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A Cryo-EM map of the protein apoferritin.Credit: Paul Emsley/MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
See proteins’ individual atoms for first time
A game-changing technique for imaging molecules has produced its sharpest pictures yet — and, for the first time, has discerned individual atoms in a protein. The cryo-electron microscopy breakthrough, reported by two laboratories late last month, will ultimately help researchers to understand how proteins work in health and disease, and will lead to better drugs with fewer side effects. “It’s really a milestone, that’s for sure. There’s really nothing to break anymore. This was the last resolution barrier,” says biochemist and electron microscopist Holger Stark.
Reference: bioRxiv preprint 1 & bioRxiv preprint 2
Science after the COVID-19 pandemic
Illustration by The Project Twins
Outbreak could ease drug trials
Some researchers and companies in the drug-development field say the system might never be the same again. Companies that are usually competitors are now collaborators, and many are strengthening their supply chains to deal with disruption. And virtual clinical trials, in which consultations are done online and as much paperwork and data as possible are collected remotely, are among the few that haven’t had to be put on hold.
Scientists’ worlds will shrink
The pandemic has forced researchers to grapple with how restrictions on their movement will affect the way science is conducted. Some fear that these limitations could lead to a world that favours elite scientists and established teams with less need to network, while other groups lose collaborators and become marginalized, and that fieldwork will become a luxury. Or, the opposite could turn out to be true: travel restrictions could help to democratize science, if virtual working allows access to more connections for people who cannot easily travel.
Read more in our series on science after the pandemic:
• Universities will never be the same (9 min read)
• How scientific conferences will survive (5 min read)
• The pandemic will make or break research funding (5 min read)
• The risk to China’s race to the top of science (5 min read)
• Is this scientific publishing’s new normal? (6 min read)
Features & opinion
The CDC: what happened?
A new pandemic was not unexpected to scientists at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). What shocked many observers was how poorly the organization coordinated its response. “Here is an agency that has been waiting its entire existence for this moment,” said public-health researcher and policymaker Peter Lurie. “And then they flub it. It is very sad. That is what they were set up to do.”
The New York Times | 29 min read
The risks of crowd-control weapons
Some ‘non-lethal’ weapons, such as those that have been used by police against Black Lives Matter protesters in the United States, can cause serious injury, permanent disabilities or death. “Calling tear gas and rubber bullets non-lethal weapons is flat-out wrong,” says emergency-medicine physician Rohini Haar. Rubber bullets are often not made from rubber — but from metal and other hard materials. And irritants in pepper spray or tear gas can cause bouts of sneezing and coughing, which can speed up the spread of virus particles from people infected with COVID-19.
Read more: chemical-weapons expert Dan Kaszeta calls on lawmakers to restrict the use of riot-control chemicals. (Nature, from September)
Let Penrose help you to visualize maths
No, not Roger Penrose — the mathematical physicist who helped to establish the theory of black holes — but a software tool named after him. The tool automatically creates diagrams from a formula. Users can choose the type of visualization they want, such as 3D geometry or a Venn diagram, and can tweak the output to make it clearer to read and easy on the eyes. The authors hope that their tool will encourage writers to include more diagrams: because making figures is time consuming, typical maths papers have around only one figure every ten pages, they write.
Popular Mechanics | 3 min read
Source: SIGGRAPH preprint
