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Soil processes involved in agricultural practices emit considerable levels of nitrous oxide, which detrimentally contribute to climate change. This study explores strategies to reduce nitrous oxide emissions while maintaining crop productivity in the US maize–soybean rotational cropping system.

Hydrofluorocarbons are a class of important greenhouse gases, and quantitative estimates of their social cost are still lacking. This research develops a set of direct estimates of their economic costs and shows their rapid phase-down could lead to large climate benefits.

Experimental warming of the active layer in permafrost tundra increased ecosystem respiration ~30%. Shoulder-season warming caused rapid snow melt and 100-fold higher methane emissions. Warming promotes greenhouse gas emissions, potentially contributing to arctic amplification of climate change

A multi-model framework that accounts for climate, water, energy, food, biodiversity and economic activity in Australia reveals that a sustainable society that enjoys economic improvement without ecological deterioration is possible, but that specific political and economic choices need to be made to achieve this.

In deep decarbonization scenarios, the full economic potential of land-based carbon dioxide removal is conditioned on international emissions trading, and vice versa. Deploying both enables achievement of climate stabilization targets at lower cost.

Iron has been shown to be necessary for the activation and differentiation of CD8⁺ T cells. Here the authors investigate changes in CD8⁺ T cell metabolism in iron limiting conditions and find that aspartate is increased yet downstream nucleotide synthesis is suppressed and addition of exogenous aspartate partially rescues T cell function.

Coupling advances in socioeconomic projections, climate models, damage functions and discounting methods yields an estimate of the social cost of carbon of US$185 per tonne of CO₂—triple the widely used value published by the US government.

Thousands of years long droughts have occurred in eastern North America during the Holocene (past 12,000 years). The authors link the droughts to the impacts of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and the following period of warmer-than-present temperatures.

Massive hydropower expansion in the global south repeats unsustainable past social and environmental harms, raising questions about how to govern these projects effectively. This Review highlights shifting and evolving global dynamics, and identifies opportunities for more just and strategic hydropower governance.

Sustainable and regenerative agriculture often employs diverse systems of crop rotation to reduce environmental impacts and sequester carbon. A long-term field study, however, reveals a trade-off between soil organic carbon storage and nitrogen supply.

Climate mitigation have broad effects on achieving Sustainable Development Goals. This paper explores the spillover effects of China’s climate mitigation pathways and identify a cost-effective pathway with co-benefits for sustainability.

Estimating health burden of air pollution against the background of population aging is of significance for achieving Sustainable Development Goal 3.9. Here, the authors show that population aging is expected to be the leading contributor to increased deaths attributable to PM2.5 in China by 2035, which will counter the positive gains achieved by improvements in air pollution and healthcare.

Producing beef sustainably at a global level is a challenge given the multiple trade-offs between the economic and environmental objectives involved. This study presents an approach that helps to identify such trade-offs at the scale needed for the beef industry to become more sustainable.

Small inland water bodies are widely seen as important sources of methane to the atmosphere. This study demonstrates that hardwater ecosystems emit less of this potent greenhouse gas than predicted due to complex biogeochemical controls

The amount of water required for electricity generation is expected to increase as CO₂ emissions are reduced. A capacity expansion model of the Texas electricity grid in the USA demonstrates the trade-offs between CO₂ emissions and water use in designing the power generation mix. Better understanding of the ‘water–energy nexus’ should help to coordinate mitigation and adaptation planning in the energy sector.

Dietary transitions offer health and environmental benefits, but their challenges are often overlooked. This study uses an integrated assessment model to explore country-specific opportunities and challenges before and after the transition.

Estimates of greenhouse gas emissions associated with feeding the world population rarely account for specific nutrient gaps. This study applies a composite indicator of emissions intensity of nutrient production to calculate non-CO₂ emissions of closing the global dietary gaps for energy, protein, iron, zinc, vitamin A, vitamin B12 and folate in 2030 under five climate-friendly scenarios.

Hydropower dams fragment rivers and degrade habitats, increasing extinction risk for freshwater species, with over 85% of species showing status changes moving to higher threat categories, based on Global Dam Tracker and IUCN Red List data from 1996 to 2022.

The species threat abatement and restoration (STAR) metric quantifies the contributions that abating threats and restoring habitats offer towards reducing species’ extinction risk in specific places.

Terrestrial controlled environment agriculture (CEA) will have an increasingly important role in food production. By comparing the technical similarities between space controlled environment agriculture (SpaCEA) and CEA systems, the authors argue that the development of SpaCEA provides a proportionate approach to addressing the technical, environmental and economic challenges of conventional CEA design.

During the Carboniferous–Permian transition, reduction of tropical wetlands accommodated emerging dryland-adapted amniote faunas from a western Pangaean epicentre.

Dedicated energy crops are an important feedstock for bioenergy systems, but uncertainties remain over how best to integrate them into agricultural landscapes. Here, the authors use high-resolution ecosystem modelling to explore how selection of the soils cultivated and fertilizer application rates affects feedstock costs and emissions footprints.

To achieve net-zero carbon emissions, we must close the carbon cycle for industries that are difficult to electrify. Developing the needed science to provide carbon alternatives and non-fossil carbon will accelerate advances towards defossilization.

Assumptions about the use of biomass and CO₂ sequestration drive key differences in how emissions from remaining fuels are mitigated in net-zero energy systems, with potentially significant tradeoffs that will need to be evaluated and managed.

This study reports on biologically sourced polymuconate polymers with weakened C–C backbone bonds, designed for closed-loop chemical recycling to monomers. Synthesized via free-radical polymerization, these materials achieve tunable mechanical properties comparable to those of commercial plastics. A techno-economic analysis shows that recycling significantly reduces costs and environmental impacts, enhancing the competitiveness of these polymers in the sustainable plastics market.

This paper quantifies global urban water scarcity in 2016 and 2050 and explores potential solutions. One third to nearly half of the global urban population is projected to face water scarcity problems.

The challenging prospect of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals faces various disruptors in China. Li et al. quantify the disruptors’ effects and explore integrated policy portfolios for safeguarding China’s long-term sustainability

Mutations in the TRPV4 channel cause inherited neurodegeneration syndromes, but the molecular mechanisms are unknown. Here the authors reveal that TRPV4 activation causes dose-dependent, CaMKII-mediated neuronal dysfunction and axonal degeneration via disruption of mitochondrial axonal transport.

Nitrous oxide (N₂O) is a greenhouse gas and an important ozone-depleting substance. Microbial nitrogen cycling in agricultural soils is a major source of atmospheric N₂O. Now, research shows that the capacity of soils to take up N₂O is mostly explained by the abundance and diversity of a newly described N₂O-reducing microbial group.

Investigating malaria transmission at three sites in Uganda, the authors identify super-spreaders and show that super-spreading is more prominent at low-intensity transmission, and that seasonality and environmental stochasticity have a greater influence on super-spreading.

Population-based surveys are the gold standard for estimating seroprevalence but are expensive and often only capture a small geographic area or window of time. This study describes a new platform, SCALE-IT, for serosurveillance based on algorithmic sampling of electronic health records, and uses it to estimate the seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in San Francisco.

Government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have reduced overall progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals by 8.2% between 2020 and 2023, according to an analysis of global and national SDG scores based on the global adaptive multi-regional input–output model.

PdCO is a switchable optogenetic tool for inhibiting synaptic transmission in neuronal terminals in vivo, as demonstrated in a variety of contexts mainly in the mouse.

Increasing rice yield while improving resource use efficiency is of great importance. This study examines cropping systems globally to highlight areas where rice production can be improved by prioritizing R&D strategies.

This study demonstrates how land-based carbon removals and the market-mediated responses are sensitive to mitigation policy strength and scope, illustrating that, despite trade-offs, both forestation and BECCS are integral to cost-effective 2 °C pathways.

Routine sampling of pregnant women at first antenatal care (ANC) visits could be used for malaria surveillance. Here, the authors compare the genetic structure of Plasmodium falciparum parasite populations between samples from first ANC users and children from the community in Mozambique, and show that it can inform about changes in transmission beyond epidemiological data.

How can the decline in global biodiversity be reversed, given the need to supply food? Computer modelling provides a way to assess the effectiveness of combining various conservation and food-system interventions to tackle this issue.

Analyses of three newly sequenced modern cultivar cotton genomes revealed sequence and structural variation alongside traces of ancient and ongoing introgressions. Moreover, transcriptome analysis pointed at unique fibre quality traits of cultivars.

As low-carbon energy technologies advance, markets are driving demand for energy transition metals, increasing the stress placed on people and the environment in extractive locations. Here, the authors quantify this stress by developing a set of global composite environmental, social and governance risk indicators, and find that 84% of platinum resources and 70% of cobalt resources are located in high-risk contexts.

Options for achieving multiple sustainability goals in land systems are limited, and integrated national-scale analyses are needed across the broader environment and economy to prioritize efficient sustainability interventions.

Fertilization use in Ukraine declined sharply following the Ukraine war in early 2022, associated with severe national nutrient deficits and underscoring an urgent need for an integrated nutrient management plan to improve agricultural sustainability, as shown through scenario analysis

The amyloid protein TasA is a main component of the extracellular matrix in Bacillus subtilis biofilms. Here the authors show that, in addition to a structural function during biofilm assembly and interactions with plants, TasA contributes to the stabilization of membrane dynamics during stationary phase.

Analysis of pollen records from North America and Europe reveals a warming trend over the Holocene, consistent with climate-model simulations.