Opinion |
Featured
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Letter |
Organic-walled microfossils in 3.2-billion-year-old shallow-marine siliciclastic deposits
Claims that life existed on Earth in the early Archaean eon (3.2 billion years ago) are often controversial, as non-biological processes can produce life-like microstructures and chemical signatures that mimic those of the remains of living organisms. Now, however, the discovery of relatively large, carbonaceous spheroidal microstructures — interpreted as organic-walled microfossils — in early Archaean deposits adds further evidence that life existed, thrived and survived on Earth at a very early date.
- Emmanuelle J. Javaux
- , Craig P. Marshall
- & Andrey Bekker
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News |
Is climate change hiding the decline of maple syrup?
Human-related carbon emissions may skew isotope analysis for food-quality control.
- Matt Kaplan
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Letter |
Migrating tremors illuminate complex deformation beneath the seismogenic San Andreas fault
Despite extensive study of the San Andreas fault, its physical character and deformation mode beneath the relatively shallow earthquake-generating portion remain largely unconstrained. Here, continuous seismic data from mid-2001 to 2008 is examined, using an approach that allows differentiation between activities from nearby patches of the deep fault and begins to unveil rich and complex patterns of tremor occurrence, in particular, constant motion of the tremor source.
- David R. Shelly
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Letter |
Coherently wired light-harvesting in photosynthetic marine algae at ambient temperature
- Elisabetta Collini
- , Cathy Y. Wong
- & Gregory D. Scholes
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Research Highlights |
Atmospheric physics: Bolt from the blue
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News & Views |
Washed up in Madagascar
How, when and from where did Madagascar's unique mammalian fauna originate? The idea that the ancestors of that fauna rafted from Africa finds support in innovative simulations of ancient ocean currents.
- David W. Krause
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News |
Haiti earthquake may have primed nearby faults for failure
Geologists say it's time to start preparing for the next big one.
- Lucas Laursen
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News |
IPCC flooded by criticism
Climate body slammed for errors and potential conflicts of interest.
- Quirin Schiermeier
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News |
Water vapour could be behind warming slowdown
Mysterious changes in the stratosphere may have offset greenhouse effect.
- Jeff Tollefson
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Research Highlights |
Atmospheric science: Stronger storms
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Research Highlights |
Biomaterials: Super snail shells
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Opinion |
Research on global sun block needed now
Geoengineering studies of solar-radiation management should begin urgently, argue David W. Keith, Edward Parson and M. Granger Morgan — before a rogue state decides to act alone.
- David W. Keith
- , Edward Parson
- & M. Granger Morgan
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News & Views |
Degrees of climate feedback
A probabilistic analysis of climate variation during the period AD 1050–1800 refines available estimates of the influence of temperature change on the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
- Hugues Goosse
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News |
Icy hunt for old air
Antarctic drilling project aims for a definitive record of climate.
- Chaz Firestone
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Letter |
Ensemble reconstruction constraints on the global carbon cycle sensitivity to climate
Anthropogenic global warming is likely to be amplified by positive feedback from the global carbon cycle; however, the magnitude of the climate sensitivity of the global carbon cycle, and thus of its positive feedback strength, is under debate. By combining a probabilistic approach with an ensemble of proxy-based temperature reconstructions and pre-industrial CO2 data from three ice cores, this climate sensitivity is now shown to be much smaller than previously thought.
- David C. Frank
- , Jan Esper
- & Fortunat Joos
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News |
Biodiversity talks get under way
Delegates begin to hammer out a new strategy for the Convention on Biological Diversity.
- Natasha Gilbert
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News |
Early humans wiped out Australia's giants
Climate not to blame for the extinction of Australia's big animals.
- Cheryl Jones
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News |
Senate climate debate up in the air
Moves by Republicans shift the US legislative landscape.
- Jeff Tollefson
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News |
Europe cannot keep its promises on fish stocks
Even with total cessation of fishing, UN target would still be missed.
- Daniel Cressey
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News |
Most powerful hurricanes on the rise
Global warming could lead to fewer but more-intense storms.
- Quirin Schiermeier
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Letter |
Increasing springtime ozone mixing ratios in the free troposphere over western North America
High concentrations of ozone in the troposphere are toxic and act as a greenhouse gas. Anthropogenic emissions of ozone precursors have caused widespread increases in ozone concentrations since the late 1800s, with the fastest-growing ozone precursor emissions currently coming out of east Asia. Much of the springtime east Asian pollution is exported towards western North America; a strong increase in springtime ozone mixing ratios is now found in the free troposphere over this region.
- O. R. Cooper
- , D. D. Parrish
- & M. A. Avery
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Research Highlights |
Geoscience: Blowin' in the wind
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Editorial |
Climate of suspicion
With climate-change sceptics waiting to pounce on any scientific uncertainties, researchers need a sophisticated strategy for communication.
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Correspondence |
Conservation work is incomplete without cryptic biodiversity
- Genoveva F. Esteban
- & Bland J. Finlay
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Authors |
Abstractions
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Research Highlights |
Geophysics: Synthetic sky light
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Research Highlights |
Microbiology: Life in the lost city
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News Feature |
The real holes in climate science
Like any other field, research on climate change has some fundamental gaps, although not the ones typically claimed by sceptics. Quirin Schiermeier takes a hard look at some of the biggest problem areas.
- Quirin Schiermeier
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Opinion |
A route to more tractable expert advice
There are mathematically advanced ways to weigh and pool scientific advice. They should be used more to quantify uncertainty and improve decision-making, says Willy Aspinall.
- Willy Aspinall
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News & Views |
Stripped on passing by Earth
Asteroids are weakly bound piles of rubble, and if one comes close to Earth, tides can cause the object to undergo landslides and structural rearrangement. The outcome of this encounter is a body with meteorite-like colours.
- Clark R. Chapman
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News |
Lemurs' wet and wild past
Model shows how mammals could have 'rafted' to Madagascar.
- Geoff Brumfiel
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Letter |
Mammalian biodiversity on Madagascar controlled by ocean currents
Madagascar has a striking and peculiar fauna. It has been proposed that the ancestors of Madagascar's present-day mammal stock rafted there from Africa, but the validity of this hypothesis is questioned. Using palaeogeographic reconstructions and palaeo-oceanographic modelling, surface currents during the Palaeogene period are now shown to have been capable of transporting the animals to the island, as required by the hypothesis.
- Jason R. Ali
- & Matthew Huber
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News |
Glacier estimate is on thin ice
IPCC may modify its Himalayan melting forecasts.
- Quirin Schiermeier
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News |
Geologists to evaluate future Haiti risks
Hunt for survey markers may reveal crucial data.
- Rex Dalton
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News |
Why oil from the Exxon Valdez lingers
Rocky beaches may have locked oil away in airtight pores.
- Naomi Lubick
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Letter |
Dominant control of the South Asian monsoon by orographic insulation versus plateau heating
The elevation of the Tibetan plateau is thought to cause its surface to serve as a heat source that drives the South Asian summer monsoon, potentially coupling uplift of the plateau to climate changes on geologic timescales. Here, however, an atmospheric model is used to show that flattening of the Tibetan plateau has little effect on the monsoon, provided that the narrow orography of the Himalayas and adjacent mountain ranges is preserved.
- William R. Boos
- & Zhiming Kuang
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Research Highlights |
Geoscience: Extraterrestrial dust
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Research Highlights |
Biogeochemistry: DDT in the ocean
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Research Highlights |
Biology: Snakes face the heat
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Books & Arts |
No crystal ball for natural disasters
Floods and fires aside, the tricky science of prediction is explained in a book that treads a careful line between analysis and anecdotes of awful events, says Andrew Robinson.
- Andrew Robinson
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News |
Disease epidemic killing only US bats
European bats seemingly unaffected by fungal infection.
- Lizzie Buchen
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Briefing |
The Haiti earthquake in depth
Fault produces its biggest quake since 1751.
- Daniel Cressey
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News & Views |
A moist model monsoon
Received wisdom about the main driver of the South Asian monsoon comes into question with a report that tests the idea that the Himalayas, not the Tibetan plateau, are the essential topographic ingredient.
- Mark A. Cane