidly growing cities.

“Extreme rainfall and flooding increase mortality among the most vulnerable,” - Holly Smith.

AI-guided design of underwater adhesives

Aldermanic materials research features AI-guided design of hydrogels that adhere underwater, drawing inspiration from natural adhesives produced by mussels and marine bacteria. The approach starts with a data-poor field and uses nature-derived principles to build a dataset of around 180 hydrogel variants. Machine learning then iterates design to improve stickiness in wet environments, with practical demonstrations including preventing water loss in a 3-meter pipe for several months and a rubber-duck sticking to a rock under tide and wave conditions. The article highlights the broader potential of AI in soft-materials engineering and the cultural moment created by the rubber-duck imagery in the office environment. A key reflection is that AI is already a mainstream tool in materials science, reshaping how researchers conceive experiments and design materials.

“This is a landmark example of AI in soft-material design that works in water,” - Andy Mitchinson.

Wrap-up and reflections

Throughout the discussion, the editors emphasize the value of News & Views in connecting disparate topics and showing how discoveries fit into the broader scientific landscape. The roundup format itself aims to remind listeners of the interconnectedness of space exploration, cellular biology, climate science, and materials engineering, illustrating how credible summaries and expert commentary help readers navigate a growing corpus of research.

“News & Views helps you understand what these pieces mean for science and society,” - Holly Smith.