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Credit: Florian Ledoux

This image is an aerial view of the sea ice in East Greenland, captured by photographer Florian Ledoux using a drone 250 metres above sea level. The melt season began weeks earlier than usual, and scientists estimate that 2019 could be a record year for ice loss in Greenland.

Nature’s pick of the month’s best science images focuses on climate change — and the researchers who study it.

Nature | Image gallery

You pull into a car park: do you grab the first free spot, gamble on there being one right next to your destination, or choose something in between the two strategies? The most efficient approach in terms of time spent walking and driving is the middle ground, say mathematicians. So skip the first spot, but grab the next one (at least in the simplified one-row car park they simulated).

Nature Research Highlights | 1 min read

Reference: Journal of Statistical Mechanics paper

Get more of Nature’s Research Highlights: short picks from the scientific literature.

Every single kimberlite — the rare type of rock that yields most of the world’s diamonds — might have originated from a single deep reservoir that has survived for most of Earth’s history. Researchers looked at the radiogenic isotope ratios of kimberlites of different ages from all over the world. Every rock seems to have come from one giant “uniform and pristine” chunk in the planet’s mantle. The mass evolved in isolation over at least 2.5 billion years, then — around 200 million years ago — suddenly got stirred up, possibly by the shifting Pangaea supercontinent.

Nature Podcast | 23 min listen

Get the expert view in the Nature News & Views article

Reference: Nature paper

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FEATURES & OPINION

Pulitzer-prizewinning novelist Cormac McCarthy has provided extensive editing to numerous faculty members and postdocs at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) in New Mexico, including theoretical biologist and ecologist Van Savage. In bite-size pieces relevant to academics and humble email-writers alike, Savage summarizes the advice he got from McCarthy over a winter of lively weekly lunches. McCarthy’s most important tip: keep it simple while telling a coherent, compelling story.

Nature | 6 min read

“If the house we live in is founded on lies and injustice, do we have the courage and conviction to tear it down?” askes particle physicist Yangyang Cheng. Her exploration of ethics and complicity in science touches on Enrico Fermi’s relationship with the Italian Fascist Party, the ongoing revelations about scientists’ intimacy with Jeffrey Epstein and Western universities’ willingness to take Chinese money to fund research that could be used to further the surveillance state.

SUPChina | 11 min read

Barbara Kiser’s pick of the top five science books to read this week includes Einstein in Britain, worlds on the ebb, and a new angle on climate engineering.

Nature | 2 min read