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Clinical research has been disrupted as hospitals devote more resources to caring for people critically ill with COVID-19.Credit: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty

Scientists are rushing to launch clinical trials of experimental vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus — while clinical trials of therapies for cancer and other illnesses are being put on hold. Neena Nizar and her family were poised to harvest the fruit of a decade of hard work and sacrifice: a clinical trial of an experimental treatment for her two sons’ rare and painful genetic disorder. Then came COVID-19. “I feel like we were chugging along on a train and then somebody dropped a huge boulder on it,” says Nizar.

Nature | 6 min read

The healing ozone layer above Antarctica is shifting wind patterns around the globe — most notably, pausing the movement toward the pole of the summertime jet stream in the Southern Hemisphere. Satellite observations and climate simulations reveal that the jet stream shifted from about 49° S to 51° S between 1980 and 2000. After 2000, when the ozone layer began to recover as a result of the Montreal Protocol that effectively banned ozone-killing chemicals, the change has halted.

New Scientist | 3 min read

Get expert analysis of the research by meteorologist Alexey Karpechko in the Nature News & Views article.

Reference: Nature paper

Figure 1 | Changes in the summertime jet stream in the Southern Hemisphere. a, The jet stream in the Southern Hemisphere forms a near-circle around Antarctica in the troposphere — the lowest layer of the atmosphere. b, Banerjee et al.6 have reanalysed data that record the position of the summertime jet stream during the past few decades. The grey line shows the average position determined from their analysis; the envelope around the line indicates the minimum to maximum range. The blue line indicates the underlying trend, and shows that the jet stream shifted from about 49° S to 51° S between 1980 and 2000 — the years when the stratospheric ozone layer over Antarctica was becoming depleted. The trend alters after 2000, when the ozone layer began to recover as a result of the Montreal Protocol, which banned ozone-depleting substances; the position of the jet stream did not alter significantly during this period. Banerjee and colleagues show that ozone recovery is the cause of the pause in the jet-stream shift. (Graph from Fig. 1b of ref. 6.)

Features & opinion

The Exclusion Zone around the wreck of the Chernobyl power plant, in present-day Ukraine, represents a glimpse of the past of civilization after its demise, the “final resting place of the future”. This has made the site of the 1986 nuclear accident into a morbidly fascinating tourist destination. “Immediately you are struck by the strange beauty of the place, the unchecked exuberance of nature finally set free of its crowning achievement, its problem child,” writes author Mark O’Connell.

New York Times | 25 min read