Nature Magazine – November 16, 2023: The latest issue cover features how echinoderms such as starfish and sea urchins have evolved five-fold symmetry, with five limbs radiating from a central mouth.

One brain area helps you to enjoy a joke — but another helps you to get it

Seinfeld episodes help scientists to distinguish between the brain regions involved in understanding and appreciating humour.

Spinal implant helps man with advanced Parkinson’s to walk without falling

Electrical stimulation improved his mobility, although researchers say that a larger study is needed to assess the device.

Manatees and conservation: how I protect these massive, vulnerable animals

Nataly Castelblanco Martínez works to raise awareness of the perils faced by the much-loved marine mammals.

nature Magazine -July 13, 2023 issue: Usually, sea urchins procure blades of seagrass or small pieces of rubble to help them blend in with the sea floor, but the fire urchin (Asthenosoma varium) on the cover has instead appropriated the remnants of a blue plastic bag and is entangled in a discarded fishing line stuck on a reef.

How ancient monkeys rode the waves to the Americas — and survived

Artist’s reconstruction of the primate Ashaninkacebus.

Analysis suggests that three types of primate made the transoceanic journey to South America from Africa millions of years ago.

Some of the first primates to reach South America might have been tiny, insect-loving monkeys that had been swept out to sea.

Great bolts of lightning foretell Earth-warming clouds

Coverage of wispy cirrus clouds is linked to episodes of electrical activity.

Lightning is typically seen when imposing cumulonimbus clouds fill the sky. But new research shows that these bolts of electricity can also be used to forecast thin and wispy clouds that warm the world by reflecting heat back to the surface.