Nature Macmillan Publishers Ltd.

Nature is constantly reviewing the content that it offers online, and as part of that review we have decided to retire feature of the week . From time to time when papers of exceptional interest are published we will continue to feature these articles in a similar fashion. The archive of past features, which covers an impressive array of science published in Nature , will continue to be freely available.

The Genome Gateway - free access to all genome sequencing research, news and analysis. Nature Cancer Update - Our online news service covering all aspects of cancer research. The Physics Portal - Nature's virtual home for physicists. Nature Science Update - daily and freely available research reports from the Nature news service. 






































Greenhouse gases warm the planet by reflecting heat back to earth, while aerosols keep it cool by bouncing radiation back into space. This balance is already being upset by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, and now Mark Jacobson argues in this week's issue that we are compounding the problem with emissions of black carbon (soot). Black carbon reduces the reflectivity of aerosols and as such may be the second most potent agent of global warming after carbon dioxide (11 February 2001).