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Lightning typically forms with the aid of warm air, which is why it has historically been rare in the Arctic.Credit: Tommy Eliassen/Science Photo Library
Record-breaking lightning in the Arctic?
The Arctic might be seeing record-breaking numbers of lightning strokes — and the trend looks likely to continue to rise. “We’re seeing a symptom of global climate change,” says atmospheric physicist Robert Holzworth, director of the World Wide Lightning Location Network, the collection of ground-based sensors that measured the data. The change could have a significant impact on the region, which has seen a record number of wildfires in recent years. But not all researchers agree that the trend is real. Another lightning-detection network, with records that do not extend as far back as those Holzworth studied, does not find the same increase.
Podcast: Pandemic prevention — the game
In the strategy video-game Plague Inc: The Cure, players assume the role of an omnipotent global health agency trying to tackle outbreaks of increasingly nasty pathogens. The Nature Podcast looks at how the game was developed, and how it might help to change public perception of pandemic responses. Plus, the first of our legendary science-themed festive songs looks back at the launch of three separate space missions to the red planet with ‘We three Spacecraft travel to Mars’.
Nature Podcast | 36 min listen
Hear more: Coronapod: The big COVID research papers of 2020 (Nature Coronapod Podcast | 26 min listen)
Subscribe to the Nature Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify.
COVID-19 vaccine update
Throat and nasal swabs have been used worldwide to detect the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.Credit: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters
The year of COVID-19
One event dominated in 2020: the COVID-19 pandemic. The speed of its spread has been matched only by the pace of scientific insights on the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. From the pandemic’s early days, scientists developed models to predict the virus’s spread, and advised governments on how to control it. COVID-19 vaccines have been developed, tested — and now rolled out in some countries — with breathtaking swiftness. Researchers have also raced to test a slew of potential treatments, with mixed success. And, as it has for almost everyone, the pandemic has taken a huge toll on researchers’ working and personal lives.
Science beyond the pandemic
Despite the ravages of COVID-19, science continued in 2020. Mars missions, record‑breaking wildfires and a room‑temperature superconductor are among this year’s top non‑COVID stories.
Unmissable science from 2020
• A new virus, wafer-thin solar cells, gene‑edited squid and more are pictured among the year’s best science images. (Nature | Leisurely scroll)
• Go deep into some of the year’s most notable discoveries in our pick of Nature News & Views articles. Among them: jet-stream changes resulting from a global ban on ozone-depleting pollutants, and tiny protein alterations that help to make fruit flies into picky eaters. (Nature | 8 min read)
Features & opinion
Two children tell the tale of air pollution
In New Delhi, one of the world’s most-polluted cities, children are losing years of life to air pollution. But the impact is far from equitable. Thirteen-year-old Monu lives in a slum where cooking and heat are achieved through open fires, and he attends an open-air school under a bridge. Eleven-year-old Aamya’s life proceeds in the constantly filtered air of her home, car and school. The New York Times follows one day in the lives of the two children, using data from air-quality monitors and beautifully shot video to show how their exposure differs.
The New York Times | 15 min read
The pandemic bookshelf
To make sense of a year in which decades’ worth of events have happened in weeks, books help, writes reviewer Tilli Tansey — from those that are centuries old, to those that are out of date as they hit the shelves. Just as diarist Samuel Pepys showed us the Great Plague of 1665 through the eyes of a government administrator, pandemic-era scientists, doctors, historians and journalists are already refracting history-in-the-making through the prism of their own experiences.
Futures: Alligators
In Alligators, the latest short story for Nature’s Futures series, author Monica Joyce Evans ponders the lengths we might go to to recover something of the ones we’ve lost — and how the soon-to-be-departed might feel about it.
Nature’s 10
Ten people who helped shape science in 2020
A dengue-fever fighter, an Arctic voyager and a prime minister are some of the fascinating people behind the year’s big research stories. One of them is Kathrin Jansen, the head of vaccine research and development at US drug firm Pfizer, whose vaccine is now being rolled out across the United States, United Kingdom and elsewhere. “She’s absolutely fearless as a scientist,” adds Edward Scolnick, a former colleague of Jansen’s at Merck Research Laboratories. “She has complete confidence that she can technically and intellectually solve any problem that might get in the way.”
Where I work
Lilla Lovász is a PhD student in zoology at the University of Basel, Switzerland.Credit: Clara Tuma for Nature
Zoologist Lilla Lovász studies a conservation area of rare and precious meadowland near the junction of France, Germany and Switzerland. An essential part of the ecosystem are Konik horses, which might be direct descendants of wild horses, and Highland cows. “I have to be in a calm state to take a horse’s [GPS] collar off and put it back on, because they are so sensitive to human moods,” says Lovász. “They have to be in the right mood, too, or I’ll get a warning kick.” (Nature | 3 min read)
