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Collapsing buildings have been responsible for many of the casualties in the Morocco earthquake.Credit: Mohamed Messara/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Why Morocco’s earthquake was so deadly
The earthquake that hit Morocco on 8 September was one of the most devastating for decades: it killed more than 2,800 people and injured thousands more. At 6.8 magnitude, the earthquake was not huge, but it was unusually large for the region. The biggest contributor to the disaster has been lack of preparedness, says disaster researcher Ilan Kelman. “Earthquakes don’t kill people, collapsing infrastructure does.” Buildings in Morocco are often designed to control for extremes of temperature, which are an ever-present risk, whereas earthquake resilience has taken a back seat, he explains.
COVID boosters are back
Across the Northern Hemisphere, public-health officials are rushing to roll out autumn COVID-19 vaccination campaigns to guard against a fresh batch of SARS-CoV-2 variants. In England, officials moved the start date for administering an updated booster to Monday — roughly a month earlier than planned. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday recommended newly formulated boosters to all people above the age of six months. “Anyone who takes it will benefit,” says immunologist Rafi Ahmed.
Retraction Watch joins forces with Crossref
Crossref, the non-profit organization that links scholarly papers by their metadata, will acquire the database maintained by science-integrity blog Retraction Watch. The agreement will see 42,000 retractions matched to publications’ digital object identifier so that they’re more likely to be seen by researchers. It will also secure funding for the blog and allow the database to be shared with other scholarly websites for free. The two groups hope the move will reduce the visibility of ‘zombie’ papers that haunt the scholarly record even after being retracted.
Greta nudged 30% of Swiss people to go green
Almost one-third of Swiss adults made greener choices because of climate activist Greta Thunberg. A survey of more than 1,200 adults in Switzerland found that most people felt positively towards Thunberg and her Fridays for Future movement, and they were the ones most influenced by her: almost half of them reported making changes, such as taking the bus and cycling. And a handful of people made changes because of the campaign even though they were not keen it.
Reference: Sustainability Science paper
Features & opinion
US research grapples with postdoc crisis
Laboratory leaders in the United States are scrambling to halt the exodus of postdocs to lucrative industry positions amid low pay, a dismal job market and stagnant federal budgets. Some principal investigators are cutting back research costs or are pursuing extra grants to pay for postdoc salaries, while others are lucky to receive financial support from their university. The future will likely entail smaller labs with fewer staff members. This would put postdoc positions out of reach for many early-career scientists, but those who remain would ultimately earn more. “I’m just going to keep my science within the scale that allows me to treat people with humanity,” says biophysicist Sharona Gordon.
Why we shouldn’t give up on the SDGs
In 2015, 193 countries agreed to a set of hugely ambitious goals for global freedom, health and the environment — the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Not one of them looks set to be achieved by their target date of 2030, but they are still the best option, argues a Nature editorial. Deadlines can help focus the mind, and scientists should double down on their work to support the goals, says the editorial.
Image of the week
This intricate structure is a subterranean nest built by sweat bees (Lasioglossum malachurum), one of the 85% of bee species that create burrows. To avoid disturbing the insects or damaging the structure, the researchers took a large chunk of soil containing the nest to a nearby hospital where they imaged it with a computed tomography (CT) scanner. This particular nest imaged reached a depth of around 20 cm under the surface. “The bees definitely have a substantial impact on the structure of the soil,” says ecologist and study co-author Philippe Tschanz. (Science | 5 min read, Reference: Geoderma paper) (Credit: Philippe Tschanz (Agroscope))
