Research Highlight |
Featured
-
-
World View |
‘Continuity over novelty’: why environmental science needs to rethink its focus
With government funding in decline, researchers should prioritize data collation and training the next generation of scientists.
- Michael Paul Nelson
-
News & Views |
Extreme climate outcomes could still occur with just 2 °C of global warming
Moderate global warming creates a risk of climate impacts that are more severe than the most-likely impacts of high global warming.
- Rachel Warren
-
Article
| Open Access
CO2 subsurface mineral storage by its co-injection with recirculating water
An industrial-scale pilot project using co-injection of recirculated water for subsurface CO2 mineralization shows promise as a pathway for carbon sequestration in regions with limited access to water resources.
- Eric H. Oelkers
- , Serguey Arkadakskiy
- & Hussein Hoteit
-
Correspondence |
Salt lakes are shrinking and expanding, causing havoc in conservation
- Egor Zadereev
-
News Explainer |
‘Black rain’ in Tehran: what are the health effects?
Toxic smoke from burning oil depots has blanketed Iran’s capital after missile strikes.
- Rachel Fieldhouse
- & Mohana Basu
-
Book Review |
The world’s salt lakes are drying up, but solutions are hard to come by
An eclectic book asks how humans have shaped these ‘queer’ landscapes and how they can be restored.
- Josie Glausiusz
-
News |
How these koalas bounced back from the brink of extinction
Tracking DNA recombination offers hope for other species that have lost genetic diversity.
- Mohana Basu
-
News & Views |
Do wet or dry soils trigger thunderstorms? It depends on how the wind blows
Satellite data show that wind conditions affect the connection between soil moisture and thunderstorms, which could be used to inform forecasting.
- Craig R. Ferguson
-
Article
| Open Access
Advancing operational global aerosol forecasting with machine learning
Reliable 5-day, 3-hourly forecasts of aerosol optical components and surface concentrations are obtained in 1 minute using a machine-learning-driven forecasting system.
- Ke Gui
- , Xutao Zhang
- & Xiaoye Zhang
-
Article
| Open Access
Wide-swath altimetry maps bank shapes and storage changes in global rivers
Observations of river channel geometry and monthly water storage changes for 126,674 river reaches worldwide are derived from the first water year of the Surface Water and Ocean Topography satellite mission.
- A. Cerbelaud
- , J. Wade
- & H. Oubanas
-
News & Views |
Climate shocks, not just warming, threaten malaria control efforts in Africa
Climate change is expected to affect mosquito and parasite survival, reshaping malaria risk. But extreme weather could be a more immediate danger to disease control.
- Janey Messina
- & Margaret Carrel
-
Career Q&A |
I will continue the fight for environmental justice in Black communities
Nicknamed the father of environmental justice, Robert Bullard argues that researchers in the field have more reason than ever to back up their work with action.
- Virginia Gewin
-
News |
Health effects linger 20 generations after rats are exposed to fungicide
Scientists say the findings are a warning about the kinds of chemical that people are exposed to in the environment.
- Rachel Fieldhouse
-
News & Views |
Forest soils are running short of nutrients as CO2 emissions rise
Analyses of a Swedish tree-ring archive suggest that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide has lowered soil-nitrogen supply, which could cap carbon storage by land ecosystems.
- Christine L. Goodale
- & Hannah M. Monti
-
Article
| Open Access
Rising atmospheric CO2 reduces nitrogen availability in boreal forests
Nitrogen isotope tree-ring chronologies show that rising atmospheric CO2 has reduced nitrogen availability in boreal forests in Sweden, suggesting that elevated atmospheric CO2 is causing oligotrophication in boreal forests.
- Kelley R. Bassett
- , Stefan F. Hupperts
- & Michael J. Gundale
-
Career Q&A |
My professor said ‘Black people are not interested in the environment’. I set out to prove him wrong
Environmental sociologist Dorceta Taylor has helped her field to be more welcoming to researchers of colour.
- Virginia Gewin
-
Article
| Open Access
Fossil isotope evidence for trophic simplification on modern Caribbean reefs
Using nitrogen isotopes from ancient and modern fish otoliths and corals, the study shows Caribbean reef food webs are now 60–70% shorter and functionally less diverse, indicating human-driven trophic simplification and increased risk of collapse.
- Jessica A. Lueders-Dumont
- , Aaron O’Dea
- & Xingchen Tony Wang
-
News & Views |
Tree rings and salt lakes give clues about ancient rainfall
A call to replace problematic pesticides, and ways to measure climate changes of the past, in this week’s pick from the Nature archive.
-
Book Review |
The dark side of green technology: what do electric vehicles really cost?
A powerful book reveals the corrupt deals and human exploitation behind the global scramble for strategic metals.
- Chris Stokel-Walker
-
Comment |
The global plastics treaty can be saved — here’s how to break the deadlock
The stalled multinational effort to protect environmental and human health from plastic pollution is salvageable, with a revamped negotiation process.
- Paul Einhäupl
- , Linda Del Savio
- & Annika Jahnke
-
World View |
I know science can’t fix the world — here’s why I do it anyway
The world faces energy shortages as fossil fuels are phased out. Research can’t go on as normal.
- Jean Colcombet
-
Outlook |
Act now to clean up air
New regulations are needed to deal with increasing environmental threats to lung health.
- Lidia Morawska
-
Outlook |
Exposome studies can improve lung health
A new set of analytical tools will help researchers to understand the lifelong effects of air pollution.
- Kari C. Nadeau
-
Outlook |
Funding cuts could put research into emerging threats to lung health at risk
Wildfire smoke, spore-spread fungal diseases and microplastic are all on the rise, even as the US government slashes support for respiratory research and policy.
- Rachel Nuwer
-
Outlook |
Six highlights from lung-health research
Fibrosis survival, long COVID’s lasting toll and other highlights from lung studies.
- Rachel Nuwer
-
Outlook |
How ‘forest bathing’ keeps lungs healthy
Wooded environments release organic compounds that seem to improve respiratory health, but the magnitude and mechanism of the effect remains unclear.
- Erica Gies
-
Article
| Open Access
Pesticide residues alter taxonomic and functional biodiversity in soils
A wide survey of pesticide effects on soil biodiversity across 373 sites in Europe reveals that pesticide residues occur in 70% of sites and have major effects on soil biodiversity and functional ecology.
- J. Köninger
- , M. Labouyrie
- & M. G. A. van der Heijden
-
World View |
How to eat well and within Earth’s limits
Dietary change, supported by bold policies, is essential for a sustainable planet.
- Johan Rockström
-
News |
Greenland is important for global research: what’s next for the island’s science?
Geopolitics made Greenland the unexpected focus of the world’s attention. But the territory has long been a unique region for science.
- Alexandra Witze
-
News |
Have environmental microplastics levels been overestimated?
Microplastics are everywhere, but new research points to a need to standardize measurements of microparticles.
- Davide Castelvecchi
-
Article
| Open Access
Atmospheric microplastic emissions from land and ocean
A global atmospheric microplastics dataset is compiled, and comparison with size-aligned microplastic models in the literature indicate that fewer microplastic particles are emitted into the atmosphere than previously thought.
- Ioanna Evangelou
- , Silvia Bucci
- & Andreas Stohl
-
Correspondence |
Fossil-fuel phase out is not enough: countries must remove atmospheric carbon
- Richard H. Clarke
- & Mark Maslin
-
Where I Work |
Floating science stations: my month on a research vessel looking after buoys
Physical oceanographer Melina M. Martinez finds ways to gather ocean data off the coast of Argentina.
- Christine Ro
-
Article
| Open Access
Global subsidence of river deltas
Spatially variable surface-elevation changes across 40 global deltas using interferometric synthetic aperture radar are reported.
- L. O. Ohenhen
- , M. Shirzaei
- & G. C. Yemele
-
Correspondence |
Help small-scale gold miners to transition away from mercury use
- Shabbir Ahmad
- & Saleem H. Ali
-
Editorial |
Defossilize our chemical world
Achieving net zero means eliminating fossil fuels, not carbon — the chemical element has a crucial part to play in powering the modern world.
-
Article |
Quantifying the global eco-footprint of wearable healthcare electronics
An integrated systems engineering framework based on life-cycle inventories is used to quantify the global eco-footprint of wearable healthcare electronics and identify effective mitigation strategies.
- Chuanwang Yang
- , Bingzheng Wang
- & Bozhi Tian
-
Where I Work |
Probing pollutants: how I use penguin faeces to measure contaminants in Antarctica
Buse Tuğba Zaman is developing a way to track tiny amounts of contaminants — and fulfilled a dream to visit Earth’s most remote continent.
- Rachael Pells
-
Spotlight |
Could tracking animals’ health help to avert the next pandemic?
Avian influenza is sweeping the globe and infecting dozens of species. Advocates of an approach called One Health are calling for broad surveillance of wildlife, livestock and pets.
- Sarah DeWeerdt
-
Article
| Open Access
The global hydrogen budget
Trends in global H2 sources and sinks are analysed from 1990 to 2020, and a comprehensive budget for the decade 2010–2020 is presented.
- Zutao Ouyang
- , Robert B. Jackson
- & Andy Wiltshire
-
Where I Work |
Giving a voice to animals: Laos’s national herpetologist on her day-to-day
Somphouthone Phimmachak studies amphibians and reptiles as one of the country’s few conservation researchers.
- Dave Tacon
-
Research Briefing |
A giant catalogue of microscopic species across Denmark
The Microflora Danica project has catalogued the microbial diversity of environmental habitats across Denmark and established an improved taxonomic reference database. As well as providing a special record of nitrogen-oxidizing microorganisms, the data set serves as a national baseline for tracking future microbial responses to factors such as land-use change and global warming.
-
World View |
The Indian Ocean disaster is a climate tragedy — and needs more attention
A region unused to tropical cyclones has had three in a week. The world needs to ask why this happened, not look away.
- Dyna Rochmyaningsih
-
Outlook |
Cities are embracing nature for flood defence
As losses owing to flooding rise, some urban centres are ditching the concrete and making space for natural wetlands.
- Erica Gies
-
Correspondence |
Drinking water is at risk during warfare — better protections are needed
- Rongsheng Ning
- , Yingying Xiang
- & Shane A. Snyder
-
Research Highlight |
Cooking up a storm of air pollution
A study of the effects of COVID-19 policies highlights the underexplored impacts of commercial cooking on air quality.
-
Research Briefing |
Digging into the mechanisms that underlie soil production
Soil produced by the gradual breakdown of rock forms the planet’s thin but crucial ‘skin’. Analyses of a tectonically active landscape along the San Andreas fault aim to address a long-standing question in geomorphology and landscape evolution: what sets the pace at which rock transforms to soil?
-
Correspondence |
Chile must preserve international science in Antarctica
- Cristóbal Galbán Malagón
- , Marcelo Leppe
- & Paulina Bahamonde
-
Correspondence |
International environmental treaties cannot be reformed through rational design
- Vito De Lucia
- & Jan Solski
History of ‘forever’ chemicals is written in Antarctic snow