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Hello _Nature_ readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here. A HOUSE BUILT FROM CONCRETE AND NAPPIES Washed and shredded nappies can replace up to

40% of the sand in concrete without reducing its strength. A small house in Indonesia built using the concrete diverted around 1.7 cubic metres of waste from landfill. The downside: shredded

nappies decrease compressive strength, so columns and beams would require a smaller proportion than do architectural elements, such as walls. Unfortunately, “there’s no supporting system in

the municipal waste management to separate diapers”, notes civil engineer Siswanti Zuraida, who led the project in Indonesia. Nature | 5 min read Reference: _Scientific Reports_ paper

THOUSANDS PROTEST MEXICO’S NEW SCIENCE LAW A new law in Mexico that consolidates government power over science has been condemned by many researchers: more than 14,000 people have signed a

protest letter, and others are preparing a march. Critics worry that the legislation will harm basic science by prioritizing projects on the basis of their potential to solve national

problems. And some say that Mexico’s ruling party didn’t follow normal parliamentary procedures — few of the planned discussion forums happened before the law was rushed through. Nature | 5

min read CITATION BUMP FROM TURNING UP FOR TALKS Conference attendees cite work discussed in talks 52% more often when they could go to the corresponding presentation in person than when

they couldn’t attend owing to scheduling conflicts. These results come from an analysis of data from more than 2,400 people who had used a personal scheduling app at 25 computer-science

conferences held between 2013 and 2020. The citation bump from in-person attendance accrues even for talks that the scientists hadn’t planned on listening to; this benefit accounted for

nearly 22% of information dissemination brought about by conference talks. Nature | 4 min read Reference: arXiv preprint (not peer reviewed) CHINA OVERTAKES US IN NATURE INDEX For the first

time, China has overtaken the United States in the Nature Index’s Share metric, which takes into account the percentage of authors from a given nation on each paper published in 82

prestigious scientific journals. Since the Nature Index was first introduced in 2014, China has rapidly gained ground on the United States and trails in Share in only one natural-sciences

category — life sciences. On “simple bibliometrics like productivity and citations, China has outperformed expectations”, says science and policy researcher Caroline Wagner. But it still

“significantly trails” behind other nations “in its capacity to absorb and apply knowledge”. Nature Index | 5 min read FEATURES & OPINION WHAT 1.5 ℃ OF GLOBAL WARMING REALLY MEANS Last

week, meteorologists predicted that the global average temperature for a single year is likely to hit 1.5 ℃ above pre-industrial levels within the next five years. The landmark evokes the

Paris climate agreement’s aspirational goal: to keep global warming below 1.5 ℃. But the two milestones are not the same. • The Paris goal is defined as the midpoint of the first 20-year

period when the average global surface air temperature is 1.5 ºC warmer than the 1850–1900 average. • A global stocktake in preparation for the next United Nations Framework Convention on

Climate Change meeting (COP28), in November, found that, for a 50% chance of achieving the goal, global greenhouse-gas emissions need to peak before 2025; this hasn’t happened yet. • Because

global warming is uneven, more than one-fifth of the world’s population currently live in regions that have already exceeded 1.5 ºC of warming in at least one season. • More important than

when Earth will hit 1.5 ºC is what amount of warming the planet will peak at, and when that will happen. “With every tenth of a degree above 2 ºC, you’re looking at more-sustained,

more-systemic impacts,” says geographer William Solecki. Those numbers won’t be apparent for decades. Nature | 5 min read DIGITAL TECH NEEDS INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL “As a society, we are

failing to adequately address the use of digital information technologies as a global challenge that affects nearly every aspect of modern life,” argue computational social scientist Joseph

Bak-Coleman, biologist Carl Bergstrom and four colleagues. “The use of these technologies has difficult-to-predict consequences that span generations and continents.” And efforts to

understand the risks are hampered by secretive corporations, which wield the threat of legal action against scholars who try to dig deeper. The authors argue for an independent body,

analogous to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to inform evidence-based policy and exert influence on behalf of humanity. Nature | 9 min read HOW SCIENCE CAN FUEL

DISINFORMATION Science is its own worst enemy when it comes to assisting the spread of disinformation, argues economist Gary Smith in _Distrust_. The book is a veritable page-turner, says

reviewer and methodologist Eric-Jan Wagenmakers. It contains many educational and distressing examples of bad science that are the result of cherry-picking, _P_-hacking and other ways to

squeeze out non-existent effects from data. “But the focus is too much on the disease, and too little on the potential cures,” Wagenmakers stresses. Discussions of ways to counteract

questionable research practices remain superficial, and the book lacks proper scientific referencing. Nature | 6 min read WHEN SCIENTISTS MUST RUN When war broke out in Yemen in 2015,

environmental researcher Hassoni Alodaini began a three-year journey to sanctuary in the Netherlands, much of it on foot. Geoinformation scientist Fares el Hasan dodged snipers during his

daily commute to the University of Aleppo, in Syria, before he too relocated to the Netherlands. They join Stephen Wordworth, executive director of the Council for At Risk Academics, in the

_Nature Careers Podcast_ to discuss how best to support displaced researchers. Nature Careers Podcast | 32 min listen QUOTE OF THE DAY “AS SCIENCE, THE MOTHERING, FEELING TREE IS

CONTROVERSIAL. AS LITERATURE FOR A POLITICAL MOVEMENT, IT’S NOT BAD, AND, AFTER ALL, NOTHING ELSE HAS WORKED.” Historian Jill Lepore explores our long-term relationship with trees, including

the influential ‘Wood Wide Web’ research of ecologist Suzanne Simard. (The New Yorker | 16 min read)