Featured
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News |
Coal-fired trigger of mass extinction
Fly ash in the frame for Permian die-off.
- Gayathri Vaidyanathan
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News |
Arsenic sinks to new depths
Groundwater overuse can push poisonous element deeper — a serious risk for countries in Southern Asia.
- Gayathri Vaidyanathan
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News |
Gulf-oil studies stalled by scarce samples
Frustration of independent researchers spills out over suspended distribution by BP and US government.
- Mark Schrope
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News Feature |
Newsmaker of the year: In the eye of the storm
She set out to revolutionize US ocean management — but first she faced the oil spill. Jane Lubchenco is Nature 's Newsmaker of the Year.
- Richard Monastersky
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News |
Oldest research sub Alvin set for rebirth
Famed oceanographic workhorse gets US$40-million upgrade.
- Mark Schrope
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News |
Impacts of Canada's oil-sands operations 'exaggerated'
Report rebuts cancer claims and recommends changes to oversight and monitoring.
- Hannah Hoag
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News |
Polar bears could survive on persisting ice
But Arctic ice must be protected from oil and pollution.
- Nicola Jones
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Letter |
Experimental niche evolution alters the strength of the diversity–productivity relationship
The positive relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem function is well established, but the specific shape of the relationship can vary. Here, experimental evolution is used to show that the strength and slope depends on evolutionary history, with specialists and generalists that have evolved from the same ancestor giving rise to different diversity–function relationships.
- Dominique Gravel
- , Thomas Bell
- & Nicolas Mouquet
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News |
Mercury causes homosexuality in male ibises
Environmental pollutant radically changes birds' mating behaviour.
- Joseph Milton
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Letter |
A ground-based transmission spectrum of the super-Earth exoplanet GJ 1214b
Three distinct models for the recently discovered super-Earth (masses 2–10 times that of Earth) planet GJ 1214b that are consistent with its mass and radius have been suggested. Breaking the degeneracy between these models requires obtaining constraints on the planet's atmospheric composition. Here, a ground based measurement of the transmission spectrum of GJ 1214b between 780 and 1,000 nm is reported. The lack of features in this spectrum rules out cloud free atmospheres composed primarily of hydrogen. If the planet's atmosphere is hydrogen-dominated, then it must contain clouds or hazes that are optically thick at pressures <200 mbar. Alternatively, the data are also consistent with the presence of a dense water vapour atmosphere.
- Jacob L. Bean
- , Eliza Miller-Ricci Kempton
- & Derek Homeier
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Editorial |
Citizen scientists
Scientists should speak out on the environmental effects of ventures such as tar-sands mining.
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Comment |
Tar sands need solid science
As Canada exploits its oil sands ever faster, David Schindler calls for industry-independent environmental monitoring to back up better water-quality regulation.
- David Schindler
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News |
Peer-reviewed 'oil budget' appeases scientists
Government agencies release revised account of fate of oil from Deepwater Horizon spill.
- Mark Schrope
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Letter |
Intrusion triggering of the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull explosive eruption
The deformation style at moderately active volcanoes — such as Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland, which underwent an explosive summit eruption earlier this year — is little understood. These authors show that deformation associated with the eruptions at Eyjafjallajökull was unusual as it did not relate to pressure changes within a single magma chamber, and infer that this behaviour might be attributed to its off-rift setting with a 'cold' subsurface structure and limited magma at shallow depth.
- Freysteinn Sigmundsson
- , Sigrún Hreinsdóttir
- & Kurt L. Feigl
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News |
Wastewater chemicals dampen fish fervour
Nest protection and mating behaviour are altered by low levels of pharmaceuticals and antibacterials.
- Richard Lovett
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News |
Oil spill's toxic trade-off
Dispersed oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster could be more dangerous to wildlife than reports suggest.
- Richard A. Lovett
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News |
A warming Earth could mean stronger toxins
Climate change may force a rethink of toxicity measurements.
- Richard A. Lovett
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News |
Oil spill cruise finds field of dead coral
Scientific expedition assesses deep-sea damage in the Gulf of Mexico.
- Mark Schrope
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News |
Quango bonfire kindles advice fears
Abolition of UK regulatory bodies could compromise independent scientific guidance.
- Daniel Cressey
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News Feature |
Environment: Mexico's scientist in chief
After winning a Nobel prize for helping to protect the planet, Mario Molina is tackling a much more difficult problem — trying to clean up Mexico City.
- Jeff Tollefson
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Research Highlights |
Ecology: The tundra warms and grows
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Letter |
An amorphous solid state of biogenic secondary organic aerosol particles
Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) particles can scatter radiation and act as cloud condensation nuclei, and thereby influence the Earth's radiation balance. It is generally assumed that SOA particles are liquid, but these authors show that they can adopt an amorphous solid state under ambient conditions. The findings challenge traditional views of the kinetics and thermodynamics of SOA formation and transformation in the atmosphere.
- Annele Virtanen
- , Jorma Joutsensaari
- & Ari Laaksonen
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News |
Analysis lags on Hungarian sludge leak
Report stirs controversy as it reveals unexpected levels of toxic heavy metals.
- Quirin Schiermeier
- & Yana Balling
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Research Highlights |
Environmental science: Where greenhouse gases start
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Books & Arts |
Environment: Venice's fragile lagoon
A section of salt marsh in a Biennale pavilion links the city and its environment, notes Colin Martin.
- Colin Martin
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News |
Phosphate fertilizer warning for China
Overuse of the fertilizer has wasted a valuable natural resource and caused serious pollution.
- Jane Qiu
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Letter |
An abrupt drop in Northern Hemisphere sea surface temperature around 1970
Global-mean surface temperatures have risen, fallen and risen again during the twentieth century, with some differences between the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The cooling is usually thought to be due to a peak in sulphate aerosol production or to changes in the climate of the world's oceans that arise over decades. Here it is shown that an abrupt change in sea surface temperatures accounts for much of the Northern Hemisphere cooling. The event was too rapid to have been caused by aerosols or multidecadal variability.
- David W. J. Thompson
- , John M. Wallace
- & Phil D. Jones
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News Feature |
Atmospheric science: A towering experiment
An ambitious project to track greenhouse gases from a perch high above the Amazon forest will provide crucial data — but only if scientists can get it built.
- Jeff Tollefson
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News |
Oil-spill bacteria gobbled gases first
Levels of ethane and propane consumed by Gulf microbes spark questions about the oil's fate.
- Amanda Mascarelli
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Letter |
Decreased frequency of North Atlantic polar lows associated with future climate warming
Climate change is often associated with an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events, such as heat waves or intense precipitation. Here, however, downscaled climate model simulations have been used to show that the frequency of North Atlantic polar lows — intense storms that are considerably smaller than the weather-dominating synoptic depressions — is projected to decrease by the end of the twenty-first century.
- Matthias Zahn
- & Hans von Storch
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Letter |
Early warning signals of extinction in deteriorating environments
Populations that become extinct because of environmental degradation pass a tipping point, after which extinction is inevitable. But theory predicts that the population's dynamics indicate what is coming beforehand, through the phenomenon of critical slowing down. It has now been shown that critical slowing down can be used to anticipate extinction in experimental populations of Daphnia magna.
- John M. Drake
- & Blaine D. Griffen
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News |
Aquatic conservation efforts pay off
Clean-up of Potomac River offers hope to environmentalists worldwide.
- Richard A. Lovett
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News Q&A |
What lies beneath Antarctic ice
Rodolfo del Valle and his team are heading to the Southern Ocean to measure a methane leak.
- Ana Belluscio
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News |
The mystery of the missing oil plume
Confounding reports seed confusion over long-term effects of the spill.
- Amanda Mascarelli
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News |
River metals linked to tar sand extraction
Researchers find that pollutants in Canada's Athabasca River are not from natural sources.
- Hannah Hoag
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News |
Extent of lingering Gulf oil plume revealed
Extensive chemical analysis confirms that undegraded oil remains at ocean depths.
- Amanda Mascarelli
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News |
Science panel gives hope in river-pollution dispute
Environmental monitoring set to resolve arguments over paper mill.
- Anna Petherick
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Letter |
Precipitation-generated oscillations in open cellular cloud fields
Cloud simulation is one of the most challenging tasks in regional to global-scale modelling. In many cases, the physical mechanisms responsible for observed cloud dynamics are unknown, making it difficult to realistically simulate their structure and behaviour. These authors show that open cellular clouds — characterized by low albedo — can be created by precipitation-driven downdrafts and that the resulting cloud structure forms an oscillating, self-organizing cloud field.
- Graham Feingold
- , Ilan Koren
- & Wm. Alan Brewer