Hello Nature readers,
Today we consider an enormous new heart-health grant, discover that betting scientists can predict reproducibility and hear how lab leaders can be poisoned by power.
One in three deaths worldwide is caused by cardiovascular disease.Credit: Jesco Denzel/VISUM/eyevine
New grant is one of world’s biggest
The British Heart Foundation has launched one of the largest single grants for medical research in the world. The £30-million (US$39 million) Big Beat Challenge award is open to anyone studying heart and circulatory diseases in academia or industry anywhere in the world. Detailed criteria will be published when the application period opens in late 2018.
Nature | 5 min read
Scientists can guess which papers can’t be reproduced
Only 62% of high-profile social-sciences studies proved to be reproducible in a test — and scientists were remarkably good at predicting which results would stand and which would fall. Researchers who attempted to replicate 21 social-sciences studies in Science and Nature found that 13 showed an effect in the same direction as was observed in the original study (albeit at about half the strength, on average). The researchers also created a ‘prediction market’, in which experts could bet on how reproducible a claim was likely to be. The market predictions correlated well with the actual results, and generated an expected overall replication rate nearly identical to the one observed.
Nature | 6 min read
Reference: Nature Human Behaviour paper
No strategy to save one in four endangered species in the US
The United States is falling behind on plans for saving its endangered species. Almost one-quarter of protected animals and plants don’t have the recovery plans that are mandated under the country’s Endangered Species Act. With an increasing number of species requiring protection, “there isn’t enough funding for the services to close that gap”, says conservation biologist Jacob Malcom.
Nature | 3 min read
Reference: Conservation Letters paper
Former head of the US CDC arrested
Tom Frieden, the former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been charged with forcible touching, sex abuse and harassment. The accusation comes from a “non-work-related friend of his”, according to a statement from the non-profit group that houses his current employer. Frieden has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Nature | 3 min read
FEATURES & OPINION
How lab leaders can be poisoned by power
The extreme power that lab heads have over their trainees creates a breeding ground for toxic dynamics, says organizational researcher Sherry Moss. She calls for research institutions to do more to eliminate abusive supervision. In the meantime, she advises researchers looking for a new job to listen for subtle warnings and not to be swayed by a big name.
Nature | 5 min read
The cold war over supercooled water
Perfectly pure water can be supercooled until it crystallizes almost instantaneously, around –40 °C. Two teams who tried to simulate this mysterious tipping point ended up locked in a seven-year dispute that peaked in an on-stage conference shouting match.
Physics Today | 5 min read
Reference: Journal of Chemical Physics paper
Where men and women speak different languages
In Ubang, a farming community in southern Nigeria, men and women literally speak different languages. “It's almost like two different lexicons,” says anthropologist Chi Chi Undie. “There are a lot of words that men and women share in common, then there are others which are totally different depending on your sex.” Boys grow up using the female words with their mothers and then gradually pick up the “male language” by around the age of 10.
BBC | 6 min read
A scientist’s story of opioid addiction
Health scientist Chris Willie was a mountaineer, a cardiorespiratory researcher and addicted to fentanyl. His moving memoir of addiction and recovery, set against the backdrop of the high Canadian mountains, was in progress when he died from an overdose in December.
The Walrus | 18 min read
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