https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01369-3

How to create liveable suburbs https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=241f044052&e=4e0751221c

The sprawling outer areas of US cities are the physical embodiment of unequal distribution of wealth and opportunity, argues urban-design researcher Dana Cuff. Rigid and often absurd planning rules prevent the construction of blocks of flats https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=d7b6713cab&e=4e0751221c, shops, schools, health facilities and workplaces. “It will take many creative solutions to redeem suburbs,” Cuff says, such as building housing for teachers on underused school land or offering loans for constructing affordable housing. Nature | 5 min read https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=f9e4d8484d&e=4e0751221c

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Nature Briefing briefing@nature.com Date: Tue, Apr 25, 2023 at 1:04 PM Subject: First close-up images of tiny Mars moonlet To: Jackie.avent@gmail.com

What matters in science | View this email in your browser https://us17.campaign-archive.com/?e=4e0751221c&u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=93b84be6ce Tuesday 25 April 2023 [image: Nature Briefing] https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=b7d7603c7f&e=4e0751221c

Hello *Nature *readers, Today we discover that researchers have sequenced the genomes of more than 10,000 ancient people, find out why parrots like to video call each other and marvel at the first close-up images of Mars’s tiny moonlet Deimos. [image: A bleached human skull lies on its side on mossy ground. The skull’s lower jaw has become detached, lying separately in front of the skull. More bone fragments and broken skulls are visible in the background.] https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=08badff5d5&e=4e0751221c These 2,000-year-old human remains were found in a stone chambered cairn in Greenland. There has been an ‘ancient-DNA gold rush’, with the number of ancient-human genomes exponentially increasing since 2018. (Ashley Cooper/Getty) Ten thousand ancient genomes sequenced https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=9481005f6f&e=4e0751221c

More than 10,000 ancient-human genomes have now been sequenced. In 2010, the first ancient-DNA sequence was published, of a man who lived 4,000 years ago. Since 2018, thanks to technological advances, there has been an explosion in the number of ancient genomes sequenced. The vast majority come from people who lived in Europe, Russia and the Middle East https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=3b48eca25c&e=4e0751221c. “We need to shift that focus and obsession with numbers” and look at genomes from other parts of the world, says palaeogenomicist María Ávila-Arcos. Nature | 4 min read https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=88de509892&e=4e0751221c Reference: bioRxiv preprint https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=cf260d4921&e=4e0751221c (not peer reviewed) [image: A line chart showing the quantity of genome data from ancient-human remains. The data set has grown rapidly since 2018, owing to advances in DNA sequencing, and extraction and has risen to 10,067 in 2023.] https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=2048814fd0&e=4e0751221c Parrots call each other to be less lonely https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=7c51dc51d6&e=4e0751221c

Giving pet parrots the opportunity to video call other birds helps to counter isolation and boredom https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=996df8ef27&e=4e0751221c in the intelligent animals. Researchers trained 18 pet parrots, ranging from macaws (*Ara*) to cockatiels (*Nymphicus hollandicus*), to phone a friend using Facebook Messenger. “All caretakers reported perceived benefits, some arguably life-transformative, such as learning to forage or even to fly by watching others,” write the authors in their paper, which includes some well-worth-watching video https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=2499b5d380&e=4e0751221c of parrots chatting. The Guardian | 4 min read https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=2b1d19e292&e=4e0751221c Reference: *CHI '23: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems* https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=db27bfa886&e=4e0751221c paper https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=0cd5bfa372&e=4e0751221c Reader poll [image: Pie chart illustrating poll results to the question “What do you think about the commercial space age?”] https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=c987bc418e&e=4e0751221c

Today, a lunar lander built by the Japanese firm ispace will touch down on the Moon’s surface https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=8f9f746aec&e=4e0751221c. It will be the first private company to land on the Moon, and the first of several commercial lunar trips flying this year.

Briefing readers had mixed feelings about this burgeoning commercial space age: more than half of the respondents to our poll last week said they preferred when space exploration was led by governments only. Another 40% welcome private space missions.

Many readers felt the money pumped into space missions — both private and public ones — could be better spent on Earth, for example on addressing climate change. There were concerns about the amount of space debris that missions would create, and about the environmental impact of rocket launches. “There should be an international agency to regulate who can send what into space and clean up afterwards,” writes librarian Penelope Bulloch.

“I think we should reframe the conversation altogether,” suggests sustainability project manager Joan Suris. “Every time we have started mining resources on Earth we have created more environmental and social problems than we have solved. What are the unforeseen consequences of ‘commercial exploitation’ of the Moon?” Features & opinion Deep ocean exploration isn’t about science https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=78e0b628f4&e=4e0751221c

Attempts to reach the bottom of the sea have a surprisingly long history, as Jeff Maynard recounts in *The Frontier Below*. The book is a brisk tour of diving and submersibles https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=b34721cff0&e=4e0751221c, heavy on engineering and light on science. “That’s fitting, because the endeavour was hardly ever about science,” writes reviewer and *Nature *reporter Alexandra Witze. Instead, it was about retrieving goods from wrecked vessels, military interests or finding a ‘lifeless’ place to dump nuclear waste. Nature | 6 min read https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=1aba9bca88&e=4e0751221c [image: Nature Special: Nature+] https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=add9bac607&e=4e0751221c ACCESS *NATURE* AND 54 OTHER NATURE JOURNALS https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=7d2e3e971f&e=4e0751221c

Nature+ gives you immediate online access to *Nature* and 54 other journals. Nature+ is a flexible monthly subscription and is currently available only to personal users in the United States https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=33a986512a&e=4e0751221c and in the United Kingdom https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=c64b65855b&e=4e0751221c .

Learn more about Nature+ in the US https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=14b835c12c&e=4e0751221c or in the UK https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=ed0addc3d2&e=4e0751221c How to create liveable suburbs https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=241f044052&e=4e0751221c

The sprawling outer areas of US cities are the physical embodiment of unequal distribution of wealth and opportunity, argues urban-design researcher Dana Cuff. Rigid and often absurd planning rules prevent the construction of blocks of flats https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=d7b6713cab&e=4e0751221c, shops, schools, health facilities and workplaces. “It will take many creative solutions to redeem suburbs,” Cuff says, such as building housing for teachers on underused school land or offering loans for constructing affordable housing. Nature | 5 min read https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=f9e4d8484d&e=4e0751221c The far-reaching impacts of melting ice https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=529b805d98&e=4e0751221c

How does melting ice contribute to destructive wildfires in the western United States? And how does ice loss lead to extreme floods in Nepal? A sobering yet hopeful quiz, accompanied by stunning visuals https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=77a8b58db6&e=4e0751221c, clarifies how the shape of coastlines, the weather and the survival of communities are all tied to ice. NPR | Interactive 5-min scroll https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=cef8ef8cbb&e=4e0751221c Image of the week [image: The moonlet Deimos, looking like a small grey space potato, floats serenely in front of the giant red shape of Mars in the background.] https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=395e6152c8&e=4e0751221c The first up-close images of Mars’s little-known moonlet Deimos have revealed that it is made of the same material as the red planet. The tiny, 12.4-kilometre-wide moon probably formed together with Mars https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=cdff930303&e=4e0751221c, rather than as an asteroid that was captured in the planet’s orbit. (Nature | 4 min read https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=591722fed9&e=4e0751221c) (Emirates Mars Mission) Quote of the day “I often have a nightmare with my tombstone that reads: ‘What did she think she was doing?’ Because all of us have to reckon with the fact that the future will look back on us with new tools and a new framing.” https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=325f5c8087&e=4e0751221c

Neurologist Helen Mayberg hopes that deep brain stimulation — invasive surgery that helps people with severe depression — will eventually be seen as outdated. (Nature Careers Podcast | 25 min listen or 15 min read https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=86e9841131&e=4e0751221c )

As we celebrate World Penguin Day, spare a thought for what the word ‘penguin’ actually means to you https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=4950246cbb&e=4e0751221c. Psychologists found that even such simple words can signify wildly different concepts for people — and we’re often oblivious to these variations.

Send me your definition of the word ‘penguin’, alongside any other feedback on this newsletter, to briefing@nature.com.

Thanks for reading, *Katrina Krämer, associate editor, Nature Briefing briefing@nature.com* *With contributions by Flora Graham*

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