The opening image in the News Feature ‘The plastics puzzle’ (Nature 508, 306–308; 2014) wrongly described bisphenol A as a polymer; it is not. The citation for reference 9 in ‘Designer reefs’ (Nature 508, 444–446; 2014) should have read Proc. R. Soc. B 276, 4139–4148 (2009).