ECOLOGY
Hippo intestine microbes make a splash
A research of hippo swimming pools in Africa suggests the microscopic intestine residents of those large animals have an surprising affect exterior their our bodies. Like virtually all animals, hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius) host helpful intestine microbes, reminiscent of micro organism that help digestion. But when hippos defecate into the big swimming pools they wade and swim in alongside the Serengeti’s Mara River, they launch residing members of their intestinal microbiome and successfully create a poolwide “metagut,” University of Florida ecologist Christopher Dutton and colleagues reported final week in Scientific Reports. These microbes can change the water chemistry, which may assist clarify the huge fish kills that happen throughout seasonal floods, when pool water is washed downstream, the staff proposes. The animals additionally share micro organism with one another as they drink the water, probably boosting the digestive capabilities and immune defenses of all of the hippos within the pond. “Hippos shape the world around them through microbes associated with their feces,” says Robert Naiman, an emeritus ecologist on the University of Washington, Seattle. Other creatures that reside in stagnant swimming pools or slow-moving streams, reminiscent of alligators, might do one thing comparable, he says.
ENVIRONMENT
Call for U.S. to handle plastic waste
The United States is the world’s largest generator of plastic waste and among the many high dozen sources of plastic air pollution within the ocean, but it lacks complete methods to check or scale back the issue, reviews a panel convened by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The nation produced 42 million tons of plastic waste in 2016, with as a lot as 2 million tons of that winding up within the ocean, the report launched final week notes. That’s roughly one-quarter of the estimated international complete dumped into the ocean annually. Currently, recycling within the United States is “grossly insufficient” to sort out the issue, the panel warns. The group requires creating a nationwide analysis technique by the tip of 2022 to higher perceive the scale and drivers of the plastics drawback. It additionally urged better U.S. measures to chop plastic waste, pointing to initiatives in different nations, reminiscent of proscribing free plastic baggage and requiring producers to take again packaging.
In essence, this marketing campaign was a corridor of mirrors, endlessly reflecting a single pretend persona.
From a report by Meta (previously Facebook) discovering that Chinese entities created a phony Swiss biologist on social media and amplified his claims that the United States was intimidating the World Health Organization on COVID-19’s origin
DIVERSITY
Bringing fairness to AI
Computer scientist Timnit Gebru, whose analysis confirmed facial recognition software program has a bias towards girls and other people of coloration, introduced final week she’s launching the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR). The nonprofit institute will develop synthetic intelligence software program serving marginalized teams and goals “to counter Big Tech’s pervasive influence on the research, development and deployment of AI,” in response to an announcement. In an early mission, DAIR researchers will create a public information set of aerial pictures to check how apartheid formed land use in South Africa. Gebru co-led Google’s Ethical AI group till final yr, when she clashed with the Silicon Valley large over a paper she co-authored elevating considerations about potential hurt from language-processing know-how utilized by Google and different corporations. (Gebru says she was fired, though Google referred to as her departure a resignation.) DAIR will kick off with $3.7 million in funding from a number of foundations and different teams.
COVID-19
An antibody for Omicron?
A visualization of mutations (blue, pink, and white) that distinguish the Omicron spike protein from these of the unique SARS-CoV-2 pandemic COVID-19 coronavirus and the Delta variant.MIA ROSENFELD AND FIONA KEARNS/AMARO LAB/UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
A monoclonal antibody (mAb) licensed this yr for COVID-19 neutralizes pseudoviruses outfitted with all 37 of the mutations within the spike floor protein of the Omicron variant, in response to outcomes from Vir Biotechnology. The firm, which developed the drug with GlaxoSmithKline, this week added the newest information to a 1 December preprint reporting that the antibody maintains potent neutralizing exercise towards pseudoviruses with particular person Omicron spike mutations. The drug, referred to as sotrovimab, was licensed by the United States in May and by the United Kingdom final week. EU regulators are nonetheless evaluating it. The antibody, delivered by intravenous infusion, is for nonhospitalized individuals with gentle to average COVID-19 signs. Regeneron mentioned final week its COVID-19 mAb cocktail (casirivimab and imdevimab) might lose some efficiency towards the Omicron variant, and it’s conducting lab research to verify that. Separately this week, the World Health Organization suggested towards use of antibody-filled plasma from recovered COVID-19 sufferers as a remedy, saying it doesn’t enhance survival.
LAW
Abortion case hears little science
Science and drugs barely performed a job in final week’s oral arguments for a probably landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, though fetal viability was talked about usually and a number of other teams had filed amicus briefs summarizing related analysis outcomes. The justices are reviewing the constitutionality of a Mississippi legislation that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of being pregnant. Previous Supreme Court circumstances had established that abortions couldn’t be banned if the fetus couldn’t but survive exterior the womb, a threshold that’s about 23 or 24 weeks of gestation given present medical care. Justice Sonia Sotomayor famous {that a} pregnant particular person’s danger of dying is 14 occasions greater in childbirth than in abortion, and that few scientists assume fetuses really feel ache earlier than 24 weeks. But the court docket largely targeted on nonscience questions, reminiscent of whether or not to overturn precedents and whether or not viability ought to be the idea of any coverage. A call is anticipated by subsequent summer season.
BY THE NUMBERS
69,000
Estimated enhance in international malaria deaths for 2020 in contrast with 2019, 70% (47,000) of them attributed to pandemic disruptions and principally youngsters below 5 years outdated. (World Health Organization’s annual malaria report)
PHILANTHROPY
Biomedical funder expands
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), which 5 years in the past got down to commit $3 billion over 10 years to biomedical analysis, now plans to greater than double its spending and develop instruments for finding out organic processes. Funded by Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and pediatrician Priscilla Chan, who’re married, CZI’s science program launched with a wildly formidable objective: to forestall, handle, or treatment all illness by 2100. It funds analysis in areas reminiscent of neurodegeneration and uncommon illnesses, as effectively the CZ Biohub, which helps research of cell biology and infectious illness at three Northern California universities. In the following part, the group will create a community of biohubs and two free-standing institutes—one targeted on superior imaging and the second to check pure and synthetic intelligence. CZI’s complete dedication will prolong to $6.4 billion over 20 years.
AWARDS
Prizes for defending science
An unbiased science integrity marketing consultant and a racial well being disparities researcher who’ve each confronted scientific or public pushback have gained this yr’s John Maddox Prize for standing up for science. Microbiologist Elisabeth Bik obtained the £3000 award for her information sleuthing, notably uncovering duplicated or modified pictures that may sign fraud and different issues. Physician-scientist Mohammad Sharif Razai of St George’s, University of London gained the early profession prize for work that included addressing vaccine hesitancy amongst ethnic minorities and well being disparities that outcome from systemic racism. The award is sponsored by the London-based charity Sense about Science and Nature, the place John Maddox was editor till 1995.