This briefing covers the continuing search for faster, more convenient blood tests after the collapse of Elizabeth Holmes’s Theranos, a newly described fruit-eating dinosaur nicknamed “Hell Chicken,” and bacteria that build electrically conductive metal–organic frameworks. It also examines the legacy of gene-centred biology, workplace disability disclosure, and unconventional efforts to protect coral reefs as oceans warm.
In Everything Is Visible, filmmaker Nathan Fielder (left) captured Elizabeth Holmes’s last days with her family before she went to prison for defrauding investors. Credit: A24/Everett Collection
Elizabeth Holmes and her failed blood-testing startup Theranos are the subject of the new documentary Everything Is Visible. Their collapse left “a huge hole in the entire field of surveillance and diagnostics,” says bioengineer Paul Yeager. However, researchers have not abandoned the possibility of blood tests that are faster, more convenient and more accessible than current methods.
Nature | 8 min read
A dinosaur with a taste for fruit
The newly explained Infernogalus jamesi, or “Hell Chicken”, is thought to be the first non-avian dinosaur known to have eaten only fruit. About the size of a modern turkey, the species lived around 120 million years ago.
An analysis of the dinosaur’s bones suggests that it had weak bite forces but strong lower-jaw muscles associated with grinding food. Ridges along its beak appear to have served an adaptation similar to that found in modern fruit-eating parrots. Researchers hypothesize that I. jamesi ate ancient fruits comparable to cherries and peaches.
Reference: Nature Communications paper
Briefing in numbers
Bacteria that build their own conductive materials
Researchers have discovered bacteria that produce their own metal–organic frameworks, or MOFs, with excellent electrical conductivity. Chemists Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry last year for their work on synthetic MOFs.
Candidatus Electrothrix gigas is relatively large, reaching up to 8 μm in length. It appears to produce centimetre-long filaments made from nickel-based MOFs, which help the bacterium access energy and electron sources in seafloor sediments.
The World of Chemistry | 7 minute read (Free registration required)
Reference: Nature Communications paper
Features and impressions
Beyond the “selfish gene”
Ideas presented in Richard Dawkins’s 1976 book The Selfish Gene—including the notion that the body is simply a means for genes to reproduce—“seemed perfectly innocuous,” writes science historian Nathaniel Comfort.
Today, Comfort says, “the determinism baked into this book’s ‘genetic perspective’ troubles me as much as the biological passivity that Dawkins describes.” He explores modern efforts to bring ecology, evolution, genetics and developmental biology together to create a “less gene-centric view” that is “more accurate and infinitely more satisfying.”
Nature | 11 minute read
Disability disclosure in the laboratory
A new PhD student who needs time off because of a disability joins a laboratory where long hours are common, colleagues are burnt out and vacation time is not allowed. The student asks: “Should I risk disability stigma by disclosing to the principal investigator?”
Four researchers discuss how to approach the situation. “Regardless of what you decide about your PI, informal goodwill evaporates under pressure, but documented consideration does not,” says management researcher Deepti Sharma.
Nature | 9 min read
Unconventional ways to help corals
As El Niño warms oceans already heated by climate change, scientists are turning to unconventional methods to protect temperature-sensitive corals. Underwater speakers that play the sounds of healthy reefs can help free-roaming larvae colonize areas where adult corals are struggling. Low-tech “one-star hotels” can also help raise resilient young corals.
Nature | 12 minute video
Can you find the penguin?
On Friday, Leif Penguinson was exploring the dramatic rock formations of Hongshilin, the Red Stone Forest National Geological Park in China’s Hunan province. Did you find the penguin? When you are ready, this is the answer.
Thank you for reading,
Flora Graham, Nature Briefing Editor-in-Chief
Contributed by Jacob Smith
- Nature Briefing: Careers — insights, advice and award-winning journalism to help you optimize your work life.
- Nature Briefing: Microbiology — the most abundant life forms on Earth, microorganisms, and the role they play in health, the environment and our food system.
- Nature Briefing: The Anthropocene — climate change, biodiversity, sustainability and geoengineering.
- Nature Briefing: AI and Robotics — 100% written by humans, of course.
- Nature Briefing: Cancer — a weekly newsletter written with cancer researchers in mind.
- Nature Briefing: Translational Research — biotechnology, drug discovery and pharmaceuticals.
Source: www.nature.com