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A new analysis by Suhrhoff et al. published in Nature examined water chemistry across the Mississippi River basin and found that agricultural liming, long classified by the IPCC as a greenhouse-gas source, has actually removed more CO2 from the atmosphere than it released. US farmers apply over 30 million tonnes of lime annually to manage soil pH, and the reaction was previously assumed to emit CO2 directly.
Researchers at the National University of Singapore have built an optical atomic clock using lutetium ions that is four times more precise than the previous record-holder, a calcium-ion clock. The device would lose less than a second over roughly 260 billion years, making it the most accurate timekeeper reported to date, according to a study published in Nature on September 23.
Researchers Hao Zhang and Mathieu Dumberry report in Nature that gravitational coupling between Earth's solid inner core and its mantle explains multidecadal changes in day length of a few milliseconds. They combined seismological data on inner-core rotation with a model of outer-core flow derived from magnetic field measurements to reach this conclusion.
A Nature paper by Yan et al. used genomics tools to catalog genetic variants, genes and pathways that distinguish the human skeleton from those of chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas. The work builds on the long-standing idea that human-ape differences arise more from regulatory changes in gene expression than from changes in protein-coding sequences themselves.
A team of scientists has compiled a large single-cell gene-expression dataset mapping how brain cells change across aging in mice, published via a Nature-affiliated report. The dataset catalogs expression patterns across numerous cell types and brain regions, intended as a resource for the broader research community.
An NIH-funded partnership called the PsychAD Consortium has published the largest single-cell map of the human prefrontal cortex, drawing on sequencing data from more than six million cells from nearly 1,500 people. The findings appear across eight studies, including three papers in Nature, and detail gene activity in neurons, immune cells and vascular cells in this brain region tied to planning and emotional regulation.
Researchers report on a plant species that reproduces sexually yet generates offspring with clone-like genetic uniformity, a pattern documented in a study published via Nature. The finding challenges the usual expectation that sexual reproduction increases genetic diversity among offspring.
A study published in Nature reports that small variations in the length of Earth's day, on the order of milliseconds over decades, can be explained by competing gravitational, mechanical and electromagnetic forces between Earth's solid inner core, molten outer core and rocky mantle. Researchers, including geophysicist Mathieu Dumberry, had long suspected core-mantle interactions caused these fluctuations but lacked clarity on which specific forces were responsible.
Scientists developed a surface treatment method aimed at improving both efficiency and durability of large-area perovskite solar modules, according to a report published via Nature. The approach targets scaling up perovskite photovoltaic technology while addressing the stability issues that have limited its commercial viability.
A new paper by Bassini and colleagues in Nature presents a spatial map of lipid diversity across the brain, showing that lipids are organized into distinct regional zones rather than being uniformly distributed. The researchers also report that this lipid organization changes during pregnancy, adding a new dimension to understanding brain chemistry beyond well-known lipid structures like myelin.
Researchers analyzed four Arabidopsis thaliana datasets—MA16 and MA32 mutation-accumulation lines, HPG1 natural accessions, and rtel1-1 repair mutants—to track how centromeric DNA changes over generations. High-molecular-weight DNA was extracted and sequenced using PacBio HiFi and Illumina platforms at facilities including the Max Planck Genome Centre and Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen.
A study reports computational modeling of organic two-dimensional polymer heterostructures, combining SCC-DFTB geometry optimization with DFT calculations in VASP. Researchers stacked 2D polyimide, polybenzimidazole and polybenzothiazole layers to mimic experimentally observed lattice matching and calculated properties including work function via electrostatic potential analysis.