You have full access to this article via your institution.
Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here.
AI-designed bacteriophages were capable of infecting and killing host bacteria. Credit: Lee D. Simon/Science Photo Library
Using artificial intelligence (AI), researchers have designed novel viruses capable of killing strains of Escherichia coli. The team used the DNA of a simple bacteriophage called ΦX174 to guide AI models to generate viral genomes with the specific function of infecting antibiotic-resistant strains of E. coli. Researchers used the model’s suggested sequences to select 302 viable phages. When put to the test, 16 of these phages could infect E. coli, and combinations of them could kill three strains of the bacterium, a feat the original ΦX174 couldn’t pull off.
Reference: bioRxiv preprint (not peer reviewed)
An influential panel of US vaccine advisers that became controversial after it was abruptly reconstituted by US health secretary and long-time anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr has come together, with vague results. The panel stopped short of recommending COVID-19 vaccines, but left room for government programmes and private health insurers to continue covering the shots. The group indefinitely delayed its guidance on hepatitis B vaccination for newborn babies. And it overturned its decision, made just the day before, about free measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (MMRV) vaccines for under-4s. MMRV doses were to have been made available free to some children, but now they won’t.
Harvard University scored a victory in court two weeks ago, when a US judge ruled that its research grants should be reinstated and its funding unfrozen. Millions from the US National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health are flowing back to the university, but researchers report that the restoration has been patchy and much damage has been done. On Friday, in a joint status update before a judge, both Harvard and the US government asked for more time to “work through implementation issues” of complying fully with the court order.
A ‘conveyor belt’ of atoms arranged in orderly rows could resolve a major stumbling block towards developing a large-scale quantum computer. The new approach uses an array of rubidium atoms inside a high-vacuum vessel, with a gas of more rubidium atoms suspended just below it. Using laser beams called ‘optical tweezers’, researchers scooped up atoms from the gas to prepare a second array as a back-up. When the first array loses atoms — an inevitability during quantum calculations — the back-up array can be moved up to interact with and replenish it, which keeps the computer in action.
A micrograph showing the operation of a ‘conveyor belt’ of atom arrays. At each step, a fresh array is created at the bottom, then brought up to interact with an existing array, which might have lost some atoms while performing quantum computation. The old array is then moved up and discarded.Credit: Neng-Chun Chiu et al/Nature
Features & opinion
In The Great Holocene Transformation, complexity scientist Peter Turchin sets out to explain how, over the past 10,000 years, small collectives of farmers and foragers grew into powerhouse societies. His answer, “depressingly and paradoxically, is war”, says science writer Laura Spinney in her review. Turchin has addressed the same question in a previous book, she writes, but “this time, he shows his workings, and he has more data and better tools”. Ironically, this data-driven approach is likely to further repel some of the conventional historians that Turchin has previously failed to win over, Spinney says.
By outfitting cells with the molecular equivalent of flight recorders, scientists can now log, in real time, the signals that cells receive, the paths they travel and the developmental decisions they make — all inscribed indelibly in genomic ink. It is early days, but researchers have used these tools to trace the growth of mouse embryos and capture gene activity in animal brains. Scientists are also exploring how to harness these tools for real-time disease monitoring — by engineering cells that patrol the body and log signs of trouble in molecular memory.
Where I work
Johannes Huber is a wood scientist and engineer at Luleå University of Technology in Skellefteå, Sweden.Credit: Elin Berge for Nature
Wood scientist Johannes Huber uses computed tomography (CT) scanning to test the properties of wood samples without breaking them. “Wood has character; no two logs are alike,” he says. Using industrial CT scanners, Huber can create detailed models of the wood’s internal structure. “If we can evaluate it non-destructively, we can optimize how we use this material,” he says. (Nature | 3 min read)
On Friday, Leif Penguinson was hiding on the shores of the world’s highest freshwater lake system — the Gokyo Lakes in Nepal. Did you find the penguin? When you’re ready, here’s the answer.
Thanks for reading,
Flora Graham, senior editor, Nature Briefing
With contributions by Jacob Smith
• Nature Briefing: Careers — insights, advice and award-winning journalism to help you optimize your working life
• Nature Briefing: Microbiology — the most abundant living entities on our planet — microorganisms — and the role they play in health, the environment and food systems
• Nature Briefing: Anthropocene — climate change, biodiversity, sustainability and geoengineering
• Nature Briefing: AI & Robotics — 100% written by humans, of course
• Nature Briefing: Cancer — a weekly newsletter written with cancer researchers in mind
• Nature Briefing: Translational Research — covers biotechnology, drug discovery and pharma
