Feature Article

Climate change is already altering our planet's biology, with only life in Antarctica so far spared its influence. That's the conclusion from an analysis of tens of thousands of individual local studies covering shrinking glaciers, changing river flows, melting permafrost, increased coastal erosion, and warming lakes and rivers. The study, published in Nature (DOI: 10.1038/nature06937) this week, is based on more comprehensive data than any previous investigation of the biological effects of climate change.

Poverty causes malnutrition, but malnutrition also contributes to poverty through increased morbidity, impaired development in children, and reduced capacity for work and productivity in adults. In rich countries food is a relatively small part of household consumption (10

20 years ago Philip Morris, the manufacturer of Marlboro cigarettes, notes in its annual report to shareholders that the company accounted for just 7% of worldwide cigarette sales, but added determinedly that "since our share of most international cigarette markets is still far below our US level, we have considerable room for future growth. The prophetic rise in Philip Morris' market share of current global cigarette sales to 15.6% has culminated in the March spinoff of Philip Morris International (PMI).

The Asian tiger mosquito is on a rampage. Entomologists are impressed, public health officials are nervous, and many of the rest of us are swatting furiously. How did Aedes albopictus become such a scourge?

Increasing quantities of atmospheric anthropogenic fixed nitrogen entering the open ocean could account for up to about a third of the ocean's external (nonrecycled) nitrogen supply and up to ~3% of the annual new marine biological production, ~0.3 petagram of carbon per year. This input could account for the production of up to ~1.6 teragrams of nitrous oxide (N2O) per year.

Data laboriously extracted from an Antarctic ice core provide an unprecedented view of temperature, and levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane, over the past 800,000 years of Earth's history.

Reflecting on how far we have come scientifically since isolating HIV in 1983, Anthony S. Fauci urges a renewed commitment to the far greater challenges ahead, especially that of vaccine development.

You may have been inadvertently off message about vaccination policy in your Editorial 'On message, off target' (Nature 452, 128; 2008)

In your Special Report 'Brazil goes to war against logging' (Nature 452, 134