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An adult male platypus is cradled by human hands.

Millsom the platypus is carried by its keeper at an animal sanctuary in Melbourne, Australia.Mick Tsikas/Reuters

Is the platypus the paragon of mammals?

Researchers have produced the most comprehensive genomes yet of the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) and echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus). The only two extant monotremes (egg-laying mammals) are sometimes seen as the odd ones out of the mammal world. But because they diverged from other mammals so early — about 187 million years ago — some of their most bizarre traits reflect those of our shared ancestors. “In my opinion, among mammals, the platypus is the most fascinating species of all,” says genomicist Wesley Warren. “They represent the ancestral state of what terrestrial mammal genomes could have been before adapting to various environments.”

The New York Times | 4 min read

Reference: Nature paper

News

Tree snake uses lasso locomotion

Researchers have observed a new mode of locomotion in the brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis) in Guam: tying its body into a lasso. Video footage shows how the invasive snake uses the technique to shimmy up smooth poles installed to protect bird nests. “We have no human technology that can come close to what this snake is doing,” says biophysicist Daniel Goldman.

Science | 4 minute read

Six rangers killed in Virunga National Park

Six rangers were killed and one was seriously injured in an attack in Virunga National Park in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is home to large populations of endangered mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) and eastern chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii). The park’s management has blamed Mai-Mai fighters — local militias — for the deaths. Last year, 12 rangers and 5 others were killed in “the worst episode of violence in the park’s history”, reports Mongabay.

Mongabay | 5 min read

COVID-19 coronavirus update

Feature

The era of RNA vaccines has arrived

Two of the first COVID vaccines to get emergency approval — developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna — use RNA technology. They are the first RNA vaccines authorized for use in humans, despite efforts going back decades. Nature explores how manufacturing and distribution challenges held the technology back and what the future holds now that the power of RNA vaccines has been unleashed.

Nature | 11 min read

News

Scientists divided over dosing strategies

Amid skyrocketing coronavirus infections, some countries are attempting to stretch limited supplies of COVID-19 vaccines by reducing doses or changing vaccination schedules from those shown to be effective in clinical trials. But data are scarce on the impact of such measures, and scientists are split over whether they are worth the risks.

Nature | 6 min read

News

India and China test jabs against new variant

Vaccine makers in India and China are investigating whether their recently approved COVID-19 vaccines are effective against a fast-spreading variant of SARS-CoV-2 now circulating around the world. The move follows similar investigations by the makers of leading vaccines. Covaxin, developed by the Indian Council of Medical Research and Bharat Biotech, is one of several first-rollout vaccines to use an inactivated whole virus to elicit an immune response. Three other inactivated SARS-CoV-2 shots have been approved or granted emergency use in China. Researchers in India have theorized that such whole-virus vaccines could perform better against new variants than can vaccines that rely on the virus’s spike protein, such as those from Pfizer–BioNtech, Moderna and Oxford–AstraZeneca.

Nature | 4 min read

Notable quotable

“This is an account of what it truly means for a hospital to be ‘overwhelmed’.”

Clinical operational researcher Christina Pagel spells out in grim detail how the pandemic is crushing the United Kingdom’s health service. (The Guardian | 6 min read)

Features & opinion

Indigenous researchers and their knowledge

Although racial-justice initiatives around the world have sparked a renewed focus on the need to recruit and retain more people from minority ethnic groups in STEM, Indigenous researchers — and Indigenous knowledge — remain at risk of being overlooked. Nature spoke to four Indigenous academic scientists about the challenges these early-career researchers face, and how scientists can respectfully and effectively bring together traditional knowledge and Western science.

Nature | 12 min read

How I mastered my first literature review

With his laboratory closed, Saurja DasGupta had the time to write his first review as sole author. It was rejected. But he persisted, and learnt a lot about the process of writing, how to respond to edits and, ultimately, how to get published.

Nature | 5 min read

Image of the week

Pachydactylus rangei, baby, under UV light showing dermal and bony fluorescence

David Prötzel

This baby Namib web-footed gecko (Pachydactylus rangei) fluoresces under ultraviolet light. The intense neon-green and blue glow — among the brightest fluorescence in any vertebrate — is produced by modified pigment cells called iridophores. Why many animals fluoresce is still a mystery — but in this case, the pattern suggests that it helps these social animals to signal to each other across the moonlit desert. (Herpetologist and evolutionary biologist Mark Scherz’s personal blog | 7 min read)

Reference: Scientific Reports paper

Quote of the day

“I will tell the president, Congress and the public what we know when we know it, and I will do so even when the news is bleak.”

Infectious-disease physician Rochelle Walensky addresses the ‘enormous challenges’ of her role as the next director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (The New York Times | 5 min read)