12/19/2023 0 Comments In 1975 growing up skipper![]() The Universe and our place within itįrom the very beginning, readers of our pages could learn important lessons about the workings of the Universe - not surprisingly, given that our founding editor, Norman Lockyer, was himself an astronomer. The history of our own species was being well and truly redrawn. Sequencing later revealed that not only did our ancestors co-exist with both Neanderthals and Denisovans 9, but that they also had offspring with one another 10. It was also used to identify a previously completely unknown hominin group - the Denisovans 8. ![]() Comparative genomics of different human populations also discredited the idea of a biological basis for the concept of race.ĭNA sequencing was also applied to extinct species, including our close relatives, Neanderthals 7. Much later, following the publication of the human genome sequence in 2001 ( Nature published the results of the open, publicly funded international effort 6), comparative genomics taught us that our own genome sequence only differs by not much more than 1% from that of a chimpanzee. The structure itself elegantly suggested how the molecule might self-replicate. floresiensis was entirely unexpected and completely changed the face of anthropology, showing that the world of fossil hominins was much richer - and much less well understood - than had been thought.ĭescription of the double helical structure of DNA, published in 1953, is arguably the most famous paper Nature has ever published 5. ![]() The discovery left its mark not only on the scientific community, but also on the arts - in 2005, Damien Hurst unveiled an artist’s representation of the hobbit skull in a painting entitled A New and Diminutive Species of Human Being Has Been Discovered 4. A crop of other publications demonstrating humans’ rich and branching prehistory and evolution followed, most notable among them being the 2004 description of Homo floresiensis, nicknamed the hobbit 3. Despite growing evidence against the exceptionalism of our species, when Nature published the first fossil link between humans and apes - Australopithecus africanus – in 1925, it was a sensation 2. Who we are and where we’ve come fromĬharles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was published ten years before Nature was launched, but his book The Descent of Man appeared in 1871 and you can read a review of the latter in our pages 1. Special thanks have to go to Nature’s manuscript editors who have helped compile this selection. What follows is a subjective selection of some papers Nature published that have indeed affected our lives - some had direct, practical implications while the effect of others was more conceptual. But how many of these papers and reports that have appeared in our pages since 1869 have made a difference beyond the walls of classrooms and laboratories? Arguably, though, Nature is best known for its papers, and our pages contain countless examples of inspirational and influential discoveries. Today we are more than a publication platform, not least thanks to our award-winning journalism and ongoing work with research communities to develop new ways of reporting essential experimental details and data, as science becomes increasingly complex. In doing so, we’ve been rediscovering the history of science itself, and by looking at how our formats have changed, we’ve revealed that the way in which research is conducted and reported has evolved significantly over the past century and a half. Nature’s 150 th anniversary has been a wonderful excuse to delve into our history.
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