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| Astrobotic's Peregrine spacecraft will probably not make it to the Moon's surface because it will soon be unable to maintain an orientation that allows sunlight to fall on its solar panels and charge its battery. (United Launch Alliance (ULA)) | |||||
Private Moon mission might be doomedA spacecraft launched by the private US company Astrobotic, which made a bid to become the first commercial mission to land on the Moon, is likely lost. The probe started to leak propellant and tumble out of control hours after its launch yesterday. The mission is the first of at least ten planned through NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services programme, in which the agency pays private companies to deliver scientific instruments to the Moon's surface. Astrobotic's spacecraft also carries items for paying customers including, controversially, cremated human remains. Nature | 3 min read & Nature | 6 min read | |||||
Mystery of yellow pee solvedThe enzyme that makes urine yellow has been finally identified. It has been known for more than 125 years that a compound called urobilin is responsible for urine's yellow colour. But it was unclear how exactly it is created from the red-orange bilirubin. This waste product from degraded red blood cells can lead to jaundice and neurological damage if too much of it builds up in the body. The enzyme, bilirubin reductase, is made by gut microbes and converts bilirubin into colourless urobilinogen, which breaks down further into yellow urobilin. Healthline | 7 min readReference: Nature Microbiology paper | |||||
Tasmanian devil die-off shifts quoll geneticsDeclining numbers of Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii) are affecting the genetics of a smaller predator that is lower in the food chain, the spotted-tailed quoll (Dasyurus maculatus). Devil population has declined by nearly 70% since 1996 mainly because of a lethal, contagious cancer. An analysis of 345 quolls' genomes across 15 generations identified gene variants that are linked to devil population density and to the number of years the devil facial tumour disease has been prevalent in an area. Among these genes are ones important for movement and muscle development, as well as some linked to feeding behaviour. Nature | 4 min readReference: Nature Ecology & Evolution paper | |||||
First growing heart-valve transplantIn 2022, an 18-day-old boy received the first partial-heart transplant. Now a healthy 20-month old, Owen Monroe's heart has grown with its young recipient — the first time that transplanted tissue has been shown to do this. Usually, babies with faulty heart valves need to undergo multiple surgeries to size up the replacement valves until adult-sized ones can be fitted. "There is, I think, every reason to hope that it's really going to be a groundbreaking advance for a subset of children that don't otherwise have good options," says paediatric cardiac surgeon Kathleen Fenton. CNN | 9 min readReference: JAMA paper | |||||
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What's behind Japan's deadly earthquakeLast week, a magnitude-7.6 earthquake on Japan's west coast triggered tsunamis, flattened buildings and killed dozens of people. Unlike most major earthquakes in Japan, which are caused by one tectonic plate sliding beneath another, this one probably originated from a 150-kilometre fault line within a plate. "That stress builds up in the plate and it's going to slip somehow," says seismologist Adam Pascale. Nature | 5 min read | |||||
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Climate change worsens drug resistanceClimate change and antibiotic resistance are both major threats to human health, and the risks multiply when they intersect. Increased average minimum temperatures have been linked to higher rates of antibiotic resistance — maybe by making it easier for them to evolve. And extreme temperatures can force people to spend more time indoors, where infection can spread. Tackling these issues together will require global action — and recognition of inequity between richer and poorer nations. Some public health researchers argue for a new UN treaty, similar to existing climate treaties, calling for a 35% reduction in drug-resistant infections by 2035. Nature | 9 min read | |||||
Our digital afterlivesWe should give more thought to how the dead and dying exert agency over their online presence, argues Timothy Recuber in The Digital Departed. The sociologist analyses more than 2,000 digital texts, from blog posts by those who are terminally ill to online suicide notes. Recuber "is at his sociological best", writes reviewer and sociologist Margaret Gibson, when he is critiquing transhumanism — the controversial idea that future technologies could allow a person's consciousness to 'live' online forever. "His astute comments exemplify a second theme of The Digital Departed — that inequalities that persist in the physical world are mirrored in peoples' online lives." Nature | 7 min read | |||||
Video: What is ChatGPT not?Talking to ChatGPT can feel remarkably like talking to something sentient. And in some sense, the chatbot is intelligent: it can do some tasks, such as passing exams, as capably as a human. Yet it fails simple logic puzzles that people find easy. It's important to remember that these systems aren't independent agents: they have no intentions and no concept of what is true or false, explains Nature features editor Richard Van Noorden in this short guide to ChatGPT. Nature | 4 min video | |||||
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Quote of the day"A galactic hug is scientifically truthful, and it's led me to believe that astronomers should reconsider the language we use."Some needlessly violent language in astronomy — such as the galactic 'collision' of Andromeda and the Milky Way — do a disservice to the grandeur and gentleness of the processes involved, argues astronomer Juan Madrid. (Scientific American | 3 min read) | |||||
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What matters in science | View this email in your browser Friday 10 November 2023 Hello Nature readers, Today we learn that the hottest year on record has exposed one-quarter of people to dangerous levels of extreme heat. Plus, UK scientists are reeling over the intervention of a government minister and how to tame a toxic antifungal drug. Among 700 big cities, Houston, Texas experienced the longest climate-change influenced heat wave: 22 days. (Brandon Bell/Getty) Ear...
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