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View of several multinozzle 3D printing components (Wyss Institute at Harvard University)

A new nozzle allows for rapid 3D printing of detailed objects with multiple materials. “The really big advance is not just that we can print up to eight different materials simultaneously,'' materials scientist and engineer Jennifer Lewis tells the Nature Podcast. “It’s that we can switch between these materials at high speeds.”

Nature Podcast | 23 min listen

Get the expert analysis in the Nature News & Views article.

Watch the charming video of a walking robot built by the printer.

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Reference: Nature paper

String theorist Atish Dabholkar is the new director of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), which has a mission to promote science in developing countries. Based in Trieste, Italy, the ICTP was founded in 1964 — at the height of the cold war — by Abdus Salam, the first Muslim Nobel laureate in science. Dabholkar takes over from Fernando Quevedo, who oversaw the centre’s expansion to include satellite centres in Rwanda, China, Brazil and Mexico.

Nature | 5 min read

Features & opinion

The World Health Organization has little recourse if countries do not meet their obligations to protect global health, notes health-policy researcher Rebecca Katz. She suggests that the International Health Regulations agreement — although remarkable and hard-won — would be made even better by looking to what drove the success of the 1975 Biological Weapons Convention.

Nature | 5 min read

Evolutionary biologist Nancy Moran studies the intricate, intertwined relationships between insects and their internal bacteria. Following a childhood exploring outside her parent’s drive-in cinema and a MacArthur ‘genius’ grant achieved when she was a self-described broke single parent, Moran ultimately pioneered a field that studies the interdependence widely recognized for creating life as we know it.

Science | 13 min read

Books & culture

Shelves loaded with packets of goods are shifted around by robots inside an Amazon warehouse in New Jersey. (Demetrius Freeman/The New York Times/Redux/eyevine)

A sprawling, insightful book explores the vast global tide of used and discarded goods, writes reviewer Edward Humes. Adam Minter, a journalist writing on technology and the environment (and the son of a junkyard owner), delivers a book that tackles disturbing issues while maintaining a delight in the wonders of the second-hand world.

Nature | 5 min read

Andrew Robinson’s pick of the top five science books to read this week includes shared consciousness, artificial imagination, and the Universe’s first seconds.

Nature | 3 min read

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