Deep-sea mining threatens jellyfish, suggests first-of-its-kind study

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Hello Nature readers, Today we read the first study of how deep-sea mining might harm wildlife, learn how researchers are monitoring volcanic activity in Iceland and explore the concerted effort required to keep global warming below 1.5 ℃.

Helmet jellyfish were collected from several Norwegian fjords where the animals like to congregate. (Vanessa Stenvers)

Deep-sea mining might harm wildlife Mining of the ocean floor for minerals could harm deep-sea jellyfish by stressing them out with sediment, suggests the first study of how resource harvesting might affect animals living in the depths. Researchers collected helmet jellyfish (Periphylla periphylla) and exposed them to sediment at concentrations that could be churned up by mining. After a day, the animals had mucus covering much of their bodies, among other signs that they were really not happy. Being stressed uses a lot of energy, which could be harmful over extended periods, say the researchers. Nature | 3 min read Reference: Nature Communications paper

Wi-Fi for nerve signals Researchers have charted a long-distance 'wireless' nerve network in Caenorhabditis elegans worms for the first time. The nervous system can be thought of as a web of neurons that pass on messages through direct links, called synapses. But neurons can also communicate over longer distances by releasing molecules called neuropeptides, which are intercepted by other neurons some distance away. Incorporating both 'wired' synaptic connections and wireless signalling better predicts how signals travel in the worm than does a model using synaptic connections alone. Nature | 5 min read References: Nature paper & Neuron paper

Iceland braces for volcanic eruption Underground magma flows in the southwest of Iceland are threatening to breach the surface. The geological unrest kicked off in late October, with thousands of small earthquakes in the area, which is home to around 3,000 people as well as an important power plant. Whether and when the molten rock might erupt remains anyone's guess. But if the current activity does lead to an eruption, scientists do not expect it to be as devastating as the 2010 eruption of the volcano Eyjafjallajökull, which sent ash across European airspace and grounded planes for days. Nature | 6 min read

Features & opinion

Is it too late to keep warming below 1.5 °C? When the COP28 climate conference convenes at the end of this month, representatives from 197 countries will arrive in Dubai to do a 'global stocktake'. It will be the first time that humanity will formally assess its achievements under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, with its ambitious target of limiting global warming to 1.5 ℃ above pre-industrial levels. By any measure, progress is too slow. But it is still possible to keep the 1.5 dream alive, shows this graphics-packed feature — and every fraction of a degree counts. Nature | 10 min read

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How to keep polio from coming back Poliovirus is close to being eliminated: it could be gone within three years. But eradication is not extinction. The next challenge will be keeping it at bay. In rare cases, the oral poliovirus vaccine can itself seed a polio outbreak. But withdrawing that vaccine will leave people unprotected. The inactivated poliovirus vaccine doesn't have the same flaw, but it doesn't block transmission, so a broad vaccination programme would have to continue. And we will have to be sure that polio can never escape from a research institute or vaccine-manufacturing facility. Finally, a very tiny — but unknown — number of people have immune-deficiency disorders that mean they can carry and spread polio without knowing it, for years. Nature | 12 min read

Scientists toil to name victims of Hamas At the National Center of Forensic Medicine in Israel, forensic scientists continue to grapple with the task of identifying the remains of people killed by Hamas on 7 October. As time has passed, ever smaller clues — such as tiny fragments of bone — have been matched with the identities of victims. The evidence also reveals how attackers ended lives with unfathomable cruelty. For pathologists, the work is a labour of love that is deeply traumatic. "I've seen all kinds of death but not in this amount," says Nir Blatman. "You must disconnect and work like a robot." Some of the smallest fragments have been gathered by archaeologists, who used skills honed in ancient ruins to find almost-invisible remains in the devastation left by Hamas. More than 40 people have been identified in this way, reports the Israel Antiquities Authority. "We saw things that no person should ever see," says archaeologist Moshe Ajami. Los Angeles Times | 11 min read & Bloomberg | 6 min read, from 9 November

Quote of the day "Humanity will be faced with either cooperating in the face of those crises or competing. And what we see from Neanderthals and H sapiens is that the groups that cooperated better were the ones that got through." Physical anthropologist Chris Stringer suggests that adaptability and networking helped Homo sapiens outlast at least eight hominin species that once roamed Earth — with lessons for those of us living today. (The Guardian | 10 min read)

Today I'm revelling in the fact that bees love to play with balls and researchers have the video to prove it. Thanks to the Pineapple Science Award — a gong for fun research awarded in China — for drawing attention to this bee-lightful discovery. Help us keep rolling in the right direction — please send your feedback to briefing@nature.com. Thanks for reading, Flora Graham, senior editor, Nature Briefing With contributions by Gemma Conroy and Katrina Krämer

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