In the News story ‘Hunt for life under Antarctic ice heats up’ (Nature 491, 506–507; 2012), we wrongly stated that Martin Siegert was based at the University of Edinburgh. He is in fact based at the University of Bristol, UK. And the Editorial ‘America’s carbon compromise’ (Nature 491, 301; 2012) should have talked about a $20 tax per tonne of carbon dioxide not per tonne of carbon.