Articles

An increasing number of cities and local governments adhere to transnational initiatives on climate change mitigation, but quantification of their contribution to the Paris Agreement commitments is lacking. To address this, the climate mitigation trajectory to 2050 of Covenant of Mayors (CoM) signatories has been studied. As of October 2017 there are more than 7600 signatories covering 238 million inhabitants, mainly from European cities. Of these 533 have already reported on the implementation of their climate action plans and 207 signatories have declared a long term target beyond 2020.

Objective: Although the benefits of vaccines are widely recognized by medical experts, public opinion about vaccination policies is mixed. We analyze public opinion about vaccination policies to assess whether Dunning-Kruger effects can help to explain anti-vaccination policy attitudes. Rationale: People low in autism awareness – that is, the knowledge of basic facts and dismissal of misinformation about autism – should be the most likely to think that they are better informed than medical experts about the causes of autism (a Dunning-Kruger effect).

It is commonly acknowledged that ants improve the hydraulic properties of soils in which they build their nests. To date, however, most studies of such soil modifications have focused on one ant species and one type of ecosystem, rather than investigating how different ant species affect different types of land cover within the same landscape. Our study focused on modifications to water infiltration and surface texture of Haplic Luvisols by two ant species—one of them present only in a forest and the other present only in a pasture.

Efforts to protect nature are facing a growing crisis, one that often revolves around the burgeoning impacts of roads and other infrastructure on biodiversity and ecosystems. Potential solutions are possible but they will involve serious trade-offs and the confrontation of deep misconceptions. Here, I identify some time-critical tactics to aid scientists in informing and influencing the global infrastructure debate.