In Nature this week: Climate pledges – fully realizing current promises could limit warming to just below 2 °C , but 1.5 °C is still out of reach. Browse the full issue here: https://t.co/eEMf9XL8lBpic.twitter.com/GuaC5pdolG
No human has set foot on the Moon for decades. But an armada of exciting new missions are set to explore the lunar surface once more.
The DNA detective
The consumer genetic testing kits hitting the shelves have allowed scientists to piece together our family trees better than ever before. Geneticist Prof Turi King tells us more.
Fit to burst
Inflation is a pretty useful tool in nature. Zoologist Jules Howard takes a closer look at some of the incredible animals that can blow themselves up like balloons.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Metaverse
What is the metaverse, can anyone visit, and where’s the best place to go?
Even before COVID-19 increased the risks of cognitive impairments, it had been estimated that 152.8 million people globally would be living with dementia by 2050. Yet treatment for Alzheimer’s disease has hardly improved since it was discovered in 1901, notes neurologist and dementia specialist Sara Manning Peskin. Now, most clinical trials tackling dementia are “deeply rooted in molecular data”. Peskin’s powerful study — immersed in her patients’ stories — analyses neurology’s attempt to reach oncology’s molecular understanding.
The Insect Crisis
Oliver Milman Atlantic (2022)
Insect decline is obvious — but hard to quantify. Environmental journalist Oliver Milman suggests a drop of more than 90% in some places, in his vivid alarm call. The causes are unclear, but include habitat destruction by intensive farming, pesticide use and climate change. Insects’ “intricate dance” with Earth’s environment makes them crucial to human food supplies. We should learn to eat them, not meat, suggests Milman: that will help to save them by freeing farmland from crops needed to feed livestock.
Insulin — The Crooked Timber
Kersten T. Hall Oxford Univ. Press (2022)
Insulin was first used to treat human diabetes 100 years ago, after it was isolated by two medical scientists in 1921. Historian of science Kersten Hall describes this transformative event, together with insulin’s development as the first drug produced by genetic engineering and its lucrative exploitation — using a blend of profound research, lively writing and personal knowledge of diabetes. He argues that the history is a tale not of geniuses or saints, but rather one of “monstrous egos, toxic insecurities and bitter career rivalry”.
How to Solve a Crime
Angela Gallop Hodder & Stoughton (2022)
More than a century ago, criminologist Edmond Locard established forensic science on the principle that “every contact leaves a trace”. The field’s current sophistication and contribution to justice would be beyond his “wildest imaginings”, writes forensic scientist Angela Gallop. She tells gripping stories from her own and others’ experience, beginning with thirteenth-century Chinese investigator Sung Tz’u. He identified a farmer’s killer by asking fellow villagers to put their sickles on the ground; flies alighted on one blade bearing traces of blood.
The Sloth Lemur’s Song
Alison Richard William Collins (2022)
Anthropologist and conservationist Alison Richard has been absorbed by Madagascar for half a century. She writes that the country’s “animals and plants offer a wonderful array of rabbit holes down which a person fascinated by the natural world could disappear for a lifetime”. Why, for example, does its largest lemur sing spellbindingly across the treetops with its mate for many minutes? And what environmental conditions created the island’s unique — now disastrously threatened —
On this week’s show: A new measurement of the W boson could challenge physicists’ standard model, and an abundance of marine RNA viruses.
Staff Writer Adrian Cho joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss a new threat to the standard model of particle physics—a heavier than expected measurement of a fundamental particle called the W boson. They chat about how this measurement was taken, and what it means if it is right.
Next, Sarah talks about the microscopic denizens of Earth’s oceans with Ahmed Zayed, a research scientist in the department of microbiology at Ohio State University, Columbus. They talk about findings from a global survey of marine RNA viruses. The results double the number of known RNA viruses, suggesting new classifications will be needed to categorize all this viral diversity.
A new, very-high-precision measurement of the W boson mass suggests that improvements to calculations or extensions to the standard model of particle physics might be needed.
In this week's issue: A new wave of archaeological investigations is reconstructing intimate details of our ancestors' lives from fossilised footprints.
On this week’s show: A journey to the center of the center of the Earth, and what was missing from the first human genome project.
Staff Writer Paul Voosen talks with host Sarah Crespi about the many mysteries surrounding the innermost part of our planet—from its surprisingly recent birth to whether it spins faster or slower than the rest of the planet.
Next,Sarah chats with Adam Phillippy about the results from the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) Consortium, an effort to create a complete and detailed read of the human genome. Phillippy, a senior investigator and head of the Genome Informatics Section at the National Human Genome Research Institute, explains what we can learn by topping up the human genome with roughly 200 more megabases of genetic information—practically a whole chromosome’s worth of additional sequencing.
A special section in this week's issue of Science presents research by the Telomere-to-Telomere (#T2T) Consortium, which has completed a challenging 8% of the human genome left unresolved by the initial Human Genome Project.
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