What’s next for Syria’s science? A view from Nature’s reporter who was a refugee

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Researchers have identified thirteen proteins in blood associated with large ‘brain age gaps’ — the difference between a person’s brain age and their chronological age. They analysed proteins in blood samples from 4,696 people and compared them with the same people’s brain ages according to their brain scans. Some of the proteins identified are known to be involved in movement, cognition and mental health. “These proteins are all promising therapeutic targets for brain disorders, but it may take a long time to validate them,” says neurologist Wei-Shi Liu.

Nature | 5 min read

Reference: Nature Aging paper

Google scientists have demonstrated that, with the right error-correction techniques, quantum computers can perform calculations with increasing accuracy as they are scaled up. The newest chip, Willow, has performed ‘below threshold’ quantum calculations — a key milestone in the quest to build quantum computers that are accurate enough to be useful. “This work shows a truly remarkable technological breakthrough,” says quantum physicist Chao-Yang Lu.

Nature | 5 min read

Reference: Nature paper

Research content is valuable grist to the mill of large language models — and a new tracker is cataloguing the deals struck by scholarly publishers to provide it. So far, the Generative AI Licensing Agreement Tracker includes the details of agreements made by publishers including Wiley, Sage and Taylor & Francis, some of which are worth tens of millions of US dollars. “We wanted to shine some light on not just the individual deals, but also what the overall pattern was starting to look like — and provide a source for the community,” says Roger Schonfeld, who works at a higher-education consulting firm and co-created the tracker.

Nature | 6 min read

Reference: Generative AI Licensing Agreement Tracker

Nature’s 10: the people who shaped science

After weeks of deadly demonstrations toppled Bangladesh’s autocratic government in August, the students at the heart of the revolution had one demand: invite Nobel Peace prizewinning economist Muhammad Yunus to lead the nation. Yunus is best known for showing that microcredit — small loans — can transform lives for the poorest people in society if administered fairly. Yunus’s challenge is enormous: to deliver on the students’ demands to end corruption, protect civil rights and provide equal opportunity in employment and education — and secure justice for the families of those killed in the protests.

Nature | 5 min read

Read more from Nature’s 10: a series of profiles about the people behind 2024’s key scientific developments.

Features & opinion

“It is impossible to overstate the feeling of freedom,” writes Nature reporter Miryam Naddaf, a former Syrian refugee, of the fall of Bashar al-Assad. Yet “for Syria’s scientists there is a mountain of work to be done”. Forensic scientists will be needed to help investigate mass graves, the use of chemical weapons and others of the Assad regime’s crimes. And there is the monumental task of rebuilding Syria’s education and research infrastructure. “It will need all the external help it can get,” says Naddaf.

Nature | 4 min read

The amount of DNA recovered from ancient times has soared in recent years, but much of it isn’t being properly archived, write an evolutionary historian, a bioinformatician and an anthropologist. An analysis of 42 studies revealed that thousands of sequences hadn’t been uploaded to public databases because they didn’t match the reference genome that the researchers were looking for. And those data that are shared can lack key details, such as when an organism lived — partly because the systems for recording metadata are not designed with ancient DNA in mind. “With ancient remains, samples are always limited and often rare,” note the authors. “Second tries are not always possible.”

Nature | 10 min read