Jack Leeming

London

Editor at Nature

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nature.com

Articles

Singapore’s fight to save its green spaces from development

1 week ago | nature.com | Jack Leeming

The Singapore freshwater crab is, it’s fair to say, picky. A diminutive, nocturnal creature, Johora singaporensis lives only along a handful of hill streams in small pockets of relatively unvisited rainforest in and around the nature reserves of Singapore. Nature Spotlight: SingaporeThe city-state covers just 730 square kilometres — 16% of which is rainforest — yet is home to almost 6 million people. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for crabs.
Six striking images showcase scientific fieldwork

3 weeks ago | nature.com | Jack Leeming

This article is also available as apdf version. The winners of Nature’s 2025 #ScientistAtWork photo competition are drawn entirely from fieldwork entries, taking viewers on a voyage of scientific discovery that includes the Arctic and Antarctic circles, both sides of the Pacific Ocean, and a shot from atop a Greek mountain. Nature’s careers team received more than 200 entries from researchers around the world.
Exclusive: a Nature analysis signals the beginnings of a US science brain drain

1 month ago | nature.com | Jack Leeming

Researchers in the United States are seeking career opportunities abroad as President Donald Trump’s administration slashes science funding and workforce numbers, finds an analysis of Nature’s jobs-board data. Data from the Nature Careers global science jobs platform show that US scientists submitted 32% more applications for jobs abroad between January and March 2025 than during the same period in 2024. At the same time, the number of US-based users browsing jobs abroad increased by 35%.
#ScientistAtWork 2025: Nature is seeking stunning photographic images that capture researchers’ working lives

2 months ago | nature.com | Jack Leeming

Entries are now open for Nature’s 2025 #ScientistAtWork photo competition. Capture a moment in your working day on camera for the chance to win a £500 cash prize (or local-currency equivalent) and the opportunity to see your winning image appear in print and online as part of the magazine’s Careers section. To enter, simply take a photo that conveys the essence of your research focus and submit it to [email protected].
Inside an Argentinian nuclear reactor, science and politics collide

Dec 19, 2024 | nature.com | Jack Leeming

At a facility on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, women are fighting budget cuts and inequality in the workplace. In November 2023, after a gruelling and unusual election campaign, Argentina’s then president-elect, Javier Milei, took the stage in Buenos Aires to deliver a raucous victory speech. In it, he vowed to end an age of government spending “decadence” and to tackle the huge economic problems the country faced.
What a forest’s glow can reveal about the impact of environmental change

Nov 18, 2024 | nature.com | Jack Leeming

“In this photograph, I’m installing a chlorophyll fluorometer into a Scots pine tree (Pinus sylvestris) at a forest station in Hyytiälä, Finland, which is 200 kilometres north of the main campus at the University of Helsinki. I’m 20 metres above the ground, on a scaffold. The tool records the light emitted by leaves or needles in the far-red part of the spectrum. Almost every chlorophyll-containing organism creates this light.
Dear researchers: send us your lab hacks

Oct 25, 2024 | nature.com | Jack Leeming

Do you have a favourite tool or workaround that helps you save time, money or drudgery? Share it with Nature’s readers.
UK university departments on the brink as higher-education funding crisis deepens

Sep 25, 2024 | nature.com | Jack Leeming

This week, when students brush their teeth, pack their bags and walk down Cottingham Road to reach the University of Hull’s chemistry building, it will be with more than the usual sense of trepidation that often accompanies the first day of lectures. Staff members at the UK university, founded in 1927 in what was then a thriving industrial city, were told about the planned closure of its chemistry department in June.
I raise delicate butterflies on the mean streets of New York

Jun 10, 2024 | nature.com | Jack Leeming

“Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) are complex creatures, which is part of what makes them so interesting to me. Every breeding season there are four generations of these butterflies. Three live for only a few weeks, but the fourth survives for six to nine months. Some of this generation emerge from their chrysalises here in Queens, New York City, in September or October. They then begin a long migration to Mexico, before restarting their generational cycle and heading north in March or April.
How my research is putting blue crab on the menu in Croatia

May 20, 2024 | nature.com | Jack Leeming

“It’s dirty, hot work picking up blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus). They like murky water, and you need special clothing and equipment to wade through the swampy lagoon here in the Palud – Palù ornithological reserve in Pula, Croatia. It was the end of a long day in September last year when this photo was taken, and I was hot and sweaty under that special clothing.