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A coloured scanning electron micrograph of human cells infected with bird flu virus, depicted in pink and purple colours

The bird-flu virus H5N1 (purple; artificially coloured) infects a human cell.Credit: Steve Gschmeissner/Science Photo Library

If the H5N1 bird-flu virus sparks a human pandemic, older people might be more protected because they were exposed to ‘matched’ flu strains during childhood. A person’s first bout of flu might have an outsized effect on their future immunity: a 2016 analysis showed that those born before 1968 have tended to escape H5N1’s ravages because they probably had their first flu infection at a time when the dominant flu virus matched H5N1. Nevertheless, a H5N1 pandemic is still likely to take a major toll because it is genetically different from seasonal flu viruses.

Nature | 6 min read

EvolutionaryScale’s system ESM-3 has generated proteins inspired by green fluorescent protein (GFP), a biotechnology workhorse used to make other proteins visible. One of the ESM-3 proteins glows as bright as a natural GFP. What makes it unusual is that it shares less than 60% of its building-block sequence with the most closely related fluorescent protein in the model’s training data. ESM-3 is one of the first biological models that allows researchers to design new proteins by simply writing down the properties and functions they want. “It’s going to be one of the AI models in biology that everybody’s paying attention to,” says computational biologist Anthony Gitter.

Nature | 6 min read

Reference: bioRxiv preprint (not peer reviewed)

Iran’s researchers hope that the unexpected victory of heart surgeon Masoud Pezeshkian could boost science funding, increase academic freedom and reduce their isolation from the international research community. Pezeshkian has vowed to improve human rights and revive talks on the country’s nuclear programme. But some worry that lasting changes will be hard while Iran is headed by clerical supreme leader Ali Khamenei. “The total power is in the hand of the dictator,” says cosmologist Encieh Erfani, who left her position in Iran in 2022 in protest of state violence against students. “I hope the West does not make the mistake of believing in reforms in Iran. No dictator can be reformed.”

Nature | 5 min read

People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) seem to have a distribution of gut archaea, fungi and viruses that is different from people who don’t — supporting similar findings about the bacterial component of their gut microbiome. Focusing on these differences, researchers developed a tool that was able to correctly identify a large proportion of children with ASD in a sample group by analysing their stool samples. “The idea that analysis of stool samples may aid in diagnosis is very exciting, as currently there is a massive backlog in children and adults waiting to be assessed,” says nutrition and gastrointestinal health consultant Elizabeth Lund.

The Guardian | 3 min read

Reference: Nature Microbiology paper

Features & opinion

Canada’s government drastically increased PhD and postdoc salaries in its budget this year, in large part thanks to a grass-roots movement led by University of Toronto PhD student Kaitlin Kharas. Here are her tips for how to make change happen in your own land:

• Collective organization is key. One-off, high-profile meetings aren’t enough.

• Choose a simple message and actionable recommendations.

• Relay the message in as many ways as possible: e-mails, phone calls, social-media posts, open letters, petitions.

• Make connections and build trust.

Nature | 5 min read

There is no evidence that low levels of the mood-affecting neurotransmitter serotonin cause depression — yet drugs that raise serotonin levels, called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), are widely used to treat the condition. “Nobody loves [SSRIs],” says bioengineer Parastoo Hashemi. “But they work, and they work quite well for a subset of patients.” Her team is using ‘mini-brains’ made from people’s cells to get to the bottom of how antidepressants work. Critics point out that the drugs distract from addressing the real, societal causes of depression. “There’s a strong desire among the medical profession to see depression as a biological condition, and to believe that we have a treatment that will help,” says psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff.

Chemistry World | 9 min read

The Braude Radio Astronomy Observatory near Kharkiv, Ukraine, close to the Russian border, was once one of the nation’s flagship scientific facilities. Since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022, bombing, occupation and looting have taken a heavy toll, as shown in this richly photographed feature. “There’s no point in restoring it as it was,” says radio astronomer Yevhen Vasylkivskyi. “We want to modernize it, but only after the war. And the end of the war is not yet in view.”

Science | 8 min read

Image of the week

The nearly complete and articulated skeleton of Gaiasia jennyae annotated with a scale.

Long before the dinosaurs, this salamander-like animal was the top predator of its cold swampy ecosystem. Gaiasia jennyae was somewhere between 2.5 and 4 meters long and its mouth was filled with huge, interlocking fangs. It belongs to a group known as stem tetrapods, whose closest relatives were long extinct when it was still alive some 280 million years ago. “That forces us to rethink a lot about early tetrapod evolution,” says paleontologist and study co-author Jason Pardo. If he were to give the animal a nickname: “‘Swamp thing’ is excellent.” (Reuters | 5 min read)

Reference: Nature paper or get the expert view from palaeontologist Christian Sidor in the Nature News & VIews article (5 min read, Nature paywall) (Claudia Marsicano)



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