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Turkey has re-elected the incumbent Justice and Development Party government for another five years.Credit: Getty
Turkey researchers fear post-election chill
Scientists in Turkey expect further restrictions of academic freedom after the re-election of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who will hold office for another five years. At universities, his administration has sacked thousands of staff, appointed unelected rectors and curbed autonomy since it came to power 21 years ago. Some researchers are considering early retirement or leaving the country. Others are going to stay and fight for autonomy: “[The election] showed that we are over 25 million that are not just against, but extremely against what is going on in our country,” says psychologist Esra Mungan.
Periodic table cut from India’s textbooks
Schoolchildren in India will no longer be taught about evolution, the periodic table of elements, sustainability, pollution or energy sources such as fossil fuels and renewables. Chapters on all of these topics have been cut from the textbooks and curricula for students aged 11–18. The National Council of Educational Research and Training, which is behind the changes, has not yet explained its rationale to teachers and parents. Experts are baffled, and more than 4,500 have signed an appeal to reinstate the axed content on evolution.
Read more: India’s curriculum body needs to explain why it has removed foundational topics from school textbooks, argues a Nature editorial. (5 min read)
A ‘loss and damage’ fund for nature
One landmark outcome of last year’s 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference was an agreement to create a ‘loss and damage’ fund. For the first time, the countries that contribute the most to rising global temperatures will help those that are being hit hardest by the impacts, such as by shouldering some of the cost of rebuilding flooded areas. A similar idea should be explored for biodiversity loss, argue five environment and development researchers. Two of the key drivers of biodiversity — habitat loss on land and overfishing — are mostly fuelled by consumption in rich countries, they write. The concept of ‘pollutor pays’ in climate finance could be expanded to ‘consumer pays’ for biodiversity loss, they suggest.
The Guardian | 5 min read & Nature Ecology & Evolution | 10 min read
Features & opinion
Chemists edit molecule cores atom by atom
Chemists can now precisely insert, delete or swap atoms inside the core of a molecule, allowing them to make fundamental changes without having to start from scratch: it’s like modifying an old house’s foundations without tearing the whole thing down and rebuilding it. This sort of molecular surgery — known as skeletal editing — could dramatically speed up drug discovery by making it easier to create hundreds of slightly different versions of a molecule to improve its potency or reduce its toxicity. Once considered a ‘moonshot’ concept, skeletal editing methods have exploded in number in the last few years. “It’s almost magical that these changes are now possible,” says organic chemist Richmond Sarpong.
Students brought climate to top world court
For the first time, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will rule on legal consequences for nations that are damaging the climate “by their acts and omissions”. The United Nations resolution was catalysed by 27 law students from eight Pacific Island countries, whose experiences of living on the front line of global warming inspired them to form the advocacy group Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change. “This campaign is my part, and it’s an open opportunity for others to join in by lobbying their leaders for legal action on climate change or attending the public hearing that the ICJ is likely to hold in the next year,” writes the group’s president, Cynthia Houniuhi, who is from the Solomon Islands. “Look at your home and imagine that it is disappearing under water, as mine is. Ask yourself what action that motivates you to take.”
Look at this amazing moss
Moss-loving biologists did a ‘bioblitz’ to catalogue the incredible diversity of bryophytes in the lush Great Bear Rainforest in Canada. This beautifully photographed feature includes plenty of loving portraits of the non-vascular land plants and their rainforest bedfellows. It also explores how the iNaturalist app has become “the most important development in biodiversity science in at least 100 years”, in the words of ecologist Brian Starzomski.
