After nearly 400 years in the slow-moving world of print, the scientific publishing industry is suddenly being thrust into a fast-paced online world of cloud computing, crowd sourcing and ubiquitous sharing. Long-established practices are being challenged by new ones – most notably, the open-access, author-pays publishing model. In this special issue, Nature takes a close look at the forces now at work in scientific publishing, and how they may play out over the coming decades.

Prized since antiquity for its beauty and stability, gold is becoming a darling of the nanotechnology age. Gold nanoparticles can help pinpoint a tumour — and then carry drugs to it. It also holds promise for making extremely efficient solar cells, among other photonic applications. Nature Outlook: Goldreports on what's driving the twenty-first-century gold rush.

Science remains institutionally sexist. Despite some progress, women scientists are still paid less, promoted less frequently, win fewer grants and are more likely to leave research than similarly qualified men. This special issue of Naturetakes a hard look at the gender gap — from bench to boardroom — and at what is being done to close it.

Heart disease causes almost one in three deaths worldwide. While improved diet and lifestyle changes play huge roles in combating the disease, discoveries about the biochemical and cellular mechanisms involved are bringing forth new treatments - from better drugs to surgical procedures.

Reviews in this Insight, which highlights important advances in biology, include self-organization of tissues, Fanconi anaemia and its links to genomic stability, the possibility of slowing ageing with drugs that target mTOR, metabolism of inflammation and how this is limited by AMPK activation, and the role of neuron signalling in autism.

From the discovery of the Higgs boson to the landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars, 2012 was an eventful year in science. Nature's end of year round-up reviews the highs and lows in research and science policy.

After decades of modest advances, psoriasis research has caught fire. The drug pipeline is full of novel agents. Research into the role of the immune system in this skin disease is bearing fruit. Genetic studies hint at the condition's starting point. And now psoriasis is a proof-of-principle disease for other chronic inflammatory conditions.

Humans are the longest lived primates, with life expectancy in some developed nations surpassing 80 years. Of course, that doesn't stop us wanting more time. Research into the mechanisms of ageing is yielding Insights, many of them diet-related, into how we might not only live longer but also stay healthier as we do.

On 1 January 2013, the world can go back to emitting greenhouse gases with abandon. The pollution-reduction commitments that nations made as part of the Kyoto Protocol will expire, leaving the planet without any international climate regulation and uncertain prospects for a future treaty. Natureexplores the options for limiting — and living with — global warming.

Despite a huge worldwide cancer research effort, the rates of surviving many forms of the disease have barely changed. Now, intensified collaborations between oncologists and physical scientists are bringing fresh perspectives to that effort. Interdisciplinary teams are starting to bear fruit in the form of mathematical and computer models, nanomedicine and high-tech diagnostics.

Metabolic diseases, such as diabetes and obesity, are a threat to global health. This Insight focuses on some of the underlying biology that can contribute to these disorders, including the central nervous system's control of metabolism, circadian rhythms, cancer metabolism and mitochondrial disorders, as well as metabolic phenotyping.

As recently as the mid-1990s, autism was thought to be a rare disorder that led to severe mental disability. But since then its reported incidence has ballooned, and it is thought to encompass conditions that vary widely in character and severity. Still, its causes, treatments and even definition remain to be pieced together.