News Explainer |
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Where I Work |
How ground glass might save crops from drought on a Caribbean island
In Grenada, public-health researcher Lindonne Telesford tests a soil additive made from recycled glass that could help farmers adapt to climate change.
- Kendall Powell
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News |
Humans and their livestock have sheltered in this Saudi Arabian cave for 10,000 years
Saudi herders have travelled the same routes for millennia, cave discovery suggests.
- Gillian Dohrn
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Nature Podcast |
Pregnancy’s effect on ‘biological’ age, polite birds, and the carbon cost of home-grown veg
We round up some recent stories from the Nature Briefing.
- Benjamin Thompson
- , Noah Baker
- & Flora Graham
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Article
| Open Access
The complex polyploid genome architecture of sugarcane
We build a polyploid reference genome for hybrid sugarcane cultivar R570, improving on its current ‘mosaic monoploid’ representation, enabling fine-grain description of genome architecture and the exploration of candidate genes underlying the Bru1 brown rust resistance locus.
- A. L. Healey
- , O. Garsmeur
- & A. D’Hont
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Where I Work |
I study small organisms to tackle big climate problems
Marine biologist Gabriel Renato Castro cultivates compounds from cyanobacteria to support agriculture and the environment.
- Nikki Forrester
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Research Briefing |
Machine learning reveals huge potential benefits of sustainable fertilizer use
Agricultural fertilizers are the main global source of ammonia emissions, which harm human health and reduce farmers’ profits. An analysis using big data and machine learning reveals that locally optimized fertilizer-management and tillage practices could slash ammonia emissions from rice, wheat and maize cultivation by up to 38%.
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Spotlight |
How science is helping farmers to find a balance between agriculture and solar farms
In the French countryside, energy companies are rushing to set up solar farms, with the risk of marginalizing agriculture. Researchers are finding solutions.
- Magali Reinert
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Book Review |
The ‘Bill Gates problem’: do billionaire philanthropists skew global health research?
Personal priorities are often trumping real needs and skewing where charitable funding goes.
- Andy Stirling
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Nature Careers Podcast |
‘Blue foods’ to tackle hidden hunger and improve nutrition
Aquatic foods have been overlooked in moves to end food insecurity. That needs to change, says Christopher Golden.
- Dom Byrne
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News |
Israel is flooding Gaza’s tunnel network: scientists assess the risks
The plan to target Hamas involves filling parts of a 500-kilometre-long network of underground tunnels. Researchers warn this could affect Gaza’s water supplies.
- Josie Glausiusz
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Article |
Fertilizer management for global ammonia emission reduction
A machine learning model for generating crop-specific and spatially explicit NH3 emission factors globally shows that global NH3 emissions in 2018 were lower than previous estimates that did not fully consider fertilizer management practices.
- Peng Xu
- , Geng Li
- & Benjamin Z. Houlton
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News |
CRISPR-edited crops break new ground in Africa
Scientists in the global south use the popular technique to protect local crops against local threats.
- Heidi Ledford
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News |
All arabica coffee is genetically similar: how can beans taste so different?
Flavour variations are mainly the result of changes at the chromosome level, sequencing effort finds.
- Bianca Nogrady
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News & Views |
How plants iron out the competing interests of growth and defence
Once a plant recognizes a pathogen, part of its defence strategy is to withhold iron. The mechanism involves suppression of root acquisition of iron by degrading a molecule that activates the iron-uptake pathway.
- Shanice S. Webster
- & Mary Lou Guerinot
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News Feature |
How CRISPR could yield the next blockbuster crop
Scientists are attempting to rapidly domesticate wild plant species by editing specific genes, but they face major technical challenges — and concerns about exploitation of Indigenous knowledge.
- Michael Marshall
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Correspondence |
Short-sighted policies are fuelling Brazilian deforestation
- Richard Fuchs
- , Joanna Raymond
- & Mark Rounsevell
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Correspondence |
Generate verifiable soil carbon credits from croplands
- Peng Fu
- , David Schurman
- & James R. Kellner
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News |
Eat less meat: will the first global climate deal on food work?
A declaration on reducing the eye-watering emissions from food production is a start, say researchers — but it sidesteps contentious issues in the role of food production in global climate change.
- Carissa Wong
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News |
EU allows use of controversial weedkiller glyphosate for 10 more years
In the wake of a stalemate among member states, the European Commission has decided to approve the herbicide’s continued use.
- Barbara Casassus
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Correspondence |
Quantify wild areas that optimize agricultural yields
- Iris Berger
- , Lynn V. Dicks
- & Francisco d’Albertas Gomes de Carvalho
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Obituary |
Gordon Conway (1938–2023), leader in sustainable development
Agricultural ecologist who promoted sustainable practices by engaging farmers worldwide.
- Ian Scoones
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Correspondence |
Making conventional farming more biodiversity friendly
- Tobias Kuemmerle
- , Patrick Meyfroidt
- & Florence Pendrill
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Correspondence |
The EU must stick to its animal-welfare commitments
- Eugénie Duval
- & Benjamin Lecorps
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Correspondence |
Agriculture: reform the global food system
- Joern Fischer
- , Elena Bennett
- & Guy Pe’er
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Obituary |
M. S. Swaminathan (1925–2023), leader of India’s ‘green revolution’
Agricultural scientist who introduced crops to end famine in India in the 1960s.
- Gayathri Vaidyanathan
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Where I Work |
‘If I drop this, I’ll kill the queen’: how I launched a veterinary practice for bees
Elizabeth Hilborn is among just a handful of people in the United States who are medically trained to treat honey bees.
- Fern Reiss
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Comment |
Genetic modification can improve crop yields — but stop overselling it
With a changing climate and a growing population, the world increasingly needs more-productive and resilient crops. But improving them requires a knowledge of what actually works in the field.
- Merritt Khaipho-Burch
- , Mark Cooper
- & Edward S. Buckler
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Career Q&A |
I train farmers to use plant science in the fight against climate change
Plant breeder and geneticist Prince Matova helps farmers in drought-prone areas to increase their yields.
- Clemence Manyukwe
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News & Views |
Bacteria deliver water channels to infect plants
A wide range of harmful bacteria introduce proteins into plant cells. Some of these proteins move to the cell membrane and serve as channels for water and nutrients, creating favourable conditions for bacterial growth beside plant cells.
- Gwyn A. Beattie
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Obituary |
Melaku Worede, crop genetics leader (1936–2023)
Plant geneticist who pioneered seed conservation for famine resilience and farmer livelihoods.
- Regassa Feyissa
- & Toby Hodgkin
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News Explainer |
Hawaii wildfires: did scientists expect Maui to burn?
Wildfires are not new to Hawaii but they are becoming increasingly devastating. More traditional land use and better data dissemination could help to prevent future tragedies.
- Emma Marris
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Comment |
Millions of jobs in food production are disappearing — a change in mindset would help to keep them
Halting the loss of jobs and knowledge from small-scale producers requires investing in rural sustainability, addressing poverty and inequity and ensuring the economic gains stay local. The benefits would be shared globally.
- Eduardo S. Brondizio
- , Stacey A. Giroux
- & Beate Henschel
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World View |
EU proposal on CRISPR-edited crops is welcome — but not enough
The door should be opened further: CRISPR has huge potential to boost food security in the face of pathogens and climate change.
- Devang Mehta
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Nature Video |
A robotic raspberry teaches machines how to pick fruit
This fake raspberry allows researchers to train fruit-picking robots in the lab before field tests.
- Shamini Bundell
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News |
El Niño is here — how bad will it be?
The strong climate pattern could push global temperatures to record highs.
- Alexandra Witze
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Career Feature |
How to hatch, brew and craft the perfect maths partnership
Mathematicians and their collaborators discuss the joys and challenges of working together on projects in science and the arts.
- Rachel Crowell
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Comment |
Current conservation policies risk accelerating biodiversity loss
Three approaches that aim to cut the harms of agriculture — land sharing, rewilding and organic farming — risk driving up food imports and causing environmental damage overseas. An alternative approach is both effective and cheaper.
- Ian Bateman
- & Andrew Balmford
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Spotlight |
From tea to tofu: why Chinese dietary staples are rich pickings for research
Public-health researchers are exploring the nutritional benefits of some familiar favourites of the Chinese table.
- Michael Eisenstein
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Research Briefing |
Rice gene tamed using genome editing
Genes in agricultural crops are usually fine-tuned through long periods of evolution and crop domestication. In a modern strategy to genetically improve crops, genome editing was used to rapidly develop a variant of a rice gene that shows promise for increasing the plant’s resistance to several diseases.
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Correspondence |
Iran: renovated irrigation network deepens water crisis
- Mohsen Maghrebi
- , Roohollah Noori
- & Amir AghaKouchak
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Where I Work |
My mission to grow fruit without the plant
Lucas van der Zee hopes to restore current farmland to its natural state by eliminating the vegetation stage of crop-growing.
- James Mitchell Crow
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News & Views |
From the archive: foods of the future and cryptography secrets
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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Outlook |
A cleaner route to ammonia
A method driven by renewable energy could end the need for fossil fuels in fertilizer production.
- James Mitchell Crow
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News & Views |
From the archive: a history of climate, and the scent of sitting pheasants
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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Article
| Open Access
Reducing brassinosteroid signalling enhances grain yield in semi-dwarf wheat
A strategy that depends on attenuated brassinosteroid signalling is described for the design of semi-dwarf wheat varieties with improved grain yield compared with that of green revolution varieties.
- Long Song
- , Jie Liu
- & Zhongfu Ni
Bird flu in US cows: is the milk supply safe?