Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Mass production of meat is on the rise, but it comes at a cost to both climate and environment. A radical change in our diets seems to be the easiest path to long-term sustainability.
David Rubin and Patrick Hesp spent a night in a labour camp come hotel while trying to uncover the factors that shape sand dunes in the Qaidam Basin, China.
The terrestrial biosphere is assumed to take up most of the carbon on land. However, it is becoming clear that inland waters process large amounts of organic carbon and must be considered in strategies to mitigate climate change.
Purported 3,465-million-year-old microfossils from Australia have been the subject of considerable debate. A method to distinguish between pristine fossils, mineral artefacts and subsequent microbial contamination will aid the search for ancient biogenic material.
The fate of sinking particulate organic matter in the world ocean is a key source of uncertainty in the global carbon cycle. Model simulations suggest that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations depend critically on the depths that these particles typically reach.
Mike Gagan, Michael Griffiths and colleagues negotiated knee-deep mud while up to their neck in water in an Indonesian cave, all to reconstruct Australasian monsoon rainfall over the past 12,000 years.
Titan's surface is covered by vast fields of linear dunes, probably composed of organic sand-sized particles. The study of linear dunes in China suggests that sediment cohesiveness can be as important as wind direction in the creation of these dune forms.
The Pacific and Australian plates collide and interact in complex ways around New Zealand. Electrical resistivity data reveal that subduction-zone fluids exert an important influence on deformation in the region.
Atmospheric concentrations of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas, have increased since 1860. A regression model indicates that conversion of 2% of manure nitrogen and 2.5% of fertilizer nitrogen could explain the pattern of increasing nitrous oxide concentrations between 1860 and 2005, including a rise in the rate of increase around 1960.
The depth at which particulate organic carbon sinking from the surface ocean is converted back to carbon dioxide is known as the remineralization depth. A three-dimensional global ocean biogeochemistry model suggests that a modest change in remineralization depth can have a substantial impact on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.
The oxidation of ammonia to nitrate, known as nitrification, is a key process in the nitrogen cycle. Real-time polymerase chain-reaction measurements show that nitrification is driven by bacteria rather than archaea in nitrogen-rich grassland soils in New Zealand.
Earthquakes often occur in areas that lack an array of seismometers, resulting in a scarcity of local measurements from some regions of great geological interest. In such regions, some earthquakes themselves may be turned into virtual seismometers that are capable of measuring strain caused by passing waves from other earthquakes.
It has been debated whether rivers or glaciers are more effective agents of erosion. A global compilation of erosion rates reveals that both are capable of generating rates of erosion that match or exceed the highest rates of rock uplift.
Gigantic jets emerge from the top of thunderstorms and extend all the way to the ionosphere at altitudes of 90 km. Simultaneous video images and magnetic field measurements of a gigantic jet demonstrate an electric charge transfer between the thunderstorm and the ionosphere that is comparable to that observed in cloud-to-ground lightning.
