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The antiviral drugs molnupiravir and Paxlovid can cut COVID-19 hospitalizations when people are treated soon after becoming infected with the coronavirus.Credit: Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty
Antiviral pills could be game-changers
Two new antiviral pills to treat COVID-19 — molnupiravir, developed by Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, and Pfizer’s Paxlovid — could be game-changers for the pandemic. The companies say that both drugs significantly cut the risk of hospitalization and death in vulnerable people, if used early. Scientists are poised to discover how well the drugs will work in the real world, their safety for a wide range of people, their effectiveness against viral variants, and how easily they will get to the people who need them most. There’s also the concern that the coronavirus could become resistant to antivirals.
PhD supervisors reveal pandemic toll
One-third of scientists who supervise doctoral students say they have lost sleep, or faced anxiety, during the pandemic because of their role. In a poll of almost 3,500 research supervisors in the United Kingdom, two-thirds said that their supervision responsibilities had increased over this time, with many wanting more support to address the well-being and mental health of their PhD students. Helping students to refocus research projects has been one of the most difficult things supervisors have wrangled with.
Reference: UK Research Supervision survey
COP26
IMAGE OF THE DAY
Little Amal is greeted by local schoolchildren yesterday, on the banks of the River Clyde in Glasgow, UK. The 3.5-metre-tall puppet has travelled in a months-long project titled ‘The Walk’, beginning on the Syrian border with Turkey, “to highlight the potential of the refugee, not just their dire circumstances”, says artistic director Amir Nizar Zuabi.Credit: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty
NEWS
US and China issue joint pledge
The world’s two biggest greenhouse-gas emitters have issued a surprise joint declaration at COP26. The statement reiterates the countries’ commitment to the 2015 Paris agreement and promises “enhanced climate actions” to make it happen. “We both see that the challenge of climate change is an existential and severe one,” said Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua at an unannounced news conference. “In the area of climate change, there is more agreement between China and the US than there is disagreement.” The declaration was met with cautious optimism by observers, who note that it is short on firm deadlines or specific commitments, and partly restates a shared statement made in April.
The Washington Post | 9 min read
Reference: US-China joint Glasgow declaration
Q&A
COP26 scientists speak up
Microbiologist Rob Finn harnesses the speedy adaptation power of microbes to replace chemical-synthesis processes and investigates their use in carbon sequestration or as food alternatives. Environmental economist Sarobidy Rakotonarivo studies how climate policies affect people in African countries. They are both attending COP26, and are the latest in a series of scientists who spoke to Nature about their hopes and fears for the momentous climate summit. “Nature-based solutions such as forest conservation are absolutely crucial, but we must carefully consider the social costs,” says Rakotonarivo.
VIDEO
Your COP26 questions: carbon capture
Features & opinion
When Caltech confronted its racist roots
The California Institute of Technology has been grappling with its past as the home of academics involved with the pseudoscientific eugenics movement, including its most famous former president — Nobel-prizewinning physicist Robert Millikan. As the institution renames buildings and programmes, Nature explores how its story might serve as a model for others.
The e-mail list that led to the arXiv
In the late 1980s, theoretical cosmologist Joanne Cohn started an informal exchange of manuscripts in string theory. Her distribution list later became the arXiv preprint server, which has revolutionized the way scientists share ideas and hosts close to 2 million submissions. Cohn tells Physics Today about how the arXiv began.
