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WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus waves while wearing a face mask

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is the only candidate who will run for WHO director-general in May.Credit: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty

Tedros will lead the WHO into second term

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), is all but ensured to lead the organization for a second term. He is the only candidate expected to be nominated by the WHO’s executive board on 25 January. The organization’s first leader from Africa, Tedros quickly made his mark by creating the WHO’s first science division, and by expanding its programme to respond to infectious-disease outbreaks and other health emergencies. Despite criticism of the WHO, no country has nominated an alternative — hinting at support for Tedros’s pandemic leadership, a desire for stability and perhaps a dearth of candidates eager to take on his heavy mantle.

Nature | 5 min read

Features & opinion

Researchers: mobilize to fight climate change

The United Nations COP26 climate summit in November injected much-needed momentum into the fight to stop climate change. Research is now crucial to monitoring progress and creating solutions, says a Nature editorial. “The year ahead represents an opportunity for scientists of all stripes to offer up expertise and ensure that they have a voice in this monumental effort,” argues the editorial.

Nature | 5 min read

Futures: Ring in the new

Evolving traditions create an opportunity for survival in a hopeful story for the New Year from Nature’s Futures series.

Nature | 6 min read

Five best science books this week

Andrew Robinson’s pick of the top five science books to read this week includes how space flight enriches life on Earth, an elegant exploration of consciousness and a reimagining of sustainable cities.

Nature | 3 min read

Podcast: The science to watch out for

This week, the Nature Podcast looks at what science has in store for 2022: vaccines, multiple Moon missions, the push to save biodiversity and more.

Nature Podcast | 11 min listen

Subscribe to the Nature Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify.

Omicron Papers

Because of the speed at which the Omicron coronavirus variant is spreading, Nature is making Omicron-related papers available on the website immediately on acceptance, before they have gone through the processes of final copy-editing and formatting. These papers have been peer reviewed, and you can find them here.

Quote of the day

“After all the billions of dollars that I have been instrumental in spending to make a better vaccine, a better drug, or a better diagnostic, I’ve learned that none of that is effective if we don’t have a global early warning system.”

Rick Bright, the former director of the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, blew the whistle on how the US government was handling the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Last August, he lost his own mother to COVID-19. Now he’s spearheading a privately funded initiative to rapidly contain coronavirus variants and outbreaks of other pathogens. (Science | 13 min read)