Wednesday briefing: The United States is woefully unprepared for a nuclear strike

Hello Nature readers,

Today we hear that the United States is unprepared for a nuclear strike, learn how India wants its universities to quash predatory journals and explore whether we should publish peer reviews.

US woefully unprepared for nuclear strike

That is the blunt assessment of public-health experts who participated in a meeting last week on nuclear preparedness, organized by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. US government spending on nuclear-weapons research and response has dropped drastically over the past few decades — as has the number of health workers with training in treating radiation victims. Also, treatments for radiation exposure and burns might not be available in sufficient quantities in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. The academies’ plan to release a report in December on how the country could plug the gaps in its response capabilities.

Nature | 3 min read

India to universities: stop promoting predatory journals

Most academics regard predatory journals as an irritant — if not a threat — to science. But in India, some universities have recommended that such publications be included in the country’s ‘white list’ of approved journals. Now the government is cracking down on this practice. Universities have until the end of the month to revise their recommendations and avoid publications that charge authors hefty fees without providing services such as editing. Academics say the current situation is a result of perverse government incentives that reward quantity of publications over quality.

Nature | 4 min read

Fitbit’s heart-rate data set is the biggest ever

Fitbit has 150 billion hours’ worth of heart-rate data from its users — plus a wealth of other demographic and health measurements collected by its fitness trackers. The data bounty hints at the right amount of sleep, exercise and weight to optimize your resting heart rate, which has been linked to heart disease and diabetes. “This opens up all new possibilities to try and understand in more detail, with maybe more controlled experiments, why these things happen,” says biomechanical scientist Scott McLean, who leads scientific research at Fitbit.

Yahoo Finance| 12 min read

FEATURES & OPINION

Rip back the curtain on peer reviews?

Publishing referee reports would better inform authors and readers, improve review practices and boost trust in science, argue representatives of the UK Wellcome Trust, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and ASAPbio, a non-profit organization that encourages innovation in life-sciences publishing. They call on journals to sign a pledge to make reviewers’ anonymous comments part of the official scientific record.

A transparent process to publish referees’ reports could benefit science, but not all researchers want their assessments made available, notes a Nature editorial. That’s one reason the Nature research journals have no plans to make it compulsory for all to publish referee reports, while welcoming insights and feedback on the issue.

Nature & Nature | 10 min & 4 min read

How to shape policy with your science

Policymakers need scientific evidence to guide decisions on issues ranging from climate change to artificial intelligence. But if you have the expertise, where do you start? Nature explores how to connect with policymakers, how to hone your language and the importance of being an ‘honest broker’.

Nature | 10 min read

Reference: Palgrave Communications paper

A fight over the very nature of the universe

Physicists have come up with competing theories to explain why the observed mass of the Universe doesn’t seem to add up: dark matter or modified gravity. The debate leans heavily in favour of dark matter, but the mysterious material remains elusive. So the feud lives on, spilling over into accusations of cheating and ad hominem attacks on Twitter.

Gizmodo | 9 min read

Read more: Beguiling dark-matter signal persists 20 years on (Nature)