Daily briefing: Pristine coral reef has been discovered near Tahiti

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‘Super variant’ Deltacron doesn’t exist

News of a coronavirus ‘super variant’ that featured elements of both the Delta and Omicron variants spread rapidly last week, but researchers say it never existed. The genetic sequences that support the existence of ‘Deltacron’ might have resulted from contamination. The virologist who uploaded the sequences to the GISAID repository says that aspects of his original hypothesis have been misconstrued, and he has removed the data from public view. GISAID is littered with sequences that have elements of sequences seen in other variants, says virologist Thomas Peacock. “But, generally, people don’t have to debunk them because there isn’t a load of international press all over them.”

Nature | 5 min read

Pristine coral reef discovered near Tahiti

Scientists at UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization, have discovered a pristine coral reef, undisturbed for at least 25 years, off the coast of Tahiti. The reef is 3 kilometres long and 30 metres below the ocean’s surface — deeper than most known coral reefs. There could be many more reefs at similar depths, which scientists think might help these ecosystems to better survive climate change. “It was like a work of art,” said underwater photographer Alexis Rosenfeld. “Giant, beautiful rose corals stretching as far as the eye can see.”

BBC | 3 min read

Pollution crosses ‘planetary boundary’

The production of plastics and other pollutants now outstrips our ability to monitor it and threatens global ecosystems. Researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Centre conclude that chemical pollutants have crossed a ‘planetary boundary’. The concept stems from an influential 2009 Nature paper that suggested nine boundary conditions in the Earth system that could, if crossed, result in tipping points that could harm human life. At the time, the impact of chemical pollutants was not known — but now, we’ve gone too far, say the researchers. “The total mass of plastics now exceeds the total mass of all living mammals,” says ecotoxicologist and study author Bethanie Carney Almroth. “That to me is a pretty clear indication that we’ve crossed a boundary.” The authors call for a global organization focused on chemical pollution, which includes industrial waste products, plastics, pesticides and antibiotics.

The Guardian | 4 min read

Reference: Environmental Science & Technology paper & Nature paper (from 2009)

Drug-resistant infections kills 1.2 million

More than 1.2 million people died in 2019 of infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria, according to a global study of 204 countries. The burden was highest in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, with children under 5 the most at risk. Another five million people died in 2019 from diseases in which antibiotic-resistant bacteria had a role. For comparison, researchers estimate that, in the same year, AIDS caused 860,000 deaths and malaria caused 640,000.

BBC | 3 min read

Reference: The Lancet paper

Features & opinion

Ageing — the mysteries of human longevity

In this UN Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021–30), Nature explores a fact of life that continues to fascinate.

• Does the human lifespan have a limit? Super-centenarians offer clues as demographers and scientists lock horns over one of the world’s oldest research questions.

• How the COVID-19 pandemic might age us Infectious disease, loneliness and stress can affect cellular ageing, making us less healthy and shortening lifespans.

• Life-long lessons from India and Japan Family ties in the world’s second-most-populous country are loosening as more Indians move for work. Farther east, one in three Japanese people will be over 65 by 2036. What can these countries teach us?

• The biological clean-ups that could combat age-related disease Could targeting autophagy — often likened to a cellular trash management system — extend life? Some researchers are unconvinced.

• Turning back time with epigenetic clocks If biological ageing can be slowed, halted or rewound, are machine-learning algorithms the best way to measure it? Some experts are unconvinced.

Nature Outlook | Full collection

This Nature Outlook is an editorially independent supplement produced with the financial support of Tokushima University.

Biodiversity faces make-or-break year

Member states of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity are homing in on the targets that could eventually stop the decline of species and ecosystems. The last set of goals — known as the Aichi Biodiversity Targets — have mostly not been met. Focused measures can help to stop extinctions of individual species, but conserving biodiversity will also require combating climate change, cutting pollution and enhancing sustainable food systems. A Nature editorial calls for input from social-science researchers, especially those who study how organizations and governments work, to improve the chance of success.

Nature | 5 min read

Futures: Synaesthetics

A robot who sees the world with an artist’s eye comes up against human tunnel vision in the latest short story for Nature’s Futures series.

Nature | 4 min read

Podcast: Mutation is not so random

A long-standing doctrine in evolution is that mutations can arise anywhere in a genome with equal probability. However, new research is challenging this idea of randomness: mutations in the genome of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana seem to happen less frequently in important regions of the genome.

Nature Podcast | 30 min listen

Read more: Important genomic regions mutate less often than do other regions (Nature News & Views | 7 min read, Nature paywall)

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