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Increasing human presence in and around Bidoup Nui Ba National Park has resulted in more frequent wildfires.Credit: Evgeniya Pavlova/Getty
Tree-ring scars show history of fires
The first centuries-long analysis of wildfires in southeast Asia has been compiled using the rings of trees in Bidoup Nui Ba National Park in Vietnam. Researchers counted the tree rings back over almost 400 years and found a drastic increase in the frequency of char marks over the past 100 years because of people lighting fires for agriculture. From 1964, the authors found that the signal from humans overwhelmed weather patterns as the driving force behind the fires. Until the advent of this study, “we had no idea how the fire regime has been changed”, says forest ecologist Thiet Nguyen.
Reference: Geophysical Research Letters paper
India’s new billion-dollar funding agency
India is planning to set up a national agency to increase research across the nation’s thousands of universities, colleges, institutes and laboratories. The National Research Foundation will have a budget of roughly US$6 billion over five years, with around 70% coming from the private sector.
The true cost of science’s language barrier
Researchers whose first language is not English can spend around twice as long reading an English-language scientific journal article as native speakers. In a survey of more than 900 environmental scientists from 8 countries, non-native speakers also reported needing more time to prepare conference presentations in English — and many avoid this type of commitment. Conservation scientist and co-author Tatsuya Amano has felt the impact first-hand as a Japanese researcher who has adapted to working in the United Kingdom and Australia. “Behind the scenes, I have to spend so much time to reach that level.”
Reference: PLoS Biology paper
The approaches that can help lower language barriers for scientists who are not native English speakers are well known, writes Amano on Twitter. “It’s just a matter of individuals, institutions, journals, funders and conferences having the will to implement these solutions.”Credit: T. Amano et al./PLoS Biol.
A water-pollution ‘timebomb’
Up to 5.5 billion people worldwide could be exposed to polluted water by 2100 — and people living in lower-income countries will be disproportionately affected. Researchers mapped surface water quality under three future scenarios: ‘business-as-usual’ rapid and unconstrained growth, an optimistic ‘green’ future and a ‘rocky road’ scenario characterized by regional rivalries and persistent inequalities. The latter turns out to be the worst-case scenario for water pollution, in which sub-Saharan Africa is the hardest hit, with an estimated 1.5 billion people exposed to unsafe water.
Reference: Nature Water paper
Features & opinion
How to educate the world
Data gaps are hindering progress on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for education, which includes targets for all children to complete primary school. Although most high-income countries are already there, most low- and middle-income countries cannot start assessing their education policies because the necessary data are incomplete or do not exist. Gathering these data and finding funding to do so must be a priority to achieve the goal by the 2030 deadline, argues a Nature editorial.
Nature | 6 min read — part of a series of editorials about how scientists can help with a rescue plan for the SDGs
EU proposal on CRISPR crops isn’t enough
Under a proposed European Union law, some crops edited with CRISPR–Cas9 that do not have genes from another species would be freed from older rules for genetically modified organisms that do have genes from other species. It’s “a welcome break from the technophobic recent past”, says plant biologist Devang Mehta. He argues that using gene editing to create disease-resistant, nutritious plants will be key to feeding the world. But the proposal excludes all new genomic techniques, including CRISPR, from organic agriculture, a decision Mehta calls illogical. “The EU can and should play a greater part in ensuring global food security.”
It’s worth celebrating success
A simple celebratory gathering for students and academic staff to review their accomplishments can reap huge benefits, writes infectious-disease researcher Ilinca Ciubotariu. Her department’s annual ceremony “prompted me to take a breath, appreciate the targets that I had reached, offer fresh perspectives and refuel to find motivation and inspiration to finish ongoing projects”. For those wanting to organize their own event, she offers some tips, including acquiring financial support, reserving a space, inviting people and — importantly — deciding on a snack of choice.
Image of the day
A dinosaur and a mammal are forever entwined in a deadly embrace in this extraordinary fossil. The left hand of the small mammal Repenomamus robustus is wrapped around the lower jaw of the bipedal, beaked dinosaur Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis. The mammal’s jaw closes over the dinosaur’s rib. The fossil is so stunning that additional work must be done to confirm that it’s genuine. “This is the kind of specimen that paleontologists dream of,” says geologist Raymond Rogers. (Science | 6 min read)
Reference: Scientific Reports paper (including an illustration of how the protagonists might have looked when alive) (Gang Han)
