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A woman in a face mask presents her vaccination card as the Philippine capital limits public transportation to the vaccinated.

The Philippines is one of the nations in which the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron has spread quickly.Credit: Lisa Marie David/Reuters

What we know about the BA.2 variant

BA.2 — a relative of the main Omicron variant — is displacing its sibling in countries around the world. A laboratory study of BA.2 suggests that its rapid ascent is probably the result of it being more transmissible than the original Omicron strain, BA.1. “It might prolong the Omicron surge. But our data would suggest that it would not lead to a brand-new additional surge,” says immunologist and virologist Dan Barouch.

Another study suggests that the BA.2 disarms a crucial monoclonal-antibody therapy. Sotrovimab is one of the few therapies for COVID-19 caused by BA.1, which overpowers several antibody treatments that were effective against previous strains. Just in time, US regulators have given emergency approval to another monoclonal antibody, bebtelovimab, that inhibits both the original Omicron strain and the new one in lab assays.

Nature | 6 min read & Nature | 5 min read

Reference: medRxiv preprint and three more & bioRxiv preprint 1, bioRxiv preprint 2 and four more

Largest Jurassic pterosaur discovered

The largest pterosaur fossil from the Jurassic Period has been uncovered in Scotland. The new species of flying reptile, Dearc sgiathanach, lived about 170 million years ago and had a wingspan of 2.5 metres — roughly the size of an albatross. Pterosaurs evolved 230 million years ago as small reptiles and eventually grew to be massive creatures with 12-metre wingspans by the Cretaceous Period, 145 million years ago. The new fossil helps to fill a gap in this dinosaur’s history because pterosaur fossils from the Middle Jurassic are very rare.

New Scientist | 4 min read

Reference: Current Biology paper

Features & opinion

Cartoon of showing hands in blue, pink, green and yellow holding pens and filling in a census form

Illustration by Camelia Pham/Folio Art

Giant plan to track diversity in journals

More than 50 publishers representing over 15,000 journals globally are preparing to ask scientists about their race or ethnicity and gender. The effort comes amid a push for a wider acknowledgement of racism and structural racism in science and publishing — and the need to gather more information about it. There is ample evidence that minority groups are under-represented in science, particularly at senior levels. But data on how such imbalances are reflected — or intensified — in research journals are scarce.

Nature | 16 min read

We still need transparent COVID data

National governments, international organizations and online publications should commit to continuing to provide the public and researchers with transparent data on the pandemic at this critical juncture, writes Edouard Mathieu from Our World in Data. Data-visualization specialists are more than willing to create websites and apps to make pandemic data useful, he argues. But to do so, they need the raw material in a machine-readable format. Mathieu points to the World Bank as an institution that has done it right, and urges the World Health Organization to take on a similar role for global public-health data.

Nature | 5 min read

Debt nearly derailed my PhD ambitions

The spectre of huge student loans almost kept biomedical engineer Erika Moore from pursuing graduate school. Now as a faculty member, she makes it a priority to pass lessons in financial literacy on to her students.

Science | 5 min read

Infographic of the week

figure 1

Figure 1 | Imaging the dust around an active galactic nucleus. Active galactic nuclei are the luminous centres of some galaxies, and are thought to be powered by supermassive black holes. The light emitted by such nuclei has key spectral features, including a broad-line region and a narrow-line region. Nuclei with spectra that show both regions are known as type 1 objects, whereas those that show only the narrow-line region are known as type 2 objects. The unified model suggests that this distinction arises because the line of sight to type 2 objects is obscured by a dusty torus of matter that feeds the black hole. This model is supported by observations of plasma jets emanating from the nuclei. Gámez Rosas et al. imaged the dusty torus around an active galactic nucleus with very high sensitivity.

Active galactic nuclei, such as the one shown in this graphic, are the luminous centres of some galaxies and are thought to be powered by supermassive black holes. Researchers reported this week that they had captured a sharp image of a nearby active galactic nucleus, showing a glowing doughnut-shaped object surrounding the hidden black hole.

Light emitted by most active galactic nuclei has key features that allow the nuclei to be classed as type 1 or type 2 objects. A widely accepted unified model suggests that this distinction arises because the line of sight to type 2 objects is obscured by a dusty torus of matter that feeds the black hole. A News & Views article explains more about how the researchers managed the difficult feat of imaging the dust that hides the black hole.

See more of the week’s key infographics, selected by Nature’s news and art teams.

Nature News & Views | 8 min read, Nature paywall

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“He was unconstrained by small thinking. He rejected the artificial limitations we put on caring for the world’s poor — limits we would never put on ourselves or our families. He refused to accept the soft bigotry of low expectations.”

Physician and public-health leader Ashish Jha remembers the global-health pioneer Paul Farmer, who has died aged 62. (The Atlantic | 4 min read)