Volume 525 Issue 7569
Editorials
Too close for comfort?
Relationships between industry and researchers can be hard to define, but universities and other institutions must do more to scrutinize the work of their scientists for conflicts of interest.
Mind meld
Interdisciplinary science must break down barriers between fields to build common ground.
Protection priority
All involved in animal research must ensure that rules for ethical experiments are observed
World View
Integration of social science into research is crucial
Social scientists must be allowed a full, collaborative role if researchers are to understand and engage with issues that concern the public, says Ana Viseu.
Crowdsourcing digs up an early human species
Palaeoanthropologist invites excavators and anatomists to study richest fossil trove in Africa.
Ewen Callaway
NIH disclosure rules falter
Regulations that require researchers to disclose conflicts of interest yield questionable data and cost universities millions.
Sara Reardon
Newfound meteor showers expand astronomical calendar
Sky-watching cameras spot 86 previously unknown events.
Alexandra Witze
Africa braced for snakebite crisis
Health specialists warn that stocks of antivenom will run out in 2016.
Quirin Schiermeier
Hunt for gravitational waves to resume after massive upgrade
LIGO experiment now has better chance of detecting ripples in space-time.
Davide Castelvecchi
Features
Why interdisciplinary research matters
Scientists must work together to save the world. A special issue asks how they can scale disciplinary walls.
Interdisciplinary research by the numbers
An analysis reveals the extent and impact of research that bridges disciplines.
Richard Van Noorden
How to solve the world’s biggest problems
Interdisciplinarity has become all the rage as scientists tackle climate change and other intractable issues. But there is still strong resistance to crossing borders.
Heidi Ledford
Comment
Grant giving: Global funders to focus on interdisciplinarity
Granting bodies need more data on how much they are spending on work that transcends disciplines, and to what end, explains Rick Rylance.
Rick Rylance
Interdisciplinarity: How to catalyse collaboration
Turn the fraught flirtation between the social and biophysical sciences into fruitful partnerships with these five principles, urge Rebekah R. Brown, Ana Deletic and Tony H. F. Wong.
Rebekah R. Brown, Ana Deletic, Tony H. F. Wong
Books and Arts
Interdisciplinarity: Inside Manchester’s ‘arts lab’
Peter E. Pormann on the revelations a meshing of technology and humanities can yield.
Peter E. Pormann
Anthropology: One-man multidisciplinarian
Clare Pettitt reassesses the legacy of Victorian polymath Richard Francis Burton.
Clare Pettitt