Scientific community and society articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Groundwater resources are coming under increasing pressure leading to water quality loss. Here, the authors find that recent groundwater pumping has led to increasing arsenic concentrations in the San Joaquin Valley, California aquifers from arsenic residing in the pore water of clay strata released by overpumping.

    • Ryan Smith
    • , Rosemary Knight
    •  & Scott Fendorf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Social learning is a crucial human ability. Here, the authors examined children in 7 cultures and show that children’s reliance on social information and their preference to follow the majority vary across societies. However, the ontogeny of majority preference follows the same, U-shaped pattern across all societies.

    • Edwin J. C. van Leeuwen
    • , Emma Cohen
    •  & Daniel B. M. Haun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The rapid growth of South–South trade reflects a new phase of globalization. Here the authors show that some energy-intensive production activities, particularly raw materials and intermediate goods, and related CO2 emissions are relocating from China and India to other developing countries.

    • Jing Meng
    • , Zhifu Mi
    •  & Steven J. Davis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Speaking at a scientific conference helps spread scientific results and is also fundamental for career advancement. Here the authors show that at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, the largest Earth and space science conference, women are offered speaking opportunities less often than men overall.

    • Heather L. Ford
    • , Cameron Brick
    •  & Petra S. Dekens

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Wildland fire seasons in the United States are getting longer, yet the impacts of fire on water availability at the regional scale are unclear. Here the authors show that fire increased annual river flow throughout the West, while prescribed burns in the subtropical Southeast had limited impact on river flow.

    • Dennis W. Hallema
    • , Ge Sun
    •  & Steven G. McNulty

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate oscillations such as El Niño Southern Oscillation may impact global crop production. Here, the authors, using a unified framework of multiple climate oscillations, find that from 1961 to 2010 over two-thirds of the global cropland is located where crop productivity is influenced by climate oscillations.

    • Matias Heino
    • , Michael J. Puma
    •  & Matti Kummu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Previous studies of Pre-Columbian earthworks in the Amazon basin have left a gap in the Upper Tapajós Basin (UTB). Here, the authors detect 104 Pre-Columbian earthworks in the UTB, suggesting continuous occupation across southern Amazonia and higher population densities than previously estimated.

    • Jonas Gregorio de Souza
    • , Denise Pahl Schaan
    •  & José Iriarte

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Land surface models often use a spatially uniform air temperature threshold when partitioning rain and snow. Here Jennings et al. show that the threshold varies significantly across the Northern Hemisphere and that threshold selection is a large source of uncertainty in snowfall simulations.

    • Keith S. Jennings
    • , Taylor S. Winchell
    •  & Noah P. Molotch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    To achieve the climate target of the Paris Agreement substantial emission reductions will be required across economic sectors. Here the authors show that agriculture can make a significant contribution to non-CO2 mitigation efforts through structural change in the livestock sector and the deployment of technical options.

    • Stefan Frank
    • , Robert Beach
    •  & Michael Obersteiner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Expansion of rubber plantations threatens tropical forest carbon stocks and biodiversity, but may be dis-incentivised using carbon finance. Here, Warren-Thomas et al. use forest and agricultural data for Cambodia to show that carbon prices of $30–$51 per tCO2 are needed to match forest protection costs.

    • Eleanor M. Warren-Thomas
    • , David P. Edwards
    •  & Paul M. Dolman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Depending on where and when it occurs, vegetation cover change can affect local climate by altering the surface energy balance. Based on satellite data, this study provides the first data-driven assessment of such effects for multiple vegetation transitions at global scale.

    • Gregory Duveiller
    • , Josh Hooker
    •  & Alessandro Cescatti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The use of drones to deliver commercial packages is poised to become a new industry. Here the authors show that replacing truck delivery by drones can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy use when the drone size and additional warehousing requirements are limited.

    • Joshuah K. Stolaroff
    • , Constantine Samaras
    •  & Daniel Ceperley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Exposure to ambient particulate matter is a key contributor to disease in India and source attribution is vital for pollution control. Here the authors use a high-resolution regional model to show residential emissions dominate particulate matter concentrations and associated premature mortality.

    • Luke Conibear
    • , Edward W. Butt
    •  & Dominick V. Spracklen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Inundation and erosion could make many atoll islands uninhabitable over the next century. Here the authors present an analysis of change in the atoll nation of Tuvalu that shows a 2.9% increase in land area over the past four decades, with 74% of islands increasing in size, despite rising sea levels.

    • Paul S. Kench
    • , Murray R. Ford
    •  & Susan D. Owen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Alhough humans often make a series of related decisions, it is unknown whether this is done by relying on optimal or heuristic strategies. Here, the authors show that humans rely on both the best heuristic and the optimal policy, and that these strategies are controlled by parts of the medial prefrontal cortex.

    • Christoph W. Korn
    •  & Dominik R. Bach

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Artificial intelligence is now superior to humans in many fully competitive games, such as Chess, Go, and Poker. Here the authors develop a machine-learning algorithm that can cooperate effectively with humans when cooperation is beneficial but nontrivial, something humans are remarkably good at.

    • Jacob W. Crandall
    • , Mayada Oudah
    •  & Iyad Rahwan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cross-cultural interactions can cause cultural change, a process known as acculturation. Here, Erten et al. develop a model of cultural change under immigration, considering individuals’ orientations towards acculturation, and find that willingness to interact cross-culturally and resident cultural conservatism favour cultural coexistence.

    • E. Yagmur Erten
    • , Pieter van den Berg
    •  & Franz J. Weissing

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Prioritising areas for conservation is hindered by disagreements over ecological targets. Here, Armsworth et al. combine a simulation approach and case study to test if considering economic return on investment aids in prioritisation, and find that its impact on reaching agreements varies greatly.

    • Paul R. Armsworth
    • , Heather B. Jackson
    •  & Nathan A. Sutton

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Complex networks are a useful tool to investigate the structure of cities and their street networks. Here the authors investigate the shape of travel routes in 92 cities and define a metric called inness which reveals connections between common urban features in cities with similar inness profiles.

    • Minjin Lee
    • , Hugo Barbosa
    •  & Gourab Ghoshal

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Organizations can take different approaches to innovation: they can either follow a strategic process or a serendipitous perspective. Here Fink et al. develop a statistical model to analyse how components combine to obtain a product and thus explain the mechanism behind the two approaches.

    • T. M. A. Fink
    • , M. Reeves
    •  & R. S. Farr

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Bronze-age Indus civilisation (4.6–3.9 ka) was thought to have been linked to the development of water resources in the Himalayas. Here, the authors show that along the former course of the Sutlej River the Indus settlements developed along the abandoned river valley rather than an active Himalayan river.

    • Ajit Singh
    • , Kristina J. Thomsen
    •  & Sanjeev Gupta

  • Article
    | Open Access

    China has entered a new normal phase of economic development with a changing role in global trade. Here the authors show that emissions embodied in China’s exports declined from 2007 to 2012, while developing countries become the major destinations of China’s export emissions.

    • Zhifu Mi
    • , Jing Meng
    •  & Klaus Hubacek

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding and accurate prediction of human mobility is of increasing importance, but a universal framework is lacking. Here, the authors develop a unified model that accurately predicts both individual and population mobility and scaling behaviors on diverse spatial scales.

    • Xiao-Yong Yan
    • , Wen-Xu Wang
    •  & Ying-Cheng Lai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Organic agriculture requires fewer inputs but produces lower yields than conventional farming. Here, via a modeling approach, Muller et al. predict that if food waste and meat consumption are reduced, organic agriculture could feed the world without requiring cropland expansion.

    • Adrian Muller
    • , Christian Schader
    •  & Urs Niggli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The consequences of poverty eradication on limiting warming to 2 °C are not fully clear. Here, Hubacek et al. find that while ending extreme poverty does not jeopardize the climate target, moving everybody to a modest expenditure level increases required mitigation rate by 27%

    • Klaus Hubacek
    • , Giovanni Baiocchi
    •  & Anand Patwardhan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cool roofs have been shown to mitigate heat in urban areas, but their impact on water conservation has not been examined. Here the authors conduct simulations with an urban canopy model to show that implementation of cool roofs in California can also reduce outdoor water consumption by up to 9%.

    • Pouya Vahmani
    •  & Andrew D. Jones

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Significant amounts of different perchlorate salts have been discovered on the surface of Mars. Here, the authors show that magnesium perchlorate has a major impact on water structure in solution, providing insight into how an aqueous fluid might exist under the sub-freezing conditions present on Mars.

    • Samuel Lenton
    • , Natasha H. Rhys
    •  & Lorna Dougan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The influence of sample composition on human neuroimaging results is unknown. Here, the authors weight a large, community-based sample to better reflect the US population and describe how applying these sample weights changes conclusions about age-related variation in brain structure.

    • Kaja Z. LeWinn
    • , Margaret A. Sheridan
    •  & Katie A. McLaughlin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Adélie penguins are a key Antarctic indicator species, but data patchiness has challenged efforts to link population dynamics to key drivers. Che-Castaldo et al. resolve this issue using a pan-Antarctic Bayesian model to infer missing data, and show that spatial aggregation leads to more robust inference regarding dynamics.

    • Christian Che-Castaldo
    • , Stephanie Jenouvrier
    •  & Heather J. Lynch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    International and domestic interprovincial trade of China are entangled, but their health impacts have been treated separately in earlier studies. Here Wang. quantify the complex impacts of trade on public health across China within an integrative framework.

    • Haikun Wang
    • , Yanxu Zhang
    •  & Michael B. McElroy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Traditional approaches used in the pharmaceutical industry are not precise or versatile enough for customized medicine formulation and manufacture. Here the authors produce a method to form coatings, with accurate dosages, as well as a means of closely controlling dissolution kinetics.

    • Olga Shalev
    • , Shreya Raghavan
    •  & Max Shtein

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Punishment by peers can enforce social norms, such as contributing to a public good. Here, Abbink and colleagues show that individuals will enforce norms even when contributions reduce the net benefit of the group, resulting in the maintenance of wasteful contributions.

    • Klaus Abbink
    • , Lata Gangadharan
    •  & John Thrasher

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Systemic dissection of sexually dimorphic phenotypes in mice is lacking. Here, Karp and the International Mouse Phenotype Consortium show that approximately 10% of qualitative traits and 56% of quantitative traits in mice as measured in laboratory setting are sexually dimorphic.

    • Natasha A. Karp
    • , Jeremy Mason
    •  & Jacqueline K. White

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change may alter building energy demand. Here, the authors quantify changes in residential electricity and natural gas demand in Los Angeles County and find that rising temperatures may increase electricity demand by 41–87% between 2020 and 2060, but improved efficiency could lower this increase to 28%.

    • Janet L. Reyna
    •  & Mikhail V. Chester

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Knowledge of payoffs has been assumed to be weakly beneficial for the emergence of cooperation between humans. Here the authors provide evidence to the contrary, showing that during interactions in a competitive environment access to information about payoffs leads to less cooperative behaviour.

    • Steffen Huck
    • , Johannes Leutgeb
    •  & Ryan Oprea

  • Editorial
    | Open Access

    As the challenges and environmental consequences of climate change manifest, the need for a society of science-literate citizens is becoming increasingly apparent. Achieving this, however, is no easy task, particularly given the proliferation of fake news and the seeds of confusion it can sow

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Some argue that health-related behaviours, such as obesity, are contagious, but empirical evidence of health contagion remains inconclusive. Here, using a large scale quasi-experiment in a global network of runners, Aral and Nicolaides show that this type of contagion exists in fitness behaviours.

    • Sinan Aral
    •  & Christos Nicolaides

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quantifying the toxicity of herbicides applied in the field is difficult. Here, the author applies a quotient to evaluate changes in relative toxicity over the past 25 years and finds that increased herbicide use does not necessarily constitute increased toxicity.

    • Andrew R. Kniss

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In ancient cultures without a writing system, it is difficult to infer the basis of status and rank. Here the authors analyse ancient DNA from nine presumed elite individuals buried successively over a 300-year period at Chaco Canyon, and show evidence of matrilineal relationships.

    • Douglas J. Kennett
    • , Stephen Plog
    •  & George H. Perry

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The spread of instabilities in financial systems, similarly to ecosystems, is influenced by topological features of the underlying network structures. Here the authors show, independently of specific financial models, that market integration and diversification can drive the system towards instability.

    • Marco Bardoscia
    • , Stefano Battiston
    •  & Guido Caldarelli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Future agricultural productivity is threatened by high temperatures. Here, using 9 crop models, Schaubergeret al. find that yield losses due to temperatures >30 °C are captured by current models where yield losses by mild heat stress occur mainly due to water stress and can be buffered by irrigation.

    • Bernhard Schauberger
    • , Sotirios Archontoulis
    •  & Katja Frieler

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