The strangeness is big: New metric prefixes to describe the outrageous size and size of the Big Bang, when DNA data happened during the Depression
The cells of people who were conceived during the Depression are showing signs of aging more quickly than they should. The changes were measured in the cells’ epigenome, the chemical tags attached to DNA that determine how and when genes are expressed. Researchers say that the patterns they have uncovered could be tied to higher rates of disease and death.
By the 2030s, the world will generate around a yottabyte of data per year — that’s 1024 bytes, or the amount that would fit on DVDs stacked all the way to Mars. The data boom has prompted the governors of the metric system to agree on new prefixes to describe the outrageously big and small. The prefixes ronna and quetta represent 1027 and 1030, and ronto and quecto signify 10−27 and 10−30. Earth weighs around one ronnagram, and an electron’s mass is about one quectogram. Although Ronna is strange now, giga and Tera were also strange once. This is the first update to the prefix system since 1991, when zetta (1021), zepto (10−21), yotta (1024) and yocto (10−24) were added.
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03829-8
Biomedical brains and the power of science: How neuroscientists learn to adapt to climate change and how to deal with the backlash
Elizabeth was sentenced to 11 years and one month in prison after being convicted of fraud against investors in her blood-testing company. The claims that the Theranos could run more than 200 tests on just a few drops of blood were overstated. “She pushed the envelope a little too far,” says legal scholar Anat Alon-Beck. It was too much fake until you made it.
There is a professional network and mentorship needed to give women fair access to careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. A non-profit organization called Girls Who Code works to educate people about computer coding. “I can’t tell you how important this community is for girls and non-binary people.” “When they’re feeling as though they can’t persist in the field, they have that community to lean on, coupled with their computer-science expertise.” Four leaders of technology groups share their stories and tips for building better allyship.
Climate change is caused by human behavior and behavioural change is the key to achieving solutions. A joint special from Nature Human Behaviour and Nature Climate Change is about how to incorporate behavioral science into tangible improvements in climate policy. “We are at the beginning of a new era of behavioural climate research,” says the accompanying editorial.
Neuroscientist Gina Rippon describes shoddy science reporting and the misuse of brain research as “neurotrash”. She says that, one example, the way brain images are hijacked by self-help guru, relationship counsellors and even those promoting single-sex education. Neurotrash contributed to the furore over her book, in which she argues that our brains are not fixed as male or female at birth, but are instead highly plastic, changing constantly throughout our lives and influenced by the gendered world in which we live. She talks about how she dealt with the backlash when she wrote her first popular-science book.
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03829-8
The end of the queue for COVID-19 vaccines: what can we do to stop it before it starts happening? A Nature Briefing with Mahrukh Shameem
Countries in the global south who found themselves at the end of the queue for COVID-19 vaccines have banded together to create a radical plan to produce mRNA vaccines locally. If successful they could end a dependency on wealthy nations and stop the start of epidemics before they start.
Researchers working with the WHO used statistical modelling to estimate the number of deaths caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The work estimates that there were almost 15 million deaths either directly or indirectly attributed to the pandemic, almost three times higher than the official toll.
Stark figures show that the representation of scientists from minority ethnic groups dwindles at each stage of UK academia. To get a sense of the issue and what can be done to tackle it, we spoke to Mahrukh Shameem, a PhD student and an advocate for equity, diversity and inclusion.
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, how the text-generating AI OpenGPT could spell the end for student essays, and what the successful test of NASA’s Orion capsule means for the Artemis programme.
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