Daily briefing: Genetically engineered gut microbes can protect honey bees

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NASA says goodnight to Spitzer Telescope

Yesterday NASA bid farewell to the Spitzer Space Telescope as its transformative 16-year-old mission came to an end. The spacecraft was placed in safe mode, ceasing all science operations. There was no technical barrier to its mission continuing, but NASA chose to redirect resources to the imminent (but much-delayed) James Webb Space Telescope. “Saying goodbye to Spitzer is saying goodbye to a dear friend that journeyed with us through the cosmos,” says astrophysicist Nikole Lewis.

Wired | 6 min read

Engineered symbionts could save bees

The honey bees microbiome has been weaponized to fight off the bees’ enemies. Researchers genetically modified Snodgrassella alvi, a bacterium that lives happily in the bees’ gut, to produce a specific type of RNA. The RNA targets the bee-killing Varroa destructor mite, and the deadly ‘deformed wing’ virus the mite transmits, causing the mite and virus to dismantle some of their own genes. Whereas humans have a fantastically diverse gut zoo, all honey bees have the same six to eight gut microbes, so the procedure could be widely applicable.

Science | 5 min read

Reference: Science paper

Stellar dance swirls the fabric of space-time

The death dance of a white dwarf star and a pulsar reveal relativistic frame dragging — also known as the Lense-Thirring effect — in which a fast-spinning object distorts the fabric of space-time around it. Such a mind-boggling effect is due to the brain-bending qualities of the two stars. The white dwarf orbits so quickly that it’s year is only about five hours long — reaching orbital speeds of up to a million kilometres per hour. The pulsar itself spins around more than two times per second. The white dwarf is the size of Earth and the pulsar is the size of a city — but both contain more mass than the Sun. The pulsar’s metronome-like radio emissions showed researchers how this extreme relativistic system pulls space-time around it, causing the pulsar’s orbit to wobble exactly as predicted by general relativity.

Scientific American | 6 min read

Reference: Science paper

Coronavirus outbreak

WHO declares coronavirus a global emergency

• The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency — the highest level of alarm. The organization's director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said his main concern was that the outbreak could spread to countries with fragile health systems. “This is not a vote of no confidence in China,” he said. “This is the time for solidarity, not stigma.” (Nature | 6 min read (continuously updated)

• Crucial details about the virus and how it spreads are still unknown, but experts are considering best- and worst-case scenarios on the basis of previous epidemics and what scientists already know. Nature examines the possibilities for how many people will be infected, how many will die and whether the virus is now with us to stay. (Nature | 6 min read)

As of 30 January, at least 54 English-language papers on the coronavirus have been published, more than half in the past seven days, as scientists rush to understand the pathogen and how it spreads. (Nature | 2 min read)

Features & opinion

Help for star-struck peer reviewers

Researchers can be less critical of studies by famous scientists and prestigious institutions, and it’s causing flawed studies to slip through peer review, says Jeff Clements. Clements offers some useful advice based on his own experience as an early career researcher, such as starting a review from the methods section of a paper. “Knowing this from an early stage could have helped me avoid being star-struck and intimidated,” he says.

Nature Index | 5 min read

Inoculate against climate disinformation

Cognitive psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky and climate scientist John Hunter combine forces to create a vaccination against disinformation about the Australian bush fires. Their approach is a branch of psychology called ‘inoculation theory’, which says that people can be made immune to falsehoods by being exposed, ahead of time, to the myths they are most likely to encounter on social media and elsewhere.

The Conversation | 5 min read

Podcast: the sound a mummy makes

The voice of a 3,000-year-old individual has been reproduced based on scans of his mummified vocal tract. Researchers made a 3D-printed reproduction of the vocal tract of Egyptian priest Nesyamun to produce a rather short groaning sound — which you can hear in this week’s Nature Podcast.

Nature Podcast | 28 min listen

Reference: Scientific Reports paper

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Where I work

In the Kerguelen Islands, one of the most isolated places in the world, behavioural ecologist Mary-Anne Lea says she “felt what it’s like to live nearly alone among marine animals, and have sensed just how little we know about these species”. Some of the most special moments in those times are when the animals choose to approach you, she says. (Nature | 3 min read)