Category Archives: Research

Science: Biofuels For Planes, Biodiversity In Ecosystems, Conservation

On this week’s show: Whether biofuels for planes will become a reality, mitigating climate change by working with nature, and the second installment of our book series on the science of food and agriculture.

First this week, Science Staff Writer Robert F. Service talks with producer Meagan Cantwell about sustainable aviation fuel, a story included in Science’s special issue on climate change. Researchers have been able to develop this green gas from materials such as municipal garbage and corn stalks. Will it power air travel in the future?

Also in the special issue this week, Nathalie Seddon, a professor of biodiversity at the University of Oxford, chats with host Sarah Crespi about the value of working with nature to support the biodiversity and resilience of our ecosystems. Seddon emphasizes that nature-based solutions alone cannot stop climate change—technological approaches and behavioral changes will also need to be implemented.

Finally, we have the second installment of our series of author interviews on the science of food and agriculture. Host and science journalist Angela Saini talks to Jessica Hernandez, an Indigenous environmental scientist and author of Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Through Indigenous Science. Hernandez’s book explores the failures of Western conservationism—and what we can learn about land management from Indigenous people.

This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.

[Image: USDA NCRS Texas; Music: Jeffrey Cook]

[alt: cows in a forest]

Authors: Meagan Cantwell; Robert Service, Sarah Crespi, Angela Saini

Cover Preview: Science Magazine – June 24, 2022

COVER: Humanity’s actions have committed us to a warming climate and limited our options for mitigation. Although there is no turning back, some paths are still open to avoid catastrophic climate change and reduce its impacts. We must act now to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and change our approaches to growing food, consuming products, and managing ecosystems to avoid a dire future. See page 1392.

Illustration: Myriam Wares

Our climate future

Time to act

CAROLINE ASH

The matter of a clean energy future

JAMES MORTON TURNER

Previews: New Scientist Magazine – June 25, 2022

New Scientist Default Image

COVER STORIES

  • CULTURE Earth’s musical heritage finds an icy home next to global seed vault
  • FEATURES Personalised cancer vaccines are finally beating hard to treat tumours
  • NEWS Enormous impact flash seen lighting up Jupiter’s atmosphere

Cover Previews: Nature Magazine – June 23, 2022

The science of inequality

To study inequality is to confront a world of contrasts: excessive wealth next to palpable poverty; sickness abutting health. The COVID pandemic has exposed and worsened many such disparities. This week, Nature presents a special collection of articles focusing on the researchers trying to quantify and reduce inequality. Whether they are measuring the effects of the pandemic or testing interventions to lift people out of poverty, the message is simple: gathering the right information will help to mitigate the harm caused by inequality.

Cover image: Mike McQuade.

Volume 606 Issue 7915

Table of Contents

  1. The science of inequality
  2. This Week
  3. News in Focus
  4. Opinion
  5. Research
  6. Amendments & Corrections
  7. Nature Outlook

Covid-19: Can A Vaccine Be Developed That Lasts?

“Roughly two and a half years into the pandemic, White House officials and health experts have reached a pivotal conclusion about Covid-19 vaccines: The current approach of offering booster shots every few months isn’t sustainable.

Though most vaccines take years to develop, the Covid shots now in use were created in record time—in a matter of months. For health authorities and a public desperate for tools to deal with the pandemic, their speedy arrival provided a huge lift, preventing hospitalizations and deaths while helping people to escape lockdowns and return to work, school and many other aspects of pre-Covid life.”

Cover Preview: Science Magazine – June 17, 2022

The triumph and tragedy of the Higgs boson

Ten years ago, physicists found what they predicted. Little new has followed

Ancient DNA reveals Black Death source

Graves in Kyrgyzstan hold early victims of plague that swept medieval Europe

Studies tying weather extremes to global warming gain rigor

Record-shattering events spur climate attribution advances

Previews: New Scientist Magazine – June 18, 2022

New Scientist Default Image

What is time? The mysterious essence of the fourth dimension

The nature of time is a tricky notion to pin down. But whether it is a fundamental part of our universe or just an illusion has huge implications

COVER STORIES

FEATURES Could we ever go back in time? Relativity does not rule it out

FEATURES How do we sense time? The brain cells that order our memories

Cover Preview: Nature Magazine – June 16, 2022

Volume 606 Issue 7914

Living the high life

The cover image shows plants growing at altitude on Altar Volcano in Chimborazo, Ecuador. Extreme altitudes pose challenges for most forms of life, and flowering plants are no exception. But flowering plants have been found growing as high as 6,400 metres above sea level. In this week’s issue, Michael Holdsworth and his colleagues reveal a molecular mechanism that helps plants to adapt to the extremes of altitude. The researchers studied a range of plants, representing four diverse clades of flowering plants — thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana), tomato, poppy and the grass 

Brachypodium distachyon. They found that plants use genetic adaptations to adjust their sensitivity to atmospheric oxygen, whose partial pressure decreases with altitude. By decoding the ambient oxygen level, the plants are able to sense the altitude at which they grow and optimize internal biochemical processes.

Cover image: Cristian Miño, Ecuador.

Cover Preview: Science Magazine – June 10, 2022

Current Issue Cover

REPORTS BY

  • GAIL V. ASHTON
  • AMY L. FREESTONE
  • ET AL.
Predator control of marine communities increases with temperature across 115 degrees of latitude

REPORTS BY

  • MATTHEW R. OLM
  • DYLAN DAHAN
  • ET AL.
Robust variation in infant gut microbiome assembly across a spectrum of lifestyles

RESEARCH ARTICLES BY

  • VICTORIA ACOSTA-RODRÍGUEZ
  • FILIPA RIJO-FERREIRA
  • ET AL.
Circadian alignment of early onset caloric restriction promotes longevity in male C57BL/6J mice

RESEARCH ARTICLES BY

  • XUECHEN ZHU
  • GAOXINGYU HUANG
  • ET AL.
Structure of the cytoplasmic ring of the Xenopus laevis nuclear pore complex

Science: Ancient Giraffes, MAVEN Spacecraft, Mars Rover Rock Collection

A headbashing relative gives insights into giraffe evolution – How the giraffe got its long neck is a longstanding question in science. One possibility is that giraffes evolved longer necks for sexual competition, with males engaging in violent neck-swinging fights.

Now, a team have described fossils of an ancient giraffoid species with a thick headpiece adapted for fighting, which could add weight to this hypothesis.

Nature News: How the giraffe got its neck: ‘unicorn’ fossil could shed light on puzzle

05:18 A wave of resignations signals discontent in academia

Around the world, the ‘great resignation’ has seen huge numbers of workers re-evaluating their careers and lifestyles and choosing to leave their jobs following the pandemic. Academia is no exception, with many scientists deciding to leave the sector in the face of increased workloads, systemic biases and pressure to publish.

Nature Careers: Has the ‘great resignation’ hit academia?

10:34 An emergency fix gets MAVEN back on track

Earlier this year, NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft, which has been orbiting Mars since 2014, developed some serious equipment issues that prevented it from keeping its correct orientation in space. In a race against time, a team on Earth fixed the problem by developing a system that allowed the spacecraft to navigate by the stars.

Space.com: NASA’s Mars MAVEN spacecraft spent 3 months on the brink of disaster

14:28 The Perseverance rovers continues its rock collection

NASA’s Perseverance rover has arrived at an ancient Martian river delta where it will spend the next few months exploring, while scientists assess where to drill and extract rock samples. It’s thought that rocks from this region have the best chance of containing evidence of Martian life, and plans are being developed to return them to Earth in the future.

Nature News: NASA’s Perseverance rover begins key search for life on Mars