According to legend, physicist Werner Heisenberg formulated the mathematics behind quantum mechanics in 1925 while on a restorative trip to the remote North Sea island of Heligoland.

To celebrate the centenary of this event, several hundred researchers have descended on the island to take part in a conference on all things quantum physics. Nature reporter Lizzie Gibney was also in attendance, and joined us to give an inside track on the meeting.

News: Happy birthday quantum mechanics! I got a ticket to the ultimate physics party

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Researchers have developed a soft electronic implant that can measure brain activity of amphibian embryos as they develop. Understanding the neural activity of developing brains is a key aim for neuroscientists, but conventional, rigid probes can damage growing brains. To overcome this, a team have developed a flexible mesh that stretches with the brain and tested it by monitoring single neuron activity during development of frog and axolotl embryos. More testing and ethical considerations will be required, but the researchers hope that eventually such implants could help with neurological conditions that affect humans.

Research article: Sheng et al.

The exoplanet slowly evaporating into space, and cockatoos that have figured out an innovative way to stay hydrated.

Research Highlight: Solved: the mystery of the evaporating planet

Research Highlight: Clever cockatoos learn an easy way to quench their thirst

By combining AI tools with mechanical engineering techniques, a researcher has developed a new way to speed up the restoration of damaged paintings. The technique creates a removable mask that can be overlaid onto a painting to cover any damage apparent in the artwork. It was successfully tested on an oil painting, fixing a large number of damaged areas in only a few hours. This could offer a significant speed-boost to painting restoration, which can often take months, or even years.

Research article: Kachkine

Video: Meet the engineer who invented an AI-powered way to restore art

A new ranking system could make it easier to spot universities that are chasing publishing metrics at the expense of rigorous science, and evidence that cutting off rhinos’ horns deters poachers.

Nature: ‘Integrity index’ flags universities with high retraction rates

AP: Cutting off rhinos’ horns is a contentious last resort to stop poaching. A new study found it works

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In this Podcast Extra, we examine President Donald Trump's calls for NASA to land humans on Mars. Although the White House has proposed spending some US$1 billion in 2026 on Mars plans, critics say the final cost will likely be hundreds of billions of dollars spread over a number of years.

This call comes amidst plans to drastically reduce NASA's funding, and the proposed cancelling of dozens of the space agency's missions, including projects to study Earth, Mars and Venus.

News: Trump wants to put humans on Mars — here’s what scientists think

News: Five key climate and space projects on Trump’s chopping block

News: Are the Trump team’s actions affecting your research? How to contact Nature

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Iron deficiency in mice mothers can sometimes result in their offspring developing female sex organs despite having male sex genes, according to new research. While genetics has been thought to be the primary factor in determining offspring sex in mammals, the new work shows that a lack of iron disrupts an enzyme involved in the development of testes, leading to some mice with male sex-determining genes being born with female genitalia and ovaries. This suggests that sex determination is controlled by more than genetics, but more work will need to be done to understand the precise mechanisms involved.

News: Male mice can grow ovaries if their pregnant mums are iron deficient

Research article: Okashita et al.

How climate change is making dust storms more likely, and understanding the genetics of a boy who couldn’t feel pain.

Research Highlight: The perfect storm for dust storms, thanks to global warming

Research Highlight: CRISPR helps to show why a boy felt no pain

The contributions that small-scale fishers make to sustainable fishing have been described as ‘invisible’, but now a huge research project has revealed the role this community plays in feeding populations and protecting oceans. Looking at data from 58 countries, researchers have shown that small-scale fishers account for around 40% of the global catch and feed approximately 25% of the world’s population. The people behind the initiative hope that these data can help give a voice to small-scale fishers as people look for ways to feed the world sustainably.

Immersive : Small-scale fisheries

The discovery of an ‘ambidextrous’ protein; and why humpback whales, despite their enormous eyes, appear to be shortsighted.

Nature: Rare ‘ambidextrous’ protein breaks rules of handedness

Discover Magazine: Big Eyes, Blurry Vision: Why Humpback Whales Struggle to See Clearly

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With the world looking likely to blow past the temperature targets laid out in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, a growing number of voices are saying that carbon removal technologies will be necessary if humanity is to achieve its long-term climate goals. If these approaches succeed, they could help nations and corporations to meet their climate commitments — and help the world to halt global warming.

However, questions remain about the financial viability of these technologies, and whether they can live up to the hype.

This is an audio version of our Feature: Three ways to cool Earth by pulling carbon from the sky

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A spike in papers formulaically analysing a public data set has sparked worries that AI is being used to generate low quality and potentially misleading analyses.

Nature: AI linked to explosion of low-quality biomedical research papers

Researchers in China have created contact lenses that can allow humans to see infrared light, which could help with search and rescue missions, sending secret messages and even surgery.

Nature: These contact lenses give people infrared vision — even with their eyes shut

Geologists have uncovered the strongest evidence yet that Earth's core is leaking. Rocks from Hawaii were found to contain isotopes of a rare element, which suggests the material originally came from the core. More work will need to be done to rule out other explanations.

Nature: Is Earth’s core leaking? Volcanic rocks provide strongest evidence yet

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Researchers have developed two compounds that can kill malaria-causing parasites within mosquitoes, an approach they hope could help reduce transmission of the disease. The team showed that these compounds can be embedded into the plastics used to make bed nets, providing an alternative to insecticide-based malaria-control measures, which are losing efficacy in the face of increased resistance.

Research article: Probst et al.

The sunlight-powered device that can harvest drinkable water from desert air, and evidence that the world’s richest people are disproportionately responsible for climate impacts.

Research Highlight: Atacama sunshine helps to pull water from thin air

Research Highlight: The world’s richest people have an outsized role in climate extremes

Researchers have found specific genetic mutations that can lead to pregnancy loss. It’s known that errors, such as the duplication of chromosomes, can lead to nonviable pregnancies but less has been known about non-chromosomal genetic errors. The new work identifies DNA sequence changes that can lead to a non-viable pregnancy. This may offer clinicians the ability to screen embryos for these changes to help avoid pregnancy loss.

Research article: Arnadottir et al.

Bespoke CRISPR-based therapy treats baby boy with devastating genetic disease, and the ‘anti-spice’ compounds that can lower chillies’ heat.

Nature: World’s first personalized CRISPR therapy given to baby with genetic disease

New Scientist: Chemists discover 'anti-spice' that could make chilli peppers less hot

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Researchers have developed a portable antimatter containment device and tested it by putting it in a truck and driving it around CERN. Their system could represent a big step forward in efforts to take particles made at CERN’s ‘antimatter factory’ and transport them to other labs, something currently impossible due to antimatter being destroyed upon contact with matter. The team showed the feasibility of their approach by using the system to safely transport particles of matter and are now looking to adapt it to ferry antimatter particles.

Research article: Leonhardt et al.

How a tradition of female diving on a South Korean island might have shaped the genomes of the island’s population, and a poison-dart frog that curiously seems to be monogamous.

Research Highlight: How Korea’s female divers have adapted to cold plunges

Research Highlight: A ‘hidden gem’ of the Amazon is a frog with odd habits

Physicists have tackled a longstanding problem in physics — understanding how two black holes gravitationally interact as they fly past each other — which could help with future detections of the gravitational waves that would be created by these events. Rather than repeatedly running expensive computer simulations to approximate the answer to this problem, a team of theorists have come up with a mathematical formula to describe a black hole fly-by, which can be run in a matter of seconds. Their results could be used to identify the tell-tale signatures of these events when they actually occur.

Research article: Driesse et al.

How physicists turned lead into gold, for a microsecond and at tremendous cost, and the genetics of the skunk cabbage’s foul odour.

Nature: Physicists turn lead into gold — for a fraction of a second

Video: Scientists turn lead into gold

Nature: How skunk cabbages and other smelly plants brew their foul odour

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