Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here.
Musher Gunnar Kaasen and his dog Balto at the unveiling of a statue to honour Balto. Kaasen led a dog team that saved many lives in Nome, Alaska, when he arrived there with diphtheria antitoxin. Balto was the leader of the dogs. (Bettmann/Getty Images)
What 240 genomes tell us about mammals
In a massive genetic-sequencing effort, the Zoonomia Project has collated the genomes of 240 mammal species, from dormice to dolphins. Scientists digging into the data discovered that almost 11% of our genome is identical to that of almost all of the other species. Most of the common genes regulate the activity of other genes.
DNA for the Zoonomia Project came from living and dead animals, including the remains of the Siberian husky Balto. The sled dog was lauded for delivering lifesaving diphtheria antitoxin to a remote Alaskan town in 1925. Balto’s genome was found to be more diverse — and ultimately healthier — than that of most dog breeds today.
Nature | 5 min read & Scientific American | 7 min read (or explore all Zoonomia species with this fascinating interactive graphic)
Reference: Zoonomia Project in Science
US falling short of Cancer Moonshot goal
Death rates in the United States from cancer aren’t dropping fast enough to reach the goals of the government’s Cancer Moonshot programme. National Cancer Institute (NCI) researchers found that total US cancer death rates fell by about 2.3% each year between 2016 and 2019. They must go down by 2.7% each year from now to reach the goal of halving the cancer death rate by 2047. “Doing more of what we have today is not enough,” says NCI director Monica Bertagnolli. “We need much more to cover the last mile.”
Fish on dry land hint at why we blink
Mudskippers (Oxudercinae) are comfortable in water and on land, and they are the only fish that blink. Their similarities to the first animals that emerged from the primordial seas mean that they can shed light on how some form of blinking arose in nearly all four-limbed vertebrates. Researchers found that mudskippers blink for the same reasons that humans do — to clean and protect the eyes. “Having the opportunity to study how and why this behaviour first evolved provides an amazing opportunity to learn more about the way humans came to be as they are,” says evolutionary neuromechanics researcher and study co-author Brett Aiello.
BBC | 3 min read or check out this delightful two-page comic explaining the research by artist Jordan Collver.
Reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper
Reader poll
This week, the Japanese firm ispace tried to put a lunar lander on the Moon’s surface — unfortunately, it seems to have crashed. It would have been the first private company to land on the Moon. But it was only the first of several commercial lunar trips flying this year.
Briefing readers have mixed feelings about this burgeoning commercial space age: more than half of the respondents to our poll last week said they preferred when space exploration was led only by governments. Another 40% welcome private space missions.
Many readers felt that the money pumped into space missions — both private and public ones — could be better spent on Earth, for example on addressing climate change. There were concerns about the amount of space debris that missions would create, and about the environmental impact of rocket launches. “There should be an international agency to regulate who can send what into space and clean up afterwards,” writes librarian Penelope Bulloch.
“I think we should reframe the conversation altogether,” suggests sustainability project manager Joan Suris. “Every time we have started mining resources on Earth we have created more environmental and social problems than we have solved. What are the unforeseen consequences of ‘commercial exploitation’ of the Moon?”
Features & opinion
Why landing on the Moon is so hard
On Tuesday, the lunar lander belonging to Japanese company ispace became the latest in a long line of Moon missions that didn’t quite make it. It seems to have crashed on the lunar surface. Engineers need to anticipate all the many things that can go wrong in an environment that has low gravity, an almost non-existent atmosphere and plenty of dust. “Tests, tests and more tests are needed to prove out the landing system in as many scenarios as possible,” says space-robotics scientist Stephen Indyk. “And even then, nothing is guaranteed.”
Futures: Change YourView
A megacorporation is enticed into becoming better to save the last remnants of wilderness in the latest short story for Nature’s Futures series.
Five best science books this week
Andrew Robinson’s pick of the top five science books to read this week includes an engaging exploration of our (up to 50) senses and a riveting portrait of the Chinese Cultural Revolution based on interviews with survivors.
Podcast: Rosalind Franklin’s real story
An oft-repeated version of crystallographer Rosalind Franklin’s role in the discovery of the DNA double helix says that she was cheated out of an X-ray diffraction image that proved the key to unlocking DNA’s structure. But this story of the ‘wronged heroine’ “does a disservice to Franklin”, medical historian Nathaniel Comfort tells the Nature Podcast. An overlooked letter and an unpublished news article from the time of the discovery suggest that she was equally involved in the process. “She was a super dedicated, driven, passionate woman,” says neuroscientist Hannah Franklin, who is Rosalind’s great-niece.
Nature Podcast | 33 min listen
Subscribe to the Nature Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify.
