Did the peer-review process become a fortress of favoured paradigms?

The central role of humans in the Quaternary megafaunal extinctions in South America have been little considered by archaeologists. Based on temporal and spatial distributions of megafauna and Fishtail spear points, we propose that humans were the main (not the unique) factor driving the collapse.

We know that there are a great many species at risk of extinction, and it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the scale of action needed to conserve them. Where do we start tackling the pressures that are threatening these species, and encourage as many sectors as possible to act?

In many coastal seas nutrient pollution caused severe oxygen depletion. We have therefore carried out future projections of one of them, the Baltic Sea, and examined the questions of when and where the first signs of improvement will emerge if the anthropogenic nutrient loads are further reduced.

By Andreas Lange, Prajal H. Patel and Geoffrey D. Findlay. In a collaboration that spanned three continents, we analysed the structure, function, and evolutionary history of a Drosophila protein that emerged from previously non-coding DNA and has since become essential for male fertility.