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Genomes of bacteria that cause treponemal disease were recovered from a limited number of prehistoric remains (yellow, artificially coloured) found beneath an enormous shell mound in Brazil.Credit: Jose Filippini
Syphilis family is way older than we thought
Ancient DNA from a 2,000-year-old burial site in Brazil rewrites the history of the family of microorganisms that causes syphilis and other ‘treponemal’ diseases. Bacterial genomes recovered from human remains suggests Treponema pallidum could have diversified as long as 14,000 years ago — 10,000 years earlier than previously thought — and that modern strains evolved in the past 3,000. “It seems they have been accompanying us for a long time, which wasn’t expected,” says archaeogeneticist and co-author Verena Schuenemann.
Meet the Dana-Farber data sleuth
“It’s through getting frustrated that I discovered PubPeer,” says molecular biologist Sholto David, who used the website to report irregularities in dozens of cancer papers by researchers affiliated with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Earlier this week, the Institute said that it would seek retractions for six papers and corrections for an additional 31. Now a full-time research-integrity sleuth, David recently left his 2,000th comment on PubPeer — a less “infuriating” process than writing to journal editors, he says. Avoiding the types of image mix-ups he often spots is simple, he says: give files sensible names and check them against the raw data before publishing.
Fermilab faces uncertain future
The heart of US particle physics, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), is in the market for new management. Fermilab has been criticized for its handling of the nation’s flagship particle-physics project, the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment; health-and-safety weaknesses and an unpopular decision to keep COVID-19 visitor restrictions in place for too long. The existing manager, the Fermi Research Alliance, is reapplying for the contract to run the lab. And there are other contenders, including Associated Universities, Inc., which runs the Green Bank Observatory.
Features & opinion
Collaboration can curb plastic pollution
Addressing the plastic pollution crisis requires close collaboration between industry and academia, say researchers from one such US partnership, which is creating new bioplastics from renewable sources. Stigma is the first hurdle to overcome because “some people see such collaborations as academics ‘selling out’ and industrials ‘buying’ scientific results”. The authors offer five lessons for a successful partnership:
• Form partnerships that you trust
• Keep an open mind
• Adjust metrics for success
• Reimagine funding models
• Invest in collaborations, don’t divest funds
How to nourish the souls of cities
Urban planner Leonie Sandercock has spent her five-decade career reimagining the potential of planning to champion connected, humane communites where “strangers can become neighbours”. In the inaugural issue of Nature Cities, she writes that “the choice we should make now is to do what we can, locally, to create possibility in the midst of global decline; islands of sanity and local community self-organization amidst the macro chaos and breakdown”.
When whales walked the Earth
Around 40 million years ago, otter-like cetaceans swam and strolled around coastal regions. A tooth found in North Carolina is the first evidence that remingtonocetids seem to have even migrated, somehow, from their place of origin on the Indian subcontinent to the shores of North America.
Smithsonian Magazine | 5 min read
Reference: Acta Palaeontologica Polonica paper
