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Men extract a Guinea worm from the leg of an infected dog in Chad.Credit: Jane Hahn/NYT/Redux/eyevine
Guinea-worm effort hits ten-year delay
The World Health Organization has quietly pushed back the target date for stamping out Guinea worm, from 2020 to 2030. The number of new infections of the debilitating disease caused by the parasite dropped from 3.5 million per year in 1986 to just 28 in 2018. But several puzzling discoveries have made reaching the 2020 target impossible. The most urgent issue is the soaring, and unexplained, rate of infections in dogs in Chad. Then there are the emergence of the first known cases among people in Angola; perplexing infections in baboons in Ethiopia; and conflicts that have hampered eradication efforts in parts of Mali, Sudan and South Sudan.
India moves away from animal testing
India’s national regulator for biomedical research has recommended fast-tracking investment in technologies that can replace animals in biomedical research. The country joins a growing wave of nations looking to emerging technologies such as organoids and organs-on-a-chip to test drug efficacy and toxicity. Researchers are split over whether these methods are good enough to replace animal models, and the plan will require a lot of work to develop new technologies and overhaul the drug-approval process.
INFOGRAPHIC OF THE WEEK
Two-thirds of respondents to an online poll reported feeling pressured by peer reviewers to cite seemingly superfluous studies. (Nature, 4 min read)
FEATURES & OPINION
Illustration by Señor Salme
China: How science made a superpower
In 1922, Chinese philosopher Feng Youlan wrote “what keeps China back is that she has no science”. Today, the country is a superpower that publishes more research papers than any other. Historian Shellen Wu traces how the unwavering belief that science is the path to wealth and power became “the red thread that runs through China’s past 150 years”.
This is the second of a series of essays on the roots of today’s research system. Read why, on Nature’s 150th anniversary, we’re looking back to learn how to navigate the present.
Deep learning powers a motion-tracking revolution
A growing number of open-source software tools such as DeepLabCut, LEAP Estimates Animal Pose (LEAP) and DeepFly3D use neural networks to recognize subtle patterns in animal movement. They have aided research on everything from the study of motion in hunting cheetahs to collective zebrafish behaviour.
Teaching shouldn’t be a hassle
Despite the ever-increasing pressures of an academic career, teaching at the university level is not a burden and shouldn’t be considered one, argues biostatistician Sarah Gagliano Taliun. The next generation of scientists needs you — and their fresh perspectives can give your research a boost, too.
