Hello Nature readers, welcome to your daily round-up of the top science news.
The newly described species Ledumahadi mafube (artist’s conception) lived about 200 million years ago.Credit: Viktor Radermacher/Instagram Viktorsaurus91/University of the Witwatersrand
Dino fossil rewrites the history of walking
An enormous dinosaur fossil discovered in South Africa is stomping all over theories of how four-legged walking evolved. The 12-tonne animal would have been the largest creature on land when it roamed Earth 200 million years ago. The latest, somewhat controversial, study claims that it walked on four legs, suggesting quadrupedalism emerged in this lineage of dinosaurs much earlier than thought — and then disappeared before returning again.
Nobel committee reminds nominators that women exist
For the first time, the Nobel Prize committee will explicitly call on nominators to consider diversity in gender, geography and topic for the 2019 prizes. They will also remind nominators that they can put forward names corresponding to three different discoveries (as well as multiple names for a single discovery) — which evidence shows leads to more-varied choices. The diversity measures are not about improving the statistics, says Göran Hansson, secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, but about ensuring that outstanding scientists are not overlooked.
Gene drive halts malaria mosquitoes
Researchers seeking a way to eradicate malaria-transmitting mosquitoes have created a gene drive that can wipe out an entire population of the insects in the lab. Female mosquitoes with one copy of a tweaked doublesex gene passed it on to almost all of their offspring, rapidly spreading the genetic modification. Females who inherited two copies of the gene were unable to reproduce, eventually leading to no more baby mozzies.
Nature Research Highlights | 1 min read
This material moves itself
Researchers have designed a metamaterial that is capable of moving and changing shape using only its own geometry. A combination of stiff and flexible parts means a single push can kick off a prescribed motion, without a motor or other external control. Also in this week’s Nature podcast, an ultraflexible biosensor powered by ultrathin solar cells and highlights from the week’s news.
Nature Podcast | 22 min listen
FEATURES & OPINION
How the WHO learnt to love traditional Chinese medicine
For the first time, the World Health Organization will recognize traditional Chinese medicine in its influential global compendium, the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. The move crowns 14 years of effort to categorize the practice, hammer out a consensus between regional variations and translate thousands of concepts into English. Nature explores the political, economic and scientific contexts of the global rise of traditional Chinese medicine.
An expert and a witness
Clinical psychologist Christine Blasey Ford offered a scientist’s analysis of memory and trauma alongside her personal recollections during her appearance yesterday in a US Senate committee hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The juxtaposition of her expertise and her anxiety struck many female academics as familiar. “She is the epitome of a woman academic who has made her way through extreme competence and intelligence and not pissing the men around her off,” wrote journalist Anne Helen Petersen on Twitter, quoting her mother, “a longtime academic”.
Indigenous researchers train to be their own genome experts
A new wave of Indigenous scientists are training to take ownership of genetic research in their communities. The Summer Internship for Indigenous Peoples in Genomics programme takes place in the United States, New Zealand and Canada, and has trained more than 100 graduates. The course addresses the need for Indigenous expertise in a field that has, in the past, given the impression that “we don't care about the person. We just want your DNA,” says anthropologist Francine Gachupin.
The omen of a beluga in the Thames
Philip Hoare, author of the wonderful Leviathan or, The Whale, muses on a lone beluga whale that has appeared in London’s Thames river. “Throughout history belugas have been a portent,” he writes. “It seems all too apt that this whale should appear in the turbid waters of the ominously named Gravesend, site of the opening of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.”
BOOKS & ARTS
Secrets of long-lost mummies unwrapped
In 2004, 19 wrapped and preserved bodies from South America were discovered in unmarked crates in the basement of the Reiss Engelhorn Museum in Mannheim, Germany, where they had been hidden during the Second World War. A startling new exhibition at the museum reveals the long-forgotten lives and deaths of more than 50 mummies from this and other collections.
Starry visions of space exploration
A richly illustrated new book by former NASA historian Roger Launius offers a delightfully nerdy account of space exploration and its deep roots in cosmology. Nature selects some of the most stunning, inspiring and occasionally nostalgic images from the book.
Five best science books this week
Barbara Kiser’s pick of the top five science books to read this week includes the sex lives of vegetables, life in a heart beat, and the cold-war engineer who cracked supercomputing.
INFOGRAPHIC OF THE WEEK
At 4.6 million square kilometres in coverage, this year’s sea ice minimum is the sixth lowest on record. The orange line indicates the average sea-ice extent for 23 September between 1981 and 2010. (National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado Boulder)
SCIENTIFIC LIFE
Canada might be pushing postdocs out
Visa and immigration requirements in Canada needlessly complicate the lives of international postdocs and probably prevent some of them from staying in the country. Postdoctoral researchers have to reapply for a work permit annually, and they don’t always qualify for permanent residency.
