Scientific community and society articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Reconstructing language dispersal patterns is important for understanding cultural spread and demic diffusion. Here, the authors use a computational approach based on velocity field estimation to infer the dispersal patterns of Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Bantu, and Arawak language families.

    • Sizhe Yang
    • , Xiaoru Sun
    •  & Menghan Zhang

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    We examine the call for decolonising academic disciplines, and the extent which this applies to engineering. We argue that anticolonial endeavours should systematically recognise colonial legacy in contemporary science and technology, and reframe technological innovation in light of neocolonial extraction and exploitation.

    • Srinjoy Mitra
    • , Suvobrata Sarkar
    •  & Agomoni Ganguli-Mitra

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using historical data across the U.S., the authors find that population declines are associated with flood exposure. Projecting this relationship to 2053, the authors find that flood risk may result in 7% lower growth than otherwise expected.

    • Evelyn G. Shu
    • , Jeremy R. Porter
    •  & Edward Kearns

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A resilient battery electric bus transit system design and configuration is proposed. The model is robust against simultaneous charging disruptions without interrupting daily operation. Indeed, additional marginal cost is required, yet it prevents significant service reductions.

    • Ahmed Foda
    • , Moataz Mohamed
    •  & Ehab El-Saadany

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Accurately benchmarking small variant calling accuracy is critical for the continued improvement of human genome sequencing. Here, the authors show that current approaches are biased towards certain variant representations and develop a new approach to ensure consistent and accurate benchmarking, regardless of the original variant representations.

    • Tim Dunn
    •  & Satish Narayanasamy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study introduce the Global Biojet Fuel Sustainability Index, a holistic 25-indicator sustainability index encompassing the four domains of energy-water-food nexus and governance, to measure the potential impact of RJF productions on 154 countries/territories through the oil-to-jet, alcohol-to-jet and gas-to-jet conversion methods.

    • Cheng Tung Chong
    •  & Jo-Han Ng

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Drawing on perspectives from West and Southern Africa, this Comment critically examines the current state of neuroscience progress in Africa, describing the unique landscape and ongoing challenges as embedded within wider socio-political realities. Distinct research opportunities in the African context are explored to include genetic and bio-diversity, multilingual and multicultural populations, life-course development, clinical neuroscience and neuropsychology, with applications to machine learning models, in light of complex post-colonial legacies that often impede research progress. Key determinants needed to accelerate African neuroscience are then discussed, as well as cautionary underpinnings that together create an equitable neuroscience framework.

    • Sahba Besharati
    •  & Rufus Akinyemi

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The estimates of the societal costs of carbon currently used for policy evaluations may be too low due to an insufficient representation of tropical cyclone damage. Accounting for them substantially increases the estimated benefits of climate change mitigation measures.

    • Hazem Krichene
    • , Thomas Vogt
    •  & Christian Otto

  • Article
    | Open Access

    While accounting for intrinsic differences between short- and long-lived greenhouse gases, solely relying on soil carbon sequestration in grasslands to offset warming effect of emissions from current ruminant systems is not feasible

    • Yue Wang
    • , Imke J. M. de Boer
    •  & Corina E. van Middelaar

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Novel indicators of infectious disease prevalence could improve real-time surveillance and support healthcare planning. Here, the authors show that sales data for non-prescription medications from a UK high street retailer can improve the accuracy of models forecasting mortality from respiratory infections.

    • Elizabeth Dolan
    • , James Goulding
    •  & Laila J. Tata

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study finds that flood insurance policy design affects economic development in floodplains and, consequently, flood risk in Europe. Therefore, the authors advocate for flood insurance design to be integrated in climate change adaptation policy.

    • Max Tesselaar
    • , W. J. Wouter Botzen
    •  & Jeroen C. J. H. Aerts

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Green technologies foster the use of green energy; however, large investment costs hinder adoption. In a large-scale field experiment, the authors show that message framing can promote a serious commitment to solar panels among the broader public.

    • Dominik Bär
    • , Stefan Feuerriegel
    •  & Markus Weinmann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Over their careers, medicinal chemists develop a gut feeling for what is a promising molecule. Here, the authors use machine learning models to learn this intuition and show that it can be successfully applied in several drug discovery scenarios.

    • Oh-Hyeon Choung
    • , Riccardo Vianello
    •  & José Jiménez-Luna

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Membrane distillation is an emerging desalination technology to obtain freshwater from saline based on low-grade energy. Here the authors report on novel superhydrophobic hierarchical porous membranes with enhanced distillation flux suitable for desalination or wastewater treatment.

    • Youmin Hou
    • , Prexa Shah
    •  & Hans-Jürgen Butt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Microbial communication has significant implications for industrial applications, but constructing communication systems which support coordinated behaviors is challenging. Here, the authors report an electron transfer triggered redox communication network and demonstrate its ability to coordinate microbial metabolism.

    • Na Chen
    • , Na Du
    •  & Quan Yuan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Electrified groundwater irrigation is a major driver of India’s agricultural growth. India refocussed rural electrification towards household electrification in early 2000s in detriment of groundwater irrigation electrification, the authors find.

    • Sudatta Ray
    •  & Hemant K. Pullabhotla

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Marine food resources are commonly thought to have become marginal food or abandoned altogether with the spread of agriculture in Europe. Here, the authors use biomarkers in dental calculus to track widespread consumption of seaweed and aquatic plants through the Neolithic and into the Early Middle Ages.

    • Stephen Buckley
    • , Karen Hardy
    •  & Maria Eulalia Subirà

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cooperation is more likely when individuals can choose their interaction partner. However, here, the authors show that partner choice can increase resource inequality in a public goods game when people differ in resources and productivity needed for cooperation.

    • Mirre Stallen
    • , Luuk L. Snijder
    •  & Carsten K. W. De Dreu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A study of 1,028 global cities from 2000-2018 shows increased human exposure to greenspace, reducing greenspace inequality. Notably, cities in the Global South improved nearly four times faster than those in the Global North. These insights can guide city greening strategies.

    • Shengbiao Wu
    • , Bin Chen
    •  & Peng Gong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rare Mendelian disorders pose a major diagnostic challenge, but evaluation of automated tools that aim to uncover causal genes tools is limited. Here, the authors present a computational pipeline that simulates realistic clinical datasets to address this deficit.

    • Emily Alsentzer
    • , Samuel G. Finlayson
    •  & Isaac S. Kohane

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Weak adhesion is a common hindrance to efficient utilization of pesticides in agricultural applications. Here, authors demonstrate leaf-adhesive tebuconazole nanopesticides which can be water-dispersed via flash nanoprecipitation using temperature-responsive copolymers PDMAEMA-b-PCL as the carrier.

    • Jie Tang
    • , Xiaojing Tong
    •  & Yisheng Xu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this study the authors introduce a measure of pandemic fatigue and report the existence of, and changes in, pandemic fatigue during the COVID-19 pandemic. They also identify correlates of pandemic fatigue and show that those who experienced more pandemic fatigue were less likely to adhere to various health-protective behaviors.

    • Lau Lilleholt
    • , Ingo Zettler
    •  & Robert Böhm

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Li and colleagues develop a dual water-electricity cooperation (DWEC) framework that combines water and electricity trading to meet the often-conflicting demands of participating countries in the Lancang-Mekong river basin. They discuss the potential of this framework for application in other transboundary river systems.

    • Bingyao Zhang
    • , Yu Li
    •  & Ximing Cai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Food production, especially of animal products, is a major source of air pollutants. Here, the authors quantify the impacts dietary changes towards more plant-based diets could have for air quality, labour productivity, and human health.

    • Marco Springmann
    • , Rita Van Dingenen
    •  & Adrian Leip

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