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Editorial

Nature Geoscience 1, 407 (1 July 2008) | doi:10.1038/ngeo246

Back to basics

Mechanisms of biogenic methane production have fallen under scrutiny. Until recently methane, a greenhouse gas second only to CO2 in its climatic importance, was thought to be produced exclusively by anaerobic bacteria living in oxygen-free environments like swamps, rice paddies and more curiously, the insides of termites.