Nature

Jeremy Wade of River Monsters shares his dream of getting the catch of a lifetime: Nessie, from Scotland’s Loch Ness, also known as the Loch Ness Monster. Though he has fearlessly caught deadly piranhas and sharks from the Congo to the Amazon, he still considers Nessie the prize catch of all prize catches. The famous

As Earth formed from the disk of matter swirling around the Sun (artist’s impression), hydrogen moved into what would become the planet’s core. Credit: Gregoire Cirade/SPL Geology 25 May 2020 The core might contain Earth’s biggest reservoir as a result of hydrogen moving into the early planet’s centre. Earth’s core might contain most of the

Einstein on Einstein Hanoch Gutfreund & Jürgen Renn Princeton Univ. Press (2020) Albert Einstein admitted in his final essay, ‘Autobiographical sketch’, that fellow physicists opposed his quest to unify the general theory of relativity with quantum mechanics. But he took comfort from philosopher Gotthold Lessing’s dictum: “The search for truth is more precious than its

The inevitable has happened: microplastics have now found their way to Florida’s Birds of Prey. This finding is unfortunate and significant as birds of prey are yardsticks of a functioning ecosystem.  Researchers from the University of Central Florida Julia Carlin and Linda Walters confirmed and quantified the presence of microplastics in terrestrial and aquatic birds

[embedded content]  Snow in some parts of Antarctica is turning green from blooms of algae thriving in the snow. Green snow algae grow mostly on Antarctic coastlines, in areas where it is warmer.  In order to survey the extent of the algal bloom, Andrew Gray, Matthew Davey, and his colleagues from the University of Cambridge did a study to estimate

Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here Bumble bee (Bombus terrestris) worker damages a plant leaf. Bee-inflicted leaf damage leads to accelerated flowering and might have implications for the phenological synchrony of plants and pollinators.Hannier Pulido, De Moraes and Mescher Laboratories When pollen

Nicholas Herrmann seeks out lizards living by small streams in Costa Rica during the first year of his PhD.Credit: William Eldridge In February, two colleagues and I began a study of several hundred lizards in southern Florida to identify traits that determine which individuals succeed in new environments. I hoped the project would make up

Authorities recently found a Catahoula mix on the side of a road in Texas, where the dog was seen guarding another dog’s body. The Kingsville-Kleberg Health Department Animal Control & Care Center reported that the dog, who they named ‘Guardian,’ was standing beside the dead body as though it was protecting it. When Animal Control Officers tried to approach the two,

SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus particles imaged using an electron microscope.Credit: NIAID/National Institutes of Health/Science Photo Library Brazil’s researchers have a battle on their hands. The country has the world’s third-highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, with more than 300,000 infections and 20,000 deaths. Scientists there have to fight not only the coronavirus, but also the government’s anti-science

A species of parchment tubeworm can exude slime that can glow a blue hue that lasts for days. Predators can get this sticky mucus with a blue glow on them if they tread upon these tubeworms. Such luminescence is produced by many algae, bacteria, and higher animals. However, the light they produce does not last very

Credit: Adapted from Getty One of my shorter-lived delusions at the beginning of lockdown was that it would be a fantastic time to write grant proposals. I imagined myself reclining on a chaise longue in my study, wearing a beret, inundated with ideas; the next Nobel Prize just a thought away. This didn’t happen. It

John Horton Conway was one of the most versatile mathematicians of the past century, who made influential contributions to group theory, analysis, topology, number theory, geometry, algebra and combinatorial game theory. His deep yet accessible work, larger-than-life personality, quirky sense of humour and ability to talk about mathematics with any and all who would listen

Animals, particularly prey that avoid predators, construct a map of their environments in their minds, navigate with this map to stay in safe areas while avoiding more dangerous ones; this is what scientists call “landscape of fear.” We, as humans, particularly influence this “landscape” because we have the propensity and ability to kill almost everything.

Noah Baker, Amy Maxmen and Richard Van Noorden discuss the latest COVID-19 news. Download MP3 In this episode: 01:38 Trump vs the WHO President Trump has given the WHO an ultimatum in a tweet, threatening to pull out of the organisation within 30 days unless unclear demands are met. We discuss what this means for

The northern lowlands of Mars apparently have volcanoes that number in the tens of thousands; the apparent mud volcano has fingers and ripples that look like lava surrounding them. However, geologists are not in agreement regarding their true nature. They doubt if the bumpy formations are magma that have been frozen, and they believe that

There was nowhere to land amid all the broken ice. On 6 February, three scientists were in a helicopter flying high above the ocean roughly 250 kilometres from the North Pole, and all they could see was jumbled masses of fractured sea ice. The ice was clearly unfit to land on. Just a week before,

Correction to: Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2172-5Published online 22 April 2020 In the abstract of this Article, “consistent with the lack of precursory summit inflation” should have read “consistent with the lack of substantial precursory summit inflation”, because a small amount (2–3 cm) of localized summit inflation was detected with GPS starting about two weeks before the eruption.

Amid this global lockdown, there lies a silver lining: Nature is healing in many ways, and some things just turn out for the better. Here is some good news while we are in isolation :  Gangetic Dolphin Spotted   The famous Gangetic or the South Asian River Dolphin made a comeback in Kolkota ghats after 30 years.

Coronavirus tests where specimens are collected at home face high barriers to approval.Credit: Grant Hindsley/The New York Times/Redux/eyevine The Seattle research team that first uncovered COVID-19 spreading in US communities has been asked to stop testing for the disease. The decision by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to prevent the SCAN project from

Despite the inconvenience and the economic impact that the international response has caused, there is a good side to it. The government lockdown around the world slashed the global carbon emissions by more than 8 percent, as two independent studies revealed.  Two international teams did different studies estimated how carbon emissions reduced across various sectors, each

Measures aimed at slowing coronavirus spread are affecting other communicable diseases.Credit: Leon Neal/Getty Lockdowns and social-distancing measures aimed at slowing the spread of coronavirus seem to have shortened the influenza season in the northern hemisphere by about six weeks. Globally, an estimated 290,000–650,000 people typically die from seasonal flu, so a shorter flu season could

Paint in this version of The Scream, held by the Munch Museum in Oslo, has degraded with time. Credit: Stian Lysberg Solum/AFP/Getty Materials science 21 May 2020 Storing Edvard Munch’s masterpiece at low humidity will help to preserve its colours, analysis shows. Bright yellow hues that once screamed from Edvard Munch’s iconic painting The Scream

A lot of wildlife species, fish, and insects have been widely documented to be capable of traveling vast distances as part of their life and reproductive cycle. They migrate to distant destinations for resources, to escape the winter cold, or to breed. Scientists have always wondered how these animals can determine which way they should

Galaxies are immense, gravitationally bound systems composed of stars, dust, gas and invisible ‘dark matter’. Understanding how galaxies have formed and grown over time is essential for a more general view of how matter assembles into large structures — a key piece of the puzzle in our efforts to comprehend the Universe. A crucial step

Two studies published last April have shed light on the nature of galaxies orbiting around our own Milky Way galaxy. These studies have shown evidence of how a larger satellite galaxy can draw smaller ones into them as they get ‘trapped’ into orbiting the Milky Way. Such an arrangement can inform astronomers and researchers a

Pakinam Amer gets some expert advice on what science communication is, what it isn’t, and how to do it well. Download MP3 In a world currently facing an unparalleled health crisis, the need for clear science communication has never been greater. Explaining complex ideas in a concise manner does not come naturally to everyone, but

Evidence shows that women perform more household work than men do.Credit: Getty Quarantined with a six-year-old child underfoot, Megan Frederickson wondered how academics were managing to write papers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdowns implemented to stem coronavirus spread meant that, overnight, many households worldwide had become an intersection of work, school and home life. Conversations

The study conducted at the Australian National University has revealed the full extent of the Victorian bush fires raging for the past two decades. These wildfires have been significantly increasing both in size and frequency across Victoria. The research of Professor David Lindenmayer and Chris Taylor entitled: “New spatial analyses of Australian wildfire highlight the need

Researchers use data from tree rings, sediment layers and other samples to calibrate the process of carbon dating.Credit: Philippe Clement/Arterra/Universal Images Group/Getty Radiocarbon dating — a key tool used for determining the age of prehistoric samples — is about to get a major update. For the first time in seven years, the technique is due

All over the world, tropical cyclones are becoming stronger and stronger. The trend has been observed to begin 40 years ago. An example is Hurricane Dorian, which is the strongest storm from the Atlantic ever recorded. Scientists have also made predictions using models and theories that are congruent with what is happening now. US NOAA’s

Migrant workers living in dormitories in Singapore were initially overlooked for coronavirus testing.Credit: Edgar Su/Reuters Respiratory pathogens spread like wildfire when people are in close contact. So it’s little wonder that almost all of the 150 biggest coronavirus outbreaks in the United States have been in prisons, nursing homes, veterans’ homes, psychiatric hospitals, meat-packing plants

As data accumulate that, in some places, people of colour are much more likely than white people to become ill and die of COVID-19, more discussions are grasping at factors beyond race to explain why. I’m used to this. When my book on environmental racism came out last year, one of the most common questions

New research has found that in the Grand Canyon, two species influence mercury’s flow in the marine ecosystem. The study was published in the journal Science Advances, and it weds ecotoxicology to ecosystem ecology in tracing mercury flow through food webs up to its contamination into the land. Co-author and Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

A woman gets her temperature taken at a mobile testing site in Compton, a city south of Los Angeles, California.Credit: Etienne Laurent/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock As figures emerge about the disproportionate toll that COVID-19 is taking on people of colour in the United States, scientists are suggesting measures to help mitigate the inequalities. They say that better data

A Canadian startup company, Flash Forest, will maximize the use of drones, specially designed seeds pods, and accelerated seed germination process for tree planting to grow 1 billion trees by 2028. The company aims to plant 40,000 trees on a land north of Toronto that has been burned by a previous wildfire. By the end of the

Animals, such as minks, that can be infected with the coronavirus could reveal clues about the virus’ origins.Credit: Jorma Luhta/Nature Picture Library As a growing number of countries push for an independent investigation into the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, many scientists around the world are already trying to uncover when, where and how the

Meetings can be accessed while working from home.Credit: Getty Lynn Cominsky, an astrophysicist at Sonoma State University in California, had planned to spend part of late March and early April in Johannesburg, South Africa, for the Ninth Fermi International Symposium, an event that would have gathered hundreds of astronomers and astrophysicists with an interest in

Good news! We may soon see soft drinks and beer being sold in plant-based bottles. Coca-Cola and Carlsberg are teaming up to support a pioneering project that is set to produce ‘all-plant’ bottles for drinks. This project is aiming to create “plastic” from crops that are sustainably grown, with the two beverage companies partnering with

A study regarding the method and economy of movement of giant predatory dinosaurs, including the Tyrannosaurus rex, has recently been published on May 13 in PLOS One, an open-access scientific journal. The paper is entitled: “The Fast and the Frugal: Divergent Locomotory Strategies Drive Limb Lengthening in Theropod Dinosaurs.” Mount Marty College conducted the study, South

Credit: Adapted from Getty I was fortunate enough to go into the laboratory recently — on vaccine-related coronavirus research that we hope might inform studies about the minimum dose of vaccine that can be used. This research is very much a tiny cog in a huge global wheel. By the time I had aliquoted the

A study by a team of researchers led by a University of California, Riverside post-doctoral hydrology researcher, Adam Schreiner-McGraw, simulated and made a model of the encroachment of shrubs on a hill or a sloped land area, and found that such encroachment increases water for groundwater storage. They found that shrubs can counterbalance the scarcity of

John Houghton (right) at the opening of a weather centre in 1985.Credit: PA Archive/PA John Houghton was instrumental in founding and shaping the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The climate scientist led the panel’s Scientific Assessment of Climate Change working group from its formation in 1988 until 2002. Under his guidance, the IPCC did

Living microalgae to treat slow-healing wounds? This research says it is possible. Researchers at the Nanjing University in China were able to develop a wound patch filled with what we know as blue-green algae, starring their ability to naturally produce oxygen through photosynthesis. These microorganisms, scientifically called Synechococcus elongatus, are used in the study to speed

Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here An 8,400-year-old skeleton from the Qihe cave archaeological site in Fujian, China.Credit: Xiujie Wu/Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology The first large ancient-genome studies of East Asia suggest that many of its inhabitants descend from two

Benjamin Thompson, Noah Baker, and Amy Maxmen discuss the latest COVID-19 news. Download MP3 In this episode: 00:57 The epidemiology of misinformation As the pandemic spreads, so does a tidal wave of misinformation and conspiracy theories. We discuss how researchers’ are tracking the spread of questionable content, and ways to limit its impact. News: Anti-vaccine

Bureau of Fire Protection Officers inspect a swelling river (Photo:BFP Bula Facebook Page ) Bureau of Fire Protection Officers inspect a swelling river (Photo: BFP Bula Facebook Page) An Evacuation Center at Brgy. 61-M and 61-A at Garita Elem. School, Cavite City. (Photo:Cavite City Police Station Facebook Page ) An evacuation center set up at

Garment workers in Bangladesh risk their lives in an industry devastated by the collapse in global spending.Credit: Zabed Hasnain Chowdhury/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty There has never been a harder time to be a political leader. The choices that must be made are enormous, the consequences potentially catastrophic, the science guiding those decisions uncertain — and

The treatment of Gilead Sciences Inc. for patients severely ill with COVID-19 in Japan has begun days after granting emergency approval to the medication. In the U.S., the distribution of the experimental COVID-19 drug that the Food and Drug Administration authorized for emergency use on May 1 has commenced.  The doses were part of the