Comment in 2015

Jennifer Doudna, a pioneer of the revolutionary genome-editing technology, reflects on how 2015 became the most intense year of her career — and what she's learnt.

Astronomer Meg Urry reflects on a turbulent year for women in science.

Philip Ball ponders the many reasons that chemists make molecules, and weighs what is lost, and gained, when they don't.

Too many studies go unread. Collate them to enable synthesis and guide decision-making in sustainability, urge Madeleine C. McKinnon and colleagues.

Update regulation to spur research into drugs that the body absorbs more easily and that could reach market more quickly, urge Julia L. Shamshina and colleagues.

Extracting carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater could generate resources and save energy, say Wen-Wei Li, Han-Qing Yu and Bruce E. Rittmann.

To prevent disasters, Xiaogang Li and colleagues call for open data infrastructures to collate information on materials failures.

The real business of decarbonization begins after an agreement is signed at the Paris climate conference, argue David G. Victor and James P. Leape.

Luca Montanarella calls for a voluntary international agreement to protect the ground beneath our feet from erosion and degradation.

Better local water management is the way to keep pace with escalating demands, not pumping water across the country, warn Jon Barnett and colleagues.

Lesser-known and junior colleagues helped the great physicist to piece together his general theory of relativity, explain Michel Janssen and Jürgen Renn.

Tim Trevan calls on those working with organisms that are hazardous, or could be so, to take lessons from the nuclear industries, hospitals and other sectors that have established a safety culture.

As various advisory bodies, scientific organizations and funding agencies deliberate on genome editing in humans, Debra J. H. Mathews, Robin Lovell-Badge and colleagues lay out some key points for consideration.

Develop the science of data synthesis to join up the myriad varieties of health information, insist Julian H. Elliott, Jeremy Grimshaw and colleagues.

Open sharing of data that are collected with smart devices would empower citizens and create jobs, say Dirk Helbing and Evangelos Pournaras.

To boost science, higher-education institutes must give students a broad education and become meritocratic, say Nidhal Guessoum and Athar Osama.

Understanding how microbes affect health and the biosphere requires an international initiative, argue Nicole Dubilier, Margaret McFall-Ngai and Liping Zhao.

Cleaning up city and indoor air will require a deeper understanding of the unprecedented chemical reactions between pollutants, says Markku Kulmala.

Andrew Robinson reflects on the most tantalizing of all the undeciphered scripts — that used in the civilization of the Indus valley in the third millennium bc.

Policymakers are ignoring evidence on how advisers make judgements and predictions, warn William J. Sutherland and Mark A. Burgman.