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Robert F. Kennedy Jr now oversees the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which he last year called a ‘cesspool of corruption’. Credit: Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg/Getty
How Kennedy might impact US science
Lawyer and activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who has promoted vaccine misinformation and public-health conspiracies, has been confirmed as head of the US Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy says he will focus on chronic illness, nutrition and the links between pollution and health, while deprioritizing research into infectious diseases. Researchers are concerned that his approach ignores the links between chronic conditions and infections, and could weaken even further the US response to its ongoing outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza. Others say the biggest impact of his tenure will be efforts by the administration of US president Donald Trump to eviscerate the federal budget, which is sure to hit funding for biomedical research.
AI-designed enzymes ace four-step reaction
Researchers have used artificial intelligence (AI) to design brand-new enzymes that can go through multi-step reactions. The structures they made accelerated a four-step chemical reaction called serine hydrolysis, which is pivotal to many many biological and industrial processes, including plastic recycling. The new enzymes were 60,000 times better at speeding up the reaction than ones previously designed, which tended to stall after the first step of the reaction. However, they’re still less efficient than natural enzymes, the researchers noted.
Will Musk be ousted from the Royal Society?
Fellows of the Royal Society will meet on 3 March because of growing concern over Elon Musk’s membership of the storied science academy. More than 1,700 scientists have signed an open letter accusing Musk of contravening the society’s code of conduct by promoting conspiracies and attacking scientists such as Anthony Fauci on his social-media site, and by taking a leading role in “an assault on scientific research in the US”.
Reference: Open letter from scientists to the Royal Society
Quantum firm wins mega investment
QuEra, an academic spin-out company that uses neutral atom technology — using atoms and lasers to encode quantum bits or ‘qubits’ — has announced that it has raised US$230 million in funding, one of the largest single investments in any quantum computing firm so far. Neutral atoms can remain in their quantum states without bulky cooling systems, but factors such as the need to shuttle around atoms during operations remain a challenge. “It’s still too early to say whether neutral-atom quantum computing will be the ultimate winner,” says physicist Wenchao Xu.
Features & opinion
Why I retracted part of my PhD thesis
During her PhD at Leiden University, psychologist Laura Steenbergen wasn’t sure if her mentor Lorenza Colzato’s research practices were unusual. After completing her PhD and working in other universities, she returned to Leiden and learnt that others had similar concerns about her former mentor’s research methods. An investigation was launched. Colzato was suspended and papers they had co-authored were retracted. Steenbergen then chose to retract two chapters of her PhD dissertation that had been affected by Colzato’s misconduct. “The opportunity to update my dissertation … leaves me hopeful; standing up against malpractice and correcting what was done wrong is possible,” she wrote in a cover note.
Futures: Dear Leader
A prisoner warns a power-hungry leader of the dangers of eternal youth in the latest short story for Nature’s Futures series.
Podcast: a record-breaking neutrino
In early 2023, the Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope, a collection of light-detecting glass spheres at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, captured evidence of the highest-energy neutrino particle ever recorded. But researchers can’t pinpoint exactly where in the cosmos it originated. “To be honest it also took us a little while to realize how extremely special this event was,” says physicist Aart Heijboer. “There are other detectors that have been looking for actually several years already and have not seen anything like this.”
Nature Podcast | 35 min listen
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