Dr Urmila Chadayammuri

FYI for authors: we have a LaTeX template for papers in the Springer Nature portfolio. Should make your life a wee bit easier. www.springernature.com/gp/authors/c...

Got to review a book about the history and legacy of Leon Foucault’s pendulum experiment. Here it is, free to read: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries monitors a world out of balance - Nature A revised ‘Doughnut’ providing a visual assessment of trends in social deprivation and planetary degradation over the past two decades shows more than doubling of global GDP accompanied by accelerating ecological overshoot but only a modest reduction in human deprivation.

For a full (open-access, so free for you to read!) analysis, see www.nature.com/articles/s41....

End GDP mania: how the world should really measure prosperity The obsession with economic output as a measure of human development puts sustainability on the back burner. Researchers can now help to devise better indicators.

If you, like countless others, wonder why GDP numbers look great while your economic experience goes to sh*t, there's a wealth of research explaining why. GDP is simply not a good/complete measure of economic health.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Wrote my very first book review! Free for you to read: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

US brain drain: the scientists seeking jobs abroad amid Trump’s assault on research Five US-based researchers tell Nature why they are exploring career opportunities overseas.

“This isn’t just one of those moments where you say, ‘If it gets bad, I’ll leave'[.] It already has.”
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

A graph comparing the greenhouse gas emissions of various protein-rich foods, measured in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents (kgCO2 eq) per 100 grams of protein. The chart features colorful curves representing different food items, with the height of each curve indicating the level of emissions associated with its production. The bottom line is that plant-based protein sources still have a lower footprint than the lowest-impact meat products. Sources are credited to Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek (2018) for the data and Our World in Data for the visualization

If you want to reduce the carbon footprint of your diet, less meat is nearly always better than sustainable meat.

US researchers must stand up to protect freedoms, not just funding Curtailment of freedoms and disregard for the rule of law in the United States is destroying the ability of science to serve the nation’s, and the world’s, interests. Researchers can take action.

The US administration is eroding the freedoms on which the nation’s success has been based

https://go.nature.com/4jRfcfs

Signs of life on a distant planet? Not so fast, say these astronomers Bold claims of ‘biosignature’ molecules trigger an outpouring of scepticism.

Science does not have to find aliens to be very cool. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Is There Such a Thing as a Biosignature? | Astrobiology The concept of a biosignature is widely used in astrobiology to suggest a link between some observation and a biological cause, given some context. The term itself has been defined and used in several ways in different parts of the scientific community involved in the search for past or present life on Earth and beyond. With the ongoing acceleration in the search for life in distant time and/or deep space, there is a need for clarity and accuracy in the formulation and reporting of claims. Here, we critically review the biosignature concept(s) and the associated nomenclature in light of several problems and ambiguities emphasized by recent works. One worry is that these terms and concepts may imply greater certainty than is usually justified by a rational interpretation of the data. A related worry is that terms such as “biosignature” may be inherently misleading, for example, because the divide between life and non-life—and their observable effects—is fuzzy. Another worry is that different parts of the multidisciplinary community may use non-equivalent or conflicting definitions and conceptions, leading to avoidable confusion. This review leads us to identify a number of pitfalls and to suggest how they can be circumvented. In general, we conclude that astrobiologists should exercise particular caution in deciding whether and how to use the concept of biosignature when thinking and communicating about habitability or life. Concepts and terms should be selected carefully and defined explicitly where appropriate. This would improve clarity and accuracy in the formulation of claims and subsequent technical and public communication about some of the most profound and important questions in science and society. With this objective in mind, we provide a checklist of questions that scientists and other interested parties should ask when assessing any reported detection of a “biosignature” to better understand exactly what is being claimed.

There are lots of great papers out there on the limitations of claiming the existence of "life" from the detection of certain molecules; here is just one. The astrobiology community itself has plenty of nuanced discussions on the defining life beyond Earth.

liebertpub.com/doi/full/10....

Global pandemic treaty finalized, without U.S., in ‘a victory for multilateralism’ Three years in the making, the accord aims to increase equity and avoid errors of the COVID-19 pandemic

It took an extension to the extension of the extension, but after more than 3 years of negotiations, governments around the globe—but notably, not the United States—have finally agreed on a treaty to improve how the world prevents, prepares for, and responds to future pandemics. scim.ag/4lDYcLe

Can't believe we have to be writing about this in 2025, but here you go.

Science’s big problem is a loss of influence, not a loss of trust Evidence shows that science and scientists remain highly trusted. But genuine scientific voices are not shouting loud enough over the noise to hold sway.

Most people still trust science, but most also believe it is increasingly politicised, which drives them to non-institutional sources and riskier behaviour. What we can do about it: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Cleaning up space: how satellites and telescopes can live together Satellites connect people around the world but they also interfere with astronomers’ views of the cosmos. There are ways to reduce these tensions.

Editorial: The skies are a shared resource. We spend public money and push the limits of technology to look into the depths of the Universe - but now often see private communication satellites instead. Solutions exist, but regulation and enforcement are lacking. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Space debris is falling from the skies. We need to tackle this growing danger Why failing to control defunct satellites leaves everyone at risk from their impacts.

Space debris is not an abstract or distant problem - it crash-lands in or right next to human settlements around the world. And with tens of thousands of launches every year, this is not getting any better unless we fundamentally change both design and regulation. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The Page Turners Collective: Give Monthly to Support Our Work Every Day - The Open Notebook By joining the Page Turners Collective, our community of monthly recurring donors, you become a cornerstone of our efforts to nurture and support science journalism around the world.

Do you like #science? Do you think #journalism is a Good Thing? If so, please join me as a donor to @theopennotebook.bsky.social — the free resource that provides tools for writers to cover climate change, global health, technology & other crucial issues.

www.theopennotebook.com/the-page-tur....

An optical image mosaic of the Milky Way galaxy shows a view looking toward the Galactic Center. The smooth band of starlight is occluded by dark clouds of interstellar dust, which absorbs and scatters background light (extinction), causing distant stars to appear fainter and redder. Variations in the properties of this dust extinction have been mapped in three dimensions using 130 million stellar spectra.

Researchers have created three-dimensional maps of the interstellar dust extinction curve within the Milky Way galaxy. The results provide improved extinction corrections for astronomical observations.

Learn more in this week's issue of Science: scim.ag/41M1gLX

Wow, you really can't make this up.

US science is under threat ― now scientists are fighting back Researchers are organizing protests and making their voices heard as Trump officials slash funding and lay off federal scientists.

The last month has seen shock & sorrow in the US research community, with grant freezes & cuts, mass firings of government scientists, & much more.

Now many are fighting back. @heidiledford.bsky.social reports for @nature.com on the rise of scientist-activists:

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

🧪

Move beyond ‘publish or perish’ by measuring behaviours that benefit academia A standardized system to measure contributions in mentorship, collaboration and more could bring about systemic change in science.

“Publication-based evaluation has shaped and sometimes distorted academia. The community faces a choice: maintain the status quo, or experiment with new measures that better align with our values,” writes Kelly-Ann Allen in a Nature World View article. #Academicsky 🧪

“For much of our 155-year history, the United States has been the global leader in research […]. With the changes now under way, the new administration seems to be inclined to recklessly consign that to history. We at Nature denounce this assault on science.”

Postdocs and PhD students hit hard by Trump’s crackdown on science As US federal grants remain frozen and budget cuts loom, anxiety and fear grip early-career researchers.

I remember when my PhD salary as a Smithsonian fellow was on the line during a govt shutdown during Trump 1.0, my friends offering to lend me money. I left soon after because it was bad enough; I don't think I saw this coming. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

How scientists can drive climate action: celebrate nature and promote hope After years of storytelling and running classes and festivals, I’ve seen first-hand how a love of nature makes people want to protect it.

“Public communication must move beyond stories of doom and gloom, which — although realistic — have the unfortunate effect of making many people step away, instead of engaging in the conversation,” writes Harini Nagendra in Nature. 🧪

Expert peer reviewers and editors do their/our best to catch falsified data, but ~0.1% of papers are eventually discovered as fraudulent and retracted. These are canaries in the goldmine of publish-or-perish academic environments.

Composition of and recycling process for an EV battery

Electric cars are coming by the millions. But what will happen to all the dead batteries?

Learn more on #NationalBatteryDay: https://scim.ag/4hG9FHv

Sabr: A care collaborative People's Care Collaborative

I first dipped my toes into research as field assistant to my cousin Devi Vijay during her PhD on community-organised palliative healthcare. Now she has co-launched a deeply thoughtful zine on this timeless question: how can we care for each other? Also available on Spotify: sabr.org.in

Here’s Why Elon Musk’s ‘Fork in the Road’ Is Really a Dead End Elon Musk’s Fork in the Road isn’t just a sculpture—it’s a monument to the tech world’s obsession with civilizational survival, which has its roots in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence

On the nose - "By framing humanity’s challenges as simple engineering problems rather than complex systemic ones, technologists position themselves as decisive architects of our future, crafting grand visions that sidestep the messier, necessary work of social, political and collaborative change."

Are the Trump team’s actions affecting your research? How to contact Nature Use this form to share information with Nature’s news team, or to make suggestions for future coverage.

Use this form to tell us how the new US administration is affecting your research, or suggest future coverage

https://go.nature.com/42SyoUu

The bulk motion of gas in the core of the Centaurus galaxy cluster - Nature X-ray spectroscopic observations of the Centaurus galaxy cluster with the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission satellite show that the hot gas flows along the line of sight relative to the central g...

So pleased to see the very first paper from JAXA's XRISM mission on our pages! It was a very long journey to the first X-ray microcalorimeter, and allows us to directly measure the speed of astrophysical plasmas like never before. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Earth’s mysterious inner core really is changing shape Earthquakes ringing through the planet illuminate how its heart is transforming.

Did you need distraction from the rest of the world today? I got you covered with a story about Earth's inner core. It's changing shape! And rotating weird! 🧪