Hello Nature readers, this is the news that matters in science today. You can also sign up to get it free in your inbox.
Towering thunderstorms regularly roll over central Argentina.Credit: Marcos Furer
Meteorologists flock to Argentina
On the eastern side of the Andes in Argentina, mega-storms can bring destructive downpours, grapefruit-sized hail and severe lightning. About 160 atmospheric scientists — mostly from the United States, Argentina and Brazil — have joined forces with local citizen scientists in a massive project to better understand these storms.
Indian neutrino project gets green light
Plans to build a major neutrino observatory in India are a step closer after a tribunal upheld the project’s environmental clearance. The planned 15-billion-rupee (US$206-million) experiment is set to be built under the mountains of Tamil Nadu in the nation’s south. Other national and state agencies will still need to approve the observatory before construction begins.
Chemist poisons labmate
A chemist at Queen’s University in Canada has pled guilty to poisoning a labmate after being caught on video pipetting a toxic carcinogen into food left on his colleague’s desk. Graduate student Zijie Wang had previously dosed his co-worker’s apple pie, cinnamon raisin bread and water with N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), which is used to induce cancer in rats. The victim fell ill, but survived. The event recalls a 2013 case at Fudan University in China, in which a medical student was found guilty of murdering his roommate using NDMA.
FEATURES & OPINION
Four grand challenges for synthetic biology
To solve real-world problems using emerging abilities in synthetic biology, research must focus on a few ambitious goals, argues bioengineer and biophysicist Dan Fletcher. He proposes four projects that could feasibly be achieved in the next decade: artificial blood cells for blood transfusions, designer immune cells to fight cancer, smart delivery vehicles to carry therapies inside the body and a stripped-down cell to use as a platform on which to build more-complex, longer-lived synthetic biological systems.
Lessons from the Ebola front lines
A new book bravely faces up to the competition, corruption and waste that hinders the unimaginably courageous efforts to stop epidemics, says reviewer Nahid Bhadelia. Bhadelia, a physician who was on the ground during the 2014–15 Ebola outbreaks in Sierra Leone, lauds the authors’ balanced critique of field in which “where you are born decides whether or not you survive”.
We are far from building a trustworthy AI
“Anyone who works with AI systems knows that behind the facade of humanlike visual abilities, linguistic fluency and game-playing prowess, these programs do not — in any humanlike way — understand the inputs they process or the outputs they produce,” argues computer scientist Melanie Mitchell. This lack of common sense makes systems vulnerable to unexpected errors and hacking. Researchers must not allow themselves to rush “stupid” systems out into the world, where they can do real harm.
