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Kate Middleton Reveals Cancer Diagnosis, Says She Is Undergoing Chemotherapy

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The news comes as speculations about her whereabouts reach new heights online.

preview for Kate Middleton reveals she's been diagnosed with cancer
  • Kate Middleton, 42, has been diagnosed with cancer.
  • The Princess of Wales revealed in a statement Friday that she is undergoing chemotherapy.
  • She is asking for “time, space, and privacy,” while she and her family navigate the diagnosis.

Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, has been diagnosed with cancer. The royal revealed in a statement Friday that she is undergoing chemotherapy treatments and asks for privacy during this difficult time. The news comes after weeks of speculation about her health reaches a fever pitch online, and after she underwent abdominal surgery in January.

While the specifics of the 42-year-old’s diagnosis are not yet known to the public (she did not specify the type of cancer nor the stage), she did make a statement.

“In January I underwent major abdominal surgery in London and at the time it was thought that my condition was non-cancerous. The surgery was successful, however, tests after the operation found cancer had been present,” the Princess of Wales said in a video updating fans on her health released by Kensington Palace.

She then explained that her medical team advised “a course of preventative chemotherapy,” which she is undergoing. “I am now in the early stages of that treatment,” she said in a palace statement. She asked for “time, space, and privacy” while finishing treatment.

The Princess noted that she, too, was surprised by the diagnosis. “This, of course, came as a huge shock, and William and I have been doing everything we can to process and manage this privately for the sake of our young family. As you can imagine, this has taken time. It has taken me time to recover from major surgery in order to start my treatment,” she said.

Depending on the type of cancer and surgery, which again, is unknown to the public at this time, it can take up to six weeks to heal, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

“But, most importantly, it has taken us time to explain everything to George, Charlotte, and Louis in a way that is appropriate for them, and to reassure them that I am going to be OK.”

Chemotherapy is a drug treatment that uses powerful chemicals to kill fast-growing cells in your body, and is most often used to treat cancer, since cancer cells grow and multiply much more quickly than other bodily cells, the Mayo Clinic notes. Many different chemotherapy drugs are available, and can be used alone or in combination to treat a variety of cancers.

The Princess relayed a message of hope to others affected by similar diagnoses. “At this time, I am also thinking of all those whose lives have been affected by cancer,” she said. “For everyone facing this disease, in whatever form, please do not lose faith or hope. You are not alone.”

The news comes soon after King Charles was diagnosed with cancer. Our thoughts are with the Princess, the King, and their families at this time.

After 52 Years, America Has Planted Its Feet on the Moon Once More

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‘Odie’ just took a giant leap for private space travel.

lunar lander

Intuitive Machines

  • The Intuitive Machines unmanned lunar lander Odysseus landed on the Moon Thursday, the first private lunar landing and the United States’s first return to the surface in more than 50 years.
  • The roughly weeklong mission on the Moon’s surface aims to gather scientific data in order to help NASA with future Artemis missions.
  • The solar-powered lander operates near the Moon’s south pole and potentially close to frozen water.

The United States is back on the Moon. Right now. For the first time in over 50 years—since Apollo 17 landed in 1972—the U.S. has landed on the surface of the Moon, thanks to a successful private mission from Intuitive Machines.

“I know this was a nail-biter, but we are on the surface, and we are transmitting,” said Steve Altemus, Intuitive Machines CEO, according to the Associated Press. “Welcome to the Moon.”

Welcome, indeed. The unmanned lunar lander Odysseus, or ‘Odie,’ landed on the Moon at 5:23 p.m. CST on Thursday, according to NASA. “Odysseus is alive and well,” Intuitive Machines said in a statement. “Flight controllers are communicating and commanding the vehicle to download science data.”

NASA says that the instruments aboard Odysseus will prepare the agency for future human exploration of the Moon under the Artemis program. But the lander doesn’t have much time to do its work. The solar-powered spacecraft will have roughly one week of access to the Sun before the lunar night robs it of its power source.

Getting to the Moon for the first time in over 50 years almost didn’t happen. The first private company that successfully “aced the landing of a lifetime”—as Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator, wrote on social media—was moments away from their initial landing attempt when the Odysseus laser navigation system flopped. Fortunately, NASA had an experimental laser system on board, so the team took Odysseus for another trip around the Moon as they switched to that system for the final landing.

Once landed, it took roughly 15 minutes for a weak signal to confirm that the lander was still working. While the control team was able to verify that Odysseus touched down near the Moon’s south pole, the weak signal left plenty of doubts as to the usefulness of the mission. Then, about two hours later, spirits picked up as the lander started to properly stream data back to Earth.

Intuitive Machines reports that Odysseus has “good telemetry and solar charging,” and they continue to gather more information about the specifics of the lander’s functions.

Part of a NASA-backed program to generate readiness in Moon exploration, Intuitive Machines has officially become the first to successfully land on the Moon. But it wasn’t the first to try it. In January, Astrobotic Technology attempted the feat, but a leak in the fuel tank meant that its lander never made it, and was destroyed upon returning to Earth’s atmosphere.

Five countries have successfully landed spacecraft on the Moon, with Japan joining the United States, Russia, China, and India in January. That lander, dubbed Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, has already sent data on 10 lunar rocks back to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Odysseus aimed for an area 186 miles from the south pole of the Moon—closer to the pole than any spacecraft has ventured, according to AP. The flat site was chosen for ease of landing, but nearby terrain also potentially contains frozen water, which is a key resource if humans hope to make extended stays on the Moon a reality.

Both Intuitive Machines and NASA will now focus on using what precious time in the sunlight Odysseus has remaining to gather as much scientific data on the Moon as possible. For the first time in over 50 years, the U.S. is on site to make it happen.

An American Spacecraft Successfully Lands on the Moon for the First Time Since 1972

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After a tense touchdown process with last-minute changes, U.S.-based company Intuitive Machines received a signal from its uncrewed Odysseus lunar lander on Thursday evening

The side of a spacecraft with the surface of the moon in the background
Odysseus passes over the near side of the moon after entering into lunar orbit on Wednesday. The spacecraft successfully landed on the moon Thursday evening Eastern time. Intuitive Machines

For the first time since 1972, a U.S. spacecraft has landed on the moon.

Odysseus, an uncrewed lander from the company Intuitive Machines, touched down near the lunar south pole at 6:23 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday. It’s the first time a private American company has landed on the moon, and the achievement marks the first U.S. landing since the Apollo 17 mission.

“Odysseus is alive and well,” Intuitive Machines said in an update on its website Friday morning. “Flight controllers are communicating and commanding the vehicle to download science data.”

The company “aced the landing of a lifetime,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson says in a video posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Odysseus is carrying six NASA science investigations and technology demonstrations. The mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, through which the agency is paying private companies to send science and technology to the moon.

The aim of the program is for the space agency to “increase the frequency of deliveries and reduce the cost to NASA of doing science,” Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetary science division, tells the Washington Post’s Christian Davenport and Philip Kennicott. “This is a really a significant shift in how we do business.” For this mission, NASA paid Intuitive Machines $118 million.

Earth selfie – this brave ship is landing near the Moon’s South Pole on Thursday. Go Odysseus! @Int_Machines @NASA pic.twitter.com/e9xnUi4213— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) February 19, 2024

Odysseus launched to space on February 15 at 1:05 a.m. Eastern time from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The spacecraft had a smooth trip to the moon, but the landing didn’t go exactly as planned: On Thursday afternoon, Intuitive Machines pushed the landing back by two hours and sent the spacecraft on an extra orbit around the moon after realizing a laser instrument to measure Odysseus’ altitude and velocity wasn’t working, according to the New York Times’ Kenneth Chang.

Fortunately, an experimental NASA instrument was able to step in. The team used two lasers from the Navigation Doppler Lidar payload aboard the spacecraft to measure velocity and distance from the ground, per CNN’s Jackie Wattles.

Using the substitute laser instrument, Odysseus descended toward the lunar surface. The planned moment of landing passed by, and flight controllers on Earth waited to receive communication from the spacecraft that would confirm it hadn’t crashed. After a tense 15 minutes, the team picked up a weak signal from Odysseus, according to Marcia Dunn of the Associated Press (AP).

After receiving the signal, Tim Crain, Intuitive Machines’ chief technology officer, announced during a livestream that “what we can confirm, without a doubt, is our equipment is on the surface of the moon and we are transmitting,” per the New York Times. “So, congratulations.”

At 8:25 p.m. on Thursday, the company said in a post on X that “after troubleshooting communications, flight controllers have confirmed Odysseus is upright and starting to send data.”

Odysseus was aiming for a landing site about 186 miles from the moon’s south pole. The south pole gets near-continuous sunlight to power the spacecraft’s solar panels and is thought to have water ice. From this frozen resource, future astronauts could produce rocket fuel or extract oxygen to breathe, Brett Denevi, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, tells NPR’s Geoff Brumfiel and Emma Bowman.

NASA’s six payloads delivered to the moon include a system for measuring the electron plasma environment on the lunar surface, reflectors that use lasers to track the lander’s location on the moon and a radio navigation beacon.

Odysseus is also carrying 125 miniature moon phase sculptures from American artist Jeff Koons, a camera for imaging the center of the Milky Way galaxy and a digital system for storing and sending data from the moon, among other commercial payloads.

The spacecraft will carry out its mission for seven days before it becomes nighttime at the south pole, when the lander will become inoperable due to the cold.

The mission sets the stage for NASA’s Artemis program, which is slated to send astronauts around the moon no earlier than September 2025 and land astronauts at the south pole no earlier than September 2026. NASA delayed both missions earlier this year.

Intuitive Machines’ successful touchdown comes only weeks after a commercial lander from the company Astrobotic failed to land on the moon following a propellant leak after launch. Japan’s space agency put an uncrewed spacecraft on the moon in January, though it landed upside-down with its solar panels facing away from the sun.

New York Declares Social Media As ‘Public Health Hazard’, Same As Tobacco And Guns

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New york declares social media as ‘public health hazard’, same as tobacco and guns© Provided by Times Now

New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday officially declared social media as an ‘environmental toxin’ and ‘public health hazard’, putting it in the same category as tobacco and guns. With this, the Big Apple becomes the first city to issue an advisory against social media.

Adams further criticized TikTok, YouTube and Facebook, blaming the three platforms for mental health issues in children. His observation is based on latest surveys saying that teen depression levels have hit their highest levels in a decade. In the advisory, the New York mayor added that parents should impose ‘tech-free times’ for children. The Democrat also urged teens to consider turning off their notifications and tracking their emotions while online.

The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene also identified unrestricted access to and use of social media as a public health hazard

“Today, Dr. Ashwin Vasan is issuing a Health Commissioner’s Advisory, officially designating social media as a public health hazard in New York City,” Adams announced during his State of the City address. The advisory cited a 2021 survey stating that on weekdays 77% of New York City high schoolers spent three or more hours per day in front of screens, not including homework.

New York City mayor declares social media a public health threatUnmute

Adams added that the platforms are “fueling a mental health crisis by designing their platforms with addictive and dangerous features.”

“We are the first major American city to take this step and call out the danger of social media like this. Just as the surgeon general did with tobacco and guns, we are treating social media like other public health hazards and ensuring that tech companies take responsibility for their products,” Adams said.

First approval for controversial seabed mining worries scientists

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Intricately patterned male rabbit fish, Chimaera monstrosa, in deep waters of the Norwegian North Atlantic
Deep-sea species are likely to be affected by seabed mining.

The controversial practice of mining the seabed for valuable minerals has taken a step forward after Norway became the first country to allow such exploration — disappointing scientists and environmental organizations who say that the method will irreversibly damage biodiversity and ecosystems.Seabed mining is coming — bringing mineral riches and fears of epic extinctions

“This is about greed not need and will come at a significant cost to our environment for present and future generations,” says Matthew Gianni, co-founder of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, an advocacy group in Amsterdam.

On 9 January, Norway’s parliament voted 80–20 in favour of allowing mining on its continental shelf in the Norwegian sea to map and investigate whether sulfides and manganese crusts on the seabed in its national jurisdiction could be extracted profitably. These metals are currently mined on land.

The Norwegian government, which has been pursuing its mining plan since 2020, says that seabed extraction is necessary to ensure sufficient supplies of metals such as manganese and cobalt used in the manufacturing of electric-vehicle batteries and other electronics to help the transition to a low-carbon economy. But many scientists including the European Academies Science Advisory Council — a group of national science academies — say that this claim is misleading, and argue that terrestrial metal resources are sufficient.

Although research on the ecological impacts of deep-sea mining is limited, studies are beginning to show that it could harm species on the seabed by crushing them with machinery or smothering them with plumes of sediment that are kicked up by mining activities1. Scientists discovered that species in the water column such as jellyfish are also at risk. Many researchers and governments are calling for a moratorium until more is known about the deep-sea ecosystem.

Advice ignored

The Norway vote means the government can issue permits to companies and other entities to explore a reported 281,000 square kilometers of the seabed. Permission to extract minerals for commercial activities will require a further parliamentary vote, but many scientists and environmental organizations see the vote as a gateway towards that goal.

Norwegian scientists say they are disappointed but not surprised by the move. They say that the government ignored their scientific advice and that of the nation’s environment agency in Trondheim. In response to a public consultation on the government’s mining plans, scientists said that too little is known about the biodiversity and ecosystem functions in the proposed sites to enable mining to go ahead safely.

“How can we make meaningful judgements of acceptable harm or risk when we know absolutely nothing about it?” says Peter Haugan, director of policy at the Institute of Marine Research in Bergen.

Helena Hauss, a marine ecologist at NORCE, an independent research institute with headquarters in Bergen, says that the proposed mining sites, which are like islands — inhabited by communities not found elsewhere — will be irreversibly destroyed. “This is difficult to align with the claim of the Norwegian government that this will be done in a sustainable and responsible way,” she says.

Environmental lawsuits

Haugan says that Norway’s decision could be illegal because the government lacked sufficient scientific evidence to assess the impacts of future mining activities, which is required under national law. He anticipates that environmental groups will launch lawsuits against the government on these grounds to try to stop mining from going ahead.

He is also concerned that the government will ignore science advice when requests for commercial exploitation are considered. The government suggests exploitation is around 20 years away, but environmental organizations say it could happen sooner.

Gianni says that companies who finance exploration of the seabed are likely to want commercial licences in return for their investments.

Norway’s push to open up its seabed for mining comes as international negotiations continue on whether to permit commercial harvesting of the sea floor in mineral rich areas outside of countries’ national jurisdiction, including the Clarion Clarion–Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a 4.5-million-square-kilometre area in the eastern Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Mexico. Norway is one of the strongest proponents of deep-sea mining in the international discussions, says Gianni.

Watch “LIVE: Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony” on YouTube

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https://www.youtube.com/live/gmfN8smaJ-M?si=XJ2tFwMYvatHk4G1

South Korea records its first locally transmitted case of monkeypox

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People sit beneath the cherry blossoms in full bloom along a street in Seoul on April 3, 2023.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said the person has no travel history

South Korea has reported its first case of locally transmitted monkeypox disease, bringing the total number of infections to six.

The South Korean national was admitted to a hospital on Monday and was reported to authorities on Thursday on the suspicion of having contracted monkeypox. The following day, his samples were sent and the results came back positive, Yonhap News Agency reported on Saturday.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said the person has has no recent travel history.

“Unlike the previous five cases in the country, which were linked to overseas travel, the latest patient had not travelled abroad within the past three months,” the KDCA said.

It was said that the individual, whose identity has not been revealed, had been experiencing symptoms since the end of March. Since then, he had been in contact with others for several days.

“A thorough epidemiological investigation is currently ongoing, and we will release necessary information as soon as it is ready,” a KDCA official said, adding that the individual is in good health.

The first case of monkeypox in South Korea was recorded on June 22 last year, while the fifth case was reported March 13.

The virus, which is traditionally confined to regions in Central and Western Africa, can cause fever, chills, rashes and lesions, among other symptoms.

A KCDA official told Yonhap agency that the risk of transmission of monkeypox is relatively low compared to COVID-19 and flu, unless one has close contact with a confirmed infected case.

In one of the cases, the third patient was a medical worker and was infected after being accidentally pricked by an injection needle while taking a skin lesion sample from a who contracted the disease during overseas travel.

The US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 86,746 viral disease cases since January 2022 all over the world, with 30,286 infections detected in America alone. During the same time period, 112 people died, including 38 in the US.

Turkey–Syria earthquake: what scientists know

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Turkey and Syria’s buildings have always been vulnerable to earthquakes, but war has made things worse.

Residents in front of a collapsed building.
The earthquake destroyed buildings in the town of Jandaris, near Afrin, Syria.Credit: Rami al-Sayed/AFP/Getty

A magnitude-7.8 earthquake hit southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria in the early hours of the morning of 6 February. At least 17,000 people are known to have lost their lives, with thousands more injured. The quake was followed by a magnitude-7.5 event some 9 hours later, as well as more than 200 aftershocks.

The earthquake and its aftershocks have flattened buildings and sent rescuers digging through concrete debris to find survivors, with the death toll expected to increase further. Nature spoke to four researchers about the seismic activity in the region and what the next few days will bring.

Turkey is in an active earthquake zone

Most of Turkey sits on the Anatolian plate between two major faults: the North Anatolian Fault and the East Anatolian Fault. The tectonic plate that carries Arabia, including Syria, is moving northwards and colliding with the southern rim of Eurasia, which is squeezing Turkey out towards the west, says David Rothery, a geoscientist at the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK. “Turkey is moving west about 2 centimetres per year along the East Anatolian Fault,” he adds. “Half the length of this fault is lit up now with earthquakes.”

Seyhun Puskulcu, a seismologist and coordinator of the Turkish Earthquake Foundation, based in Istanbul, says people in Turkey are well aware of their vulnerability to earthquakes. “This wasn’t a surprise,” says Puskulcu, who last week was touring the cities of Adana, Tarsus and Mersin, and areas of western Turkey, delivering workshops on earthquake awareness.

The epicentre of the main earthquake was 26 kilometres east of the city of Nurdaği in Turkey’s Gaziantep province, at a depth of 17.9 kilometres. The magnitude-7.5 event occurred around 4 kilometres southeast of Ekinözü in the Kahramanmaraş province (see ‘Earthquakes and aftershocks’).

Earthquakes and aftershocks. Map showing the locations of earthquakes in southern Turkey.
US Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program

War has destabilized already-vulnerable buildings

Deaths in earthquakes are often caused by falling bricks and masonry. According to the US Geological Survey, many people in Turkey who were affected by the earthquake live in structures that are extremely likely to be damaged by shaking, with unreinforced brick masonry and low-rise concrete frames.

In a study1 published last March in Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, Arzu Arslan Kelam at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, and her colleagues suggested that the centre of the city of Gaziantep would experience medium-to-severe damage from a magnitude-6.5 earthquake. This is because most existing buildings are low-rise brick structures that are constructed very close to each other.

In 1999, a magnitude-7.4 earthquake hit 11 kilometres southeast of Izmit, Turkey, killing more than 17,000 people and leaving more than 250,000 homeless. After this tragedy, the Turkish government introduced new building codes and a compulsory earthquake insurance system. However, many of the buildings affected by this week’s quake were built before 2000, says Mustafa Erdik, a civil engineer at Boğaziçi University, Turkey.

Things are worse in Syria, where more than 11 years of conflict have made building standards impossible to enforce. The earthquake struck Syria’s northwestern regions, with buildings collapsing in Aleppo and Idlib. Some war-damaged buildings in Syria have been rebuilt using low-quality materials or “whatever materials are available”, says Rothery. “They might have fallen down more readily than things that were built at somewhat greater expense. We’ve yet to find out,” he adds.

What’s next?

Researchers say people need to brace themselves for yet more quakes and aftershocks, as well as deteriorating weather. “The possibility for major aftershocks causing even more damage will continue for weeks and months,” says Ilan Kelman, who studies disasters and health at University College London.

“The weather forecast for the region for tonight is dropping below freezing. That means that people who are trapped in the rubble, who might be rescued, could well freeze to death. So these hazards continue,” he adds.

Scientists Say We’re Closer to Nuclear Armageddon Than Any Other Point in History

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The scientist-activists who run the Doomsday Clock have once again ticked it forward, bringing humanity’s estimated chances of its own nuclear annihilation closer than ever.

A statement publishedby the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the group behind the Doomsday Clock, cited Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the potential for a “hot war” between NATO and Russia as its reasoning for moving the clock a mere 90 seconds to midnight.

Founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein and the scientists who would have been his colleagues had the US granted him security clearance to work on the atomic bomb-building Manhattan Project, the BAS has every year since 1947 warned of the preceding annum’s biggest risks to humanity — and this year, those risks are all about Russia.

“Russia’s thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons remind the world that escalation of the conflict — by accident, intention, or miscalculation — is a terrible risk,” the statement reads. “The possibility that the conflict could spin out of anyone’s control remains high.”

Hot War

While not mentioned in the statement, the country formerly known as the Soviet Union has some pretty jarring past precedents to take into consideration: the 1983 “false alarm” incident in which USSR radar picked up and subsequently alerted officials about phony readings from the West that were initially interpreted as warhead-carrying spy planes coming out of the US.

The protocol, which wasn’t followed, would have been to strike back. If Stanislav Petrov, the Soviet Air Defense officer in charge of the early-warning station located that detected the misinterpreted signals, hadn’t trusted his gut when it told him they were false alarms, nuclear war would almost certainly have broken out.

Back in the present, the concerned scientists note that beyond just the heating up of the new cold war, Russia’s Ukrainian aggression has also “undermine[d] global efforts to combat climate change,” and its fake news about Ukraine developing bioweapons may indicate that it’s doing exactly that.

While “there is no clear pathway for forging a just peace that discourages future aggression under the shadow of nuclear weapons,” the BAS urged open engagement with peace talks between NATO and Russia — not just for the sake of heading off war, but for the sake of helping the planet avoid further catastrophe, too.

The water crisis is worsening. Researchers must tackle it together

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It’s unacceptable that millions living in poverty still lack access to safe water and basic sanitation. Nature Water will help researchers to find a way forward

A Worker Takes a Rest On the Chapped Land in a Dried Reservior in Minqin in Northwest China's Gansu Province
Communities in Gansu province in China store snow in the winter months for use in the dry summers.

Among the world’s ‘poly-crises’, the crisis of water is one of the most urgent. Worldwide, around 2 billion people lacked access to safe drinking water in 2020; and an estimated 1.7 billion did not have even basic sanitation. Every year, more than 800,000 people die from diarrhoea, because of unsafe drinking water and a lack of sanitation. Most of those are in low- and lower-middle income countries. This is a mind-boggling and unacceptable situation. Even more so in an age when huge investments are being made in instant video calling, personalized medicine and talk of inhabiting other planets.

In 2015, the international community declared tackling the water crisis one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The sixth SDG commits the world to “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”. But the UN acknowledges that SDG 6 is “alarmingly off track”.

International diplomacy is finally starting to get its act together. In March, world leaders will assemble in New York City for the UN 2023 Water Conference. It will be the first such event in nearly half a century, a fact that by itself should shame us all.

Last October, the UN published the results of a consultation with government representatives as well as specialist and stakeholder communities on their priorities for the conference. Around 12% of respondents were from education, science and technology fields. The consensus was that data and evidence, improved access to knowledge (including Indigenous and local knowledge) and open research will be essential to getting SDG 6 back on track. Delegates attending the March conference will be looking to harness the full spectrum of established water sources and technologies, including freshwater and rainwater sources, treated groundwater, desalinated seawater and hydropower.

There’s a wealth of knowledge already out there, in the form of established technologies, innovative alternatives and research that captures centuries-old knowledge and the practices of communities themselves. In the past, such knowledge has been ignored, or what has been learnt has been forgotten. Twenty years ago, for example, the UN invested in a major piece of research that captured examples of how communities living in water-stressed regions have used research and innovation to access water. The research highlighted, for example, how people in arid regions of China store snow in cellars during the winter that can then be melted for use in the summer months.

Prerequisites for tackling the water crisis include consolidating what is already known and building on that knowledge. That’s why on 19 January, the Nature Portfolio of journals launched Nature Water. This journal will provide a space for all researchers — including those in natural and social sciences, and in engineering — to collectively contribute their knowledge, insights and the results of their learning, so that the world is on a more equitable and sustainable track. The launch issue includes research in fundamental, applied and social science, as well as opinion and analysis. Our editorial teams are committed to facilitating open science1.

Some paths forward are clear. Damir Brdjanovic at the IHE Delft Institute for Water Education in the Netherlands writes in Nature Water that there’s a vast body of research on alternatives to sewered sanitation — and how to use less or no water to safely dispose of faecal matter and inactivate pathogens2. There are alternatives to the flush toilet and underground, piped sewer networks. And Rongrong Xu at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, and colleagues report that there are ways to create hydropower, especially in Africa and Asia, without the same environmental and social impacts3.

However, research does not exist in a vacuum. The representatives of low- and middle-income countries also want to prioritize funding. The South African government, in its response to the UN consultation, says that the annual cost to meet the SDG water and sanitation targets is between 2.3% and 2.7% of the country’s gross domestic product (between US$7 billion and $7.6 billion annually). A project called the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, co-chaired by economist Mariana Mazzucato and climate scientist Johan Rockström (among others), is promising “new thinking on economics and governance” in time for the conference.

Conflict theory

Those who will be attending the conference in March also told the UN they want to see international cooperation be made a priority for water and sanitation, especially in an era of heightened geopolitical tensions. More than 25 years ago, former vice-president of the World Bank Ismail Serageldin famously wrote that twenty-first-century conflicts would be over water, rather than oil. We are fortunate that this has not yet happened, although Serageldin told Nature that relations between countries that share water sources are worsening. Egypt is formally in dispute with Ethiopia over dam-building projects on the Nile River; the same is true of India and Pakistan in the Indus River Basin.

In its response to the UN, Egypt’s delegation observed that the majority of people rely on water sources that are shared between nations, most of which lack formal agreements, including all-important data sharing agreements. Rhea Verbeke, at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, writes in Nature Water of the “sobering experience” of seeing no external submissions to an open database on water purification that was created more than one year ago4.

The delegates assembling in New York need to accept that their countries’ visions will not be realized until all nations can somehow carve out a path to cooperate amid tension and conflict. Research can help to provide at least some of the right language, which is why it needs to be taken on board when decisions are being made. We in the Nature Portfolio intend to play our fullest part to make that happen.

Source:Nature