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Super Kamiokande's photosensors detect neutrinos as flashes of light. Credit: Asahi Shimbun/Getty
Japanese mega-detector prepares for neutrinos
“Every 2–3 seconds, a supernova goes off somewhere in the Universe, and it produces 1058 neutrinos,” says Masayuki Nakahata, who leads the Super-Kamiokande neutrino observatory. Now Super-K will have an upgrade that physicists hope will allow it to catch a handful of these elusive particles. Super-K contains 50,000 tonnes of purified water that interacts with the neutrinos. The water will be spiked with the rare-earth metal gadolinium, which will improve its ability to distinguish between different flavours of neutrino and antineutrino. In 1987, Super-K’s smaller predecessor detected the first neutrinos from a supernova ever seen (netting Masatoshi Koshiba a Nobel) — but none have been spotted since then.
Top journals critique Plan S
Publishers of highly selective scholarly journals — including Nature and Science — say that they cannot comply with Plan S unless its rules are changed. The European-led initiative mandates free access to research results on publication from 2020, and has gained the support of 18 research funders. Robert-Jan Smits, the European Commission’s open-access envoy and architect of Plan S, says that it’s time for prestigious journals to come up with new business models. “This has happened to the music industry and the film industry, and now it is happening to academic publishing.”
(Nature’s news team — including this Briefing — is editorially independent of its publisher, Springer Nature.)
Low pay plagues postdocs across Europe
A survey of nearly 900 postdoctoral researchers from across Europe found that postdoctoral researchers in Eastern Europe face annual salaries as low as €5,000 (US$5,668). Salaries peaked in Western countries such as France, and median pay across the continent was €32,000. Respondents reported that they also face long hours and contractual barriers to obtaining outside work.
FEATURES & OPINION
Four questions from the CRISPR-baby scandal
The controversial claim by genomics researcher He Jiankui that he helped to produce the first people born with edited genomes raised concerns across the world. Nature explores four questions still lingering around the births, from what will happen to the children to where it might happen next.
The matrix reloaded
Cells are surrounded by the extracellular matrix, a cocktail of proteins, signalling molecules and chemicals that impart strength and shape to tissues such as bone or the brain. But the matrix is more than just a scaffold — it governs a surprising number of cellular functions. New techniques are revealing how cells and the matrix communicate, and why this cross-talk matters.
