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A soldier with a Russian flag on his uniform stands in front of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine.Credit: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters/Alamy
How to track a nuclear disaster in Ukraine
There have been stark warnings that damaging the reactors at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine could lead to catastrophic meltdowns. If that were to happen, atmospheric scientist Jolanta Kusmierczyk-Michulec could be among the first people to know. She describes how a network of monitoring stations, built mainly to enforce a proposed ban on nuclear weapons testing, would track and predict the motion of the radioactive plume that would be emitted by damaged reactors.
Read more: Ukraine nuclear power plant attack: scientists assess the risks (Nature | 5 min read, from March)
Omicron boosters offer similar protection
The updated COVID-19 vaccines that have been approved in the United States and the United Kingdom offer roughly the same protection as existing vaccines, suggests a preprint study. The analysis, which has not been peer reviewed, found that the Omicron-specific boosters have marginal benefits compared with an extra dose of older vaccines — particularly when it comes to keeping people out of hospital. “This is not some kind of super-shield against infection compared to what you could have got two weeks ago or a month ago,” says vaccine scientist John Moore.
Reference: medRxiv preprint
NASA scrubs second try at Artemis launch
NASA was forced to cancel the second attempted launch of its Artemis Moon mission on Saturday because of a fuel leak. The cancellation follows disappointment last Monday, when another leak led to a late decision to scrub the initial launch attempt. The latest setback will delay the first flight of the Space Launch System, the most powerful rocket ever built, until later this month at the earliest. Speaking after the launch was called off, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said the safety of the mission is the top priority. “Just remember: We’re not going to launch until it’s right,” he said.
Further reading: NASA’s Artemis Moon mission is set to launch: here’s the science on board (Nature | 8 min read, from August)
Features & opinion
Ukraine’s long fight for scientific freedom
Ukraine’s location at the border of first the Russian and then the Soviet empire has made it a land of opportunities, violent conflict and political oppression for scientists, write historians James Poskett and Claire Shaw. “The fact that Ukraine has been a crucible for defining what scientific freedom really means has fuelled some incredibly creative and original science,” they write. “It has also generated a culture of resilience.” They explore how researchers in Ukraine responded to life during the reign of the tsars, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Soviet period, Stalinist purges and the period of independence after 1991.
How particle physics can improve diversity
This year, thousands of particle physicists thrashed out the future of their field in the United States, in a roughly once-in-a-decade planning exercise called Snowmass. For the first time, the process — which influences US federal funding — elevated diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) issues to sit among the ten major topics, or frontiers, that were discussed. Nature spoke to particle physicist Kétévi Assamagan about the DEI recommendations. “Particle physics wasn’t meant to exclude people, but that’s how it’s evolved,” he says. “Research has shown that there is much more under-representation in our field than meritocracy would suggest.”
My life without a left temporal lobe
Helen Santoro was born missing her left temporal lobe, a brain region involved in memory, emotion recognition and language production. Doctors said Santoro “would never speak and would need to be institutionalized”, she writes. “But month after month, I surprised the experts, meeting all of the typical milestones of children my age.” She studied neuroscience and is now a science journalist. She describes her life as a research subject and her participation in a study that has uncovered the unusual way in which her neurons have rewired themselves.
The New York Times | 9 min read
Japan’s ‘zero heat deaths’ strategy
Japan’s temperatures have been rising even faster than the global average, and this year the country had its worst heatwave since records began. There were more than 1,500 deaths from heatstroke in 2020, but Japan has set a goal to reduce them to zero. A nationwide heat-alert system is one pillar. A larger problem might be gaman: the concept of dignified perseverance in the face of discomfort, which leads some people to see extreme heat as something to be endured, not avoided. Most people who die indoors from heatstroke in Japanese cities have air conditioning, but had it turned off.
