Oil sands spew more polluting gases than all Canadians

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Hello Nature readers, Today we hear that the Marscopter will not fly again, consider the true environmental cost of Canada's oil sands and meet a marsupial that lives fast and dies young.

An image that Ingenuity took of its own shadow hints that at least one-quarter of one of its blades is missing. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Record-setting Mars helicopter grounded After a triumphant three years swooping through the skies of the Red Planet, NASA's Ingenuity helicopter will not fly again. The first aircraft to take flight on another world, Ingenuity's achievements will inform a forthcoming mission to explore Saturn's moon Titan. "This type of mobility can take us to places we never dreamed we'd be able to explore," says space scientist Laurie Leshin, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which built the copter. Nature | 4 min read

CRISPR crops break new ground in Africa Scientists in the global south are making use of the relative ease and low cost of CRISPR gene editing to tailor crops to the needs of local farmers. There are at least a dozen projects in the works, including one to make sorghum resistant to parasitic witchweed. Because in this case CRISPR–Cas9 is used to mimic a natural mutation, the crop can bypass some of the stringent regulations that many countries impose on plants modified with foreign DNA. There are still significant hurdles to bringing edited crops to the farm, particularly to poor small-scale farmers, says rural development researcher Klara Fischer. Nature | 5 min read

Oil sands spew more polluting gases than all Canadians Canada's oil-producing tar sands generate as much pollution-causing emissions as all of the country's other human-generated sources combined. The researchers tracked only carbon-based molecules that can seed particulate pollution and react to form ground-level ozone. Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide were factored out. Data collected on 30 flights over 17 oil-sand operations show that their emission rates were up to 64 times greater than reported by industry. "No rules have been broken, or guidelines exceeded here," says oil and gas analyst Janetta McKenzie. "But that speaks to some issues in our rules and our guidelines." Nature | 6 min read Reference: Science paper

Fast-living marsupial chooses sex over sleep Male antechinus, small Australian marsupials, sacrifice their sleep to make more time for mating during a three-week breeding frenzy. Researchers observed that male Antechinus swainsonii slept on average 20% less each day during breeding season than they do at other times. After this period, the animals died or became sterile — but probably not because of sleep loss. "It's a real question mark," says zoologist and study co-author Erika Zaid. Nature | 4 min read Reference: Current Biology paper

The gerbil-sized antechinus is a rare example of a mammal that mates during a certain season and never again. (Adam Fry/Alamy)

Question of the week In a survey conducted last year, the majority of more than 22,000 researchers supported the idea of making the entire research life cycle freely available to everyone. Many already wholeheartedly embrace open-access publishing, but aren't sure how to share lab materials, reagents and protocols. What do you think about pursuing fully open science?  a  I'm a researcher and do everything I can to make my work open despite the barriers  b  I'm a researcher and think fully open science is more trouble than it's worth  c  I'm not a researcher and think scientists should do everything they can to make their work open  d  I'm not a researcher and think fully open science is more trouble than it's worth  e  Something else — tell us at briefing@nature.com

Features & opinion

How to conquer scientific writing in English Chemist Nuwan Bandara shares tips on how to write papers and grant applications as a non-native English speaker: If you can't find a suitable phrase in your first draft, leave a blank and move on Start with the section you find easiest Figures can help you to construct a narrative and add a 'wow' factor When doing literature research, note down each paper's core message Create a crude introduction and polish it later Study other people's writing styles Use tools such as ChatGPT to fine-tune sentences Nature | 6 min read

Futures: Tyrannomorphs Author Graham Robert Scott takes a satirical swipe at the 'return to the new normal' in the latest short story for Nature's Futures series. Nature | 5 min read

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Five best science books this week Andrew Robinson's pick of the top five science books to read this week includes a grippingly illustrated book on dinosaur behaviour, a history of machine vision and a quest for a unified theory of human habits. Nature | 3 min read

Podcast: toxic red mud into 'green' steel Toxic waste from aluminium production can be turned into iron, a key ingredient in the production of steel. There is an estimated 4 billion tonnes of 'red mud' in landfills worldwide. "It is actually a big problem," sustainable-metallurgy researcher Isnaldi Souza Filho tells the Nature Podcast, "because red mud is associated with pollution, contamination of soil and contamination of water." The method developed by Souza and his colleagues uses hydrogen plasma instead of fossil fuels to extract iron from the red mud, which could help to reduce carbon emissions from steel production. Nature Podcast | 24 min listen Reference: Nature paper Subscribe to the Nature Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify, or use the RSS feed.

Quote of the day "Instead of being adorned with a beautiful snail shell, which is what we're used to seeing — they would have a red plastic bottle cap on their back or piece of light bulb." An analysis of photos shared online by wildlife enthusiasts found that terrestrial hermit crabs are adopting plastic rubbish instead of natural shells, says urban ecologist Marta Szulkin. (BBC | 4 min read) Reference: Science of the Total Environment paper

Brace yourself: the secret to a great cup of tea is a pinch of salt. Chemist Michelle Francl says that sodium ions block the taste receptors in our mouths so the drink tastes less bitter. Her other top tips: pre-warm the pot, use loose tea and give it a constant stir — all will help extract more caffeine and antioxidants. Whatever you do (and I can't imagine that you would) — never make tea in the microwave. "You end up getting tea scum forming on the surface, and that scum contains some of the antioxidants and taste compounds," says Francl. While I vacillate with salt shaker poised over my afternoon cuppa, let's look for Leif Penguinson. Today our penguin pal is hiding on a driftwood-strewn beach in Waihe'e Coastal Dunes and Wetlands Refuge, in Hawaii. Can you find the penguin? The answer will be in Monday's e-mail, all thanks to Briefing photo editor and penguin wrangler Tom Houghton. This newsletter is always evolving — tell us what you think! Please send your feedback to briefing@nature.com. Flora Graham, senior editor, Nature Briefing With contributions by Katrina Krämer and Sara Phillips

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