Snippets from Nature’s past.

Radar images reveal clues to the history of a largely unexplored region.

Policy debates concerning transgender people are embroiled in the culture wars. Let data and science — not politicians — guide laws.

Distantly related plants have structurally similar immune receptors.

NASA smashed a spacecraft into an asteroid on purpose. Plus, Germany has placed a big bet on biodiversity and a plant beloved by the ancient Greeks and Romans might have been rediscovered at last.

One in eight US professors trained at just five universities. Plus, the Webb space telescope’s stunning images of Neptune and the winners of this year’s Breakthrough prizes.

Farms are not homogeneous. Smaller farms generally have different planted crops, yields, agricultural inputs, and irrigation applications compared to larger farms. However, gridded farm-size-specific data that are moreover crop specific, are currently lacking. This obscures our understanding of differences between small-scale and large-scale farms, e.g., with respect to climate change adaptation and

Aviation emission accounting is the key to establishing market measures to control aviation pollutant emissions. Based on the fuel percentage method (FPM), this paper applies the improved BFFM2-FOA-FPM (Boeing Fuel Flow Method 2–First Order Approximation FPM) to calculate the emissions of six pollutants (CO2, CO, HC, NOx, SO2, and PM2.5) between Chinese and foreign cities from 2014 to 2019, including

Abstract. Delineation of Glaciers is a challenging task in the Himalaya due to its complex topography, cloud cover, seasonal snow cover, hillshade, debris cover. Glacio-hydrological studies including mass balance, run-off, and dynamic modelling rely on the availability of consistent and reliable glacier inventory datasets. This article on data set presents a homogenous, multidecadal inventory of glaciers

Abstract. Central Europe is among the regions with the largest availability of pre-industrial meteorological records. In the Alps, however, such records are relatively rare, especially in the southern slope. We recently found and digitized two new pressure and temperature series for the Alpine cities of Rovereto (1800–1839) and Bolzano/Bozen (1842–1849) covering together the first half of the 19th

The European Variscan belt is a unique orogen that is covered by comprehensive sets of seismic and potential field data from the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Polish Sudetes in the east. The combination of both allows for a new interpretation of the structure and evolution of the European Variscides at the continental scale. The European Variscan belt has been divided into three domains according

Conservation scientist Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka looks after the health of mountain gorillas and livestock in southwest Uganda and teaches local residents how to avoid illness.

Quantum platform combines optical lattices with optical tweezers.

Researchers are hunting through waste water for heavily mutated SARS-CoV-2 variants that could be the next Omicron.

But urgent progress is needed to secure the global deal to save the environment.

US institutions and states are revamping hiring practices in an attempt to increase transparency about past misconduct in academia.

Evidence that settlers, not invaders, transformed the genetic make-up of people in early medieval England. Plus, the first drones with onboard 3D printers, and how birds and bats boost chocolate production.

The construction of an electronic data set of the tidal measurements made at St. Helena in 1761 by Nevil Maskelyne is described. These data were first analysed by Cartwright (1971, 1972) in papers which have importance within studies of changing tides. However, Cartwright's data files were never archived for the benefit of other researchers, demonstrating that “old data” at risk can sometimes take

Abstract. Deep-sea fishery in the Mediterranean Sea was historically driven by the commercial profitability of deepwater red shrimps and understanding spatio-temporal dynamics of fishing is key to comprehensively evaluate the status of these profitable resources and prevent stock collapse. A four-year time series of AIS-based observed monthly patterns and related frequency of trawling disturbance are

Abstract. To quantify the ecological consequences of recent nation wide restoration efforts in China, spatially explicit information on woody biomass changes over the 21st century is critical However, long term biomass tracking at the national scale remains challenging as it requires continuous and high resolution monitoring . Here, we mapped above and belowground biomass (AGB and BGB) for woody vegetation

Abstract. Airborne and spaceborne platforms are the primary data sources for large-scale forest mapping, but visual interpretation for individual species determination is labour-intensive. Hence, various studies focusing on forests have investigated the benefits of multiple sensors for automated tree species classification. However, transferable deep learning approaches for large-scale applications

Abstract. Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Surface Net Radiation (SNR) are vital inputs for many land surface and hydrological models. However, current remote sensing datasets of these variables come mostly at coarse resolutions. Although high-resolution LST and SNR retrievals are available, they have large gaps due to cloud-cover that hinder their use as input in models. Here, we present a downscaled

Abstract. Surface downward shortwave radiation (DSR) and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) play critical roles in the Earth’s surface processes. As the main inputs of various ecological, hydrological, carbon, and solar photovoltaic models, increasing requirements for high spatiotemporal resolution DSR and PAR estimation with high accuracy have been observed in recent years. However, few existing

An absent copy of one gene results in brain-cell changes that greatly improve a mouse’s ability to distinguish between tones of different frequency.

A method that adds a heat treatment after 3D printing of titanium alloys could allow for fast fabrication of strong parts.

NASA’s DART mission is on course to slam into the asteroid Dimorphos on Monday.

There is a rapidly growing number of palaeotsunami sites being reported from the Pacific region but rarely have researchers looked far beyond their immediate site to find contemporary evidence at more distal locations. However, over the past 150 years the region has experienced giant earthquakes and their associated tsunamis from several key circum-Pacific sources. The 2011 Tōhoku, 1960 Valdivia, 1946

A protein that boosts energy metabolism in immune cells might help to prevent tuberculosis infections taking hold.

The text-analysis tool could be used to help detect bogus research submitted to journals.

A new centre will invest in shots for a range of infectious diseases so the country is ready for future outbreaks.

Survey finds that students and postdocs report verbal and sexual abuse, unpaid labour and dangerous work conditions.

Primeval droppings show that some animals that lived in what is now Greenland do not appear in the fossil record.

Imaging technique shows in 3D how bees build out a comb’s elaborate hexagonal cells.

Judge acquits Feng ‘Franklin’ Tao on three of four charges — another blow for the US government’s former China Initiative programme.

President Jair Bolsonaro is up for re-election, but his policies failed to slow the coronavirus’s spread.

Methane, ethane, and propane are among the most abundant hydrocarbons in the atmosphere. These compounds have many emission sources in common and are all primarily removed through OH oxidation. Their mixing ratios and long-term trends in the upper troposphere and stratosphere are rarely reported due to the paucity of measurements. In this study, we present long-term (2006–2016) northern hemispheric

Recent climate change mitigation strategies rely on the reduction of methane (CH4) emissions. Carbon and hydrogen isotope ratio (δ13CCH4 and δ2HCH4) measurements can be used to distinguish sources and thus to understand the CH4 budget better. The CH4 emission estimates by models are sensitive to the isotopic signatures assigned to each source category, so it is important to provide representative estimates

The spatiotemporal evolution of magmatism is pivotal to understand the growth mechanism and evolution of continental crust during major orogenic cycles. In this study, we investigate the extensive Early Paleozoic magmatic rock suites (487-390 Ma) from the East Kunlun Orogen (EKO), and attempt to gain insights into the growth and reworking of continental crust. The geodynamic setting of the EKO in the

DeepMind’s system for predicting the 3D structure of proteins is among five recipients of science’s most lucrative awards.

The ability to programme new modes of catalysis into proteins would allow the development of enzyme families with functions beyond those found in nature. To this end, genetic code expansion methodology holds particular promise, as it allows the site-selective introduction of new functional elements into proteins as non-canonical amino acid side chains.1-4 Here, we exploit an expanded genetic code to

Naturally evolved enzymes, despite astonishingly large variety and function diversity, operate predominantly through thermochemical activation. Integrating prominent photocatalysis modes into proteins such as triplet energy transfer could create artificial photoenzymes that expand the scope of natural biocatalysis.1-3 Here, we exploit genetically reprogrammed, chemically evolved photoenzymes embedded

Hear the biggest stories from the world of science | 21 September 2022

Teams of aerial robots mounted with 3D printers could work together to build emergency shelters and greener homes.