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Members of the Munduruku people sit in front of equipment from an illegal mining operation on their land.Credit: Meridith Kohut/The New York Times/eyevine
Illegal Amazon mining hits record high
Indigenous territories, long a bulwark against deforestation in the Amazon, are under increasing threat in Brazil. An analysis of 36 years’ worth of satellite imagery shows that illicit mining operations on Indigenous lands and in other areas formally protected by law have hit a record high under the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro. These operations convert forests to desolate landscapes pockmarked by mining ponds, which researchers identified on a freely available archive of imagery captured by the US Landsat programme.
“We will not give up,” says José Gregorio Diaz Mirabal, a member of the Wakueni Kurripaco people of Venezuela and the elected leader of the Congress of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin. “Science supports us, and the world is waking up.”
Reference: MapBiomas report & interactive map
Funders punish paper-mill scientists
Two major research funders in China have punished at least 23 scientists for using ‘paper mills’ — businesses that produce sham manuscripts, including fake data, to order. The sanctions — which include temporary bans on applying for funding, and the loss of grants and promotions — follow a policy introduced in September last year that was intended to stamp out sham journal articles and deal with other misconduct. Some researchers urge authorities to crack down on the paper mills themselves.
UK gets new rules for gene editing crops
In a break with the European Union’s stance, the United Kingdom plans to ease requirements for field research on gene-edited crops. The changes will eliminate the need for risk assessments, saving researchers a lot of effort. “We will now be able to test promising genome-edited plants in the field at the earliest opportunity, and to assess early on which plants show promise under real environmental conditions,” says plant biologist Wendy Harwood.
US declares 23 species extinct
The ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) and the Kauai O’o (Moho braccatus), a Hawaiian forest bird, are among the 11 birds, 1 bat, 2 fish, 1 plant and 8 mussel species that have been declared extinct by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). Hawaii was particularly hard hit: eight of the birds, and the only plant, Phyllostegia glabra var. lanaiensis, belonged to the islands. Biologist Amy Trahan was the FWS scientist tasked with recommending that the woodpecker be delisted from the Endangered Species Act “based on extinction”. “That was probably one of the hardest things I’ve done in my career,” she says. “I literally cried.”
The New York Times | 6 min read — including recordings of the ivory-billed woodpecker and the Kauai O’o (intermittent paywall)
Features & opinion
A tragedy that never happened
The Emmy award for interactive documentary was awarded on Wednesday to “In Event of Moon Disaster”, a project that uses ‘deepfake’ technology to have former US president Richard Nixon deliver the speech written in case Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had died in their attempt to land on the moon. The chilling fictional alternate reality aims to shed light on the future of misinformation online and how deepfakes might affect our shared history and future experiences.
Scientific American | 4 min read
Futures: The Clear Space Foundation
A megaconstellation of communications satellites meets its spectacular end in the latest short story for Nature’s Futures series.
Five best science books this week
Andrew Robinson’s pick of the top five science books to read this week includes the topic of transformative hydrogen and the story of testosterone.
Podcast: Starting up in science
Every year, thousands of scientists struggle to launch their own laboratories. For three years, a reporting team from Nature documented the lives of married scientists Alison Twelvetrees and Daniel Bose as they worked to get their fledgling research groups off the ground. Frustrations over funding, a global pandemic and a personal trauma have made this journey anything but simple for Ali and Dan. Listen to their story in Starting up in science.
Nature Podcast | Four-part podcast series
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