The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC)—a system of ocean currents in the North Atlantic—has a major impact on climate, yet its evolution during the industrial era is poorly known owing to a lack of direct current measurements. Here we provide evidence for a weakening of the AMOC by about 3 ± 1 sverdrups (around 15 per cent) since the mid-twentieth century.

Drug regulators and trial designs should assess benefits that actually matter to people with cancer, says Ajay Aggarwal.

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Carbon stocks in vegetation have a key role in the climate system. However, the magnitude, patterns and uncertainties of carbon stocks and the effect of land use on the stocks remain poorly quantified. Here we show, using state-of-the-art datasets, that vegetation currently stores around 450 petagrams of carbon. In the hypothetical absence of land use, potential vegetation would store around 916 petagrams of carbon, under current climate conditions. This difference highlights the massive effect of land use on biomass stocks.

Noble gases trapped in ice cores are used to show that the mean global ocean temperature increased by 2.6 degrees Celsius over the last glacial transition and is closely correlated with Antarctic temperature.

Models show that several aspects of Earth’s top-of-atmosphere energy budget and the magnitude of projected global warming are correlated, enabling us to infer that future warming has been underestimated.

As phase 1 of the Earth Microbiome Project, analysis of 16S ribosomal RNA sequences from more than 27,000 environmental samples delivers a global picture of the basic structure and drivers of microbial distribution.

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TB remains a big killer despite the development of a better test for detecting the disease.

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When a condition commonly associated with a lifetime of alcohol abuse — severe scarring of the liver, or cirrhosis — starts to show up in children as young as eight, something is very wrong.

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Empirical two-part models describe the relationship between conservation spending, human development pressures and biodiversity loss and can inform sustainable development strategies by predicting the effects of financing decisions on future biodiversity losses.

Poor air quality is one of the leading five health risks worldwide, along with high blood pressure, tobacco smoking, diabetes and being overweight. In 2015, it contributed to nearly 8% of all deaths worldwide. Long-term exposure to polluted air has been linked to respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke, heart attack and lung cancer. It is justifiably called ‘passive outdoor smoking’.

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