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Daily briefing: Industrialization might cause ‘inflammaging’
Ageing isn’t linked to increased inflammation in people living in Indigenous communities. Plus, the month’s best science images and the first independent survey of the number of deaths in Gaza since October 2023.
This leaf scorpionfish (Taenianotus triacanthus) is one of many fish species to show biofluorescence: they absorb and re-emit light as brilliant glowing colours. A pair of papers out this month has offered fresh insights into the evolution of biofluorescence in fish, suggesting that it has evolved independently more than 100 times over the past 112 million years, and involves a greater variety of colours than was previously thought.
Around 84,000 people died in Gaza between October 2023 and early January 2025 as a result of the Hamas–Israel war, estimates the first independent survey of deaths. More than half of the people killed were women aged 18–64, children or people over 65, reports the preprint study. The figure is independent from, and larger than, the count of 56,200 most recently reported by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Chronic inflammation — which has long been considered a hallmark of ageing — could be a feature of living in an industrialized society. In a study of nearly 3,000 adults, researchers found that, in people living in Italy and Singapore, inflammation levels increased with age and were associated with illnesses such as chronic kidney disease. In people living in Indigenous communities in Bolivia and Malaysia, neither of those things were true. The results suggest that “our assumption that inflammation is an inexorable, inevitable part of ageing is not true”, says biological anthropologist Thomas McDade.
At least four foreign scientists are facing criminal charges for attempting to bring biological samples into the United States, adding to the anxiety rippling through the research community as the administration of US President Donald Trump slashes science spending and cracks down on immigration. “The rules have not changed” under the Trump administration, says immigration attorney Jonathan Grode. His advice: be transparent and don’t deny what you’re carrying. “That is the number-one way you can find yourself in trouble.”
Some government scientists in the United States will no longer have easy access to papers in more than 3,000 journals published by Springer Nature, Nature’s publisher. The administration of US President Donald Trump has cut some subscriptions and at least two agencies say they are terminating all their contracts with the company. “Precious taxpayer dollars should be [sic] not be used on unused subscriptions to junk science,” said Andrew Nixon, the top spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services. “I’m having a hard time taking at face value that this is not political,” says Ivan Oransky, a specialist in academic publishing and co-founder of the media organization Retraction Watch.
“We want to offer scientific asylum to our colleagues,” said Eric Berton, president of Aix-Marseille University, after it launched one of the first of many initiatives designed to attract disgruntled US-based scientists. Now the first eight academics to take up his offer have arrived in the port city in southern France. They will have to adapt to lower salaries and funding levels (tempered by a lower cost of living) — but say it’s worth it. “There’ll be a lot less stress as a whole, politically, academically,” says an anonymous early-career biological anthropologist.
Hundreds of employees at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have signed a ‘Declaration of Dissent’ asking EPA administrator Lee Zeldin to reverse course in five policy areas, including “ignoring scientific consensus to benefit polluters”. (Science | 4 min read)
“We’ve built machines that sound like they care. Now, we must ensure that they don’t hurt the very people who turn to them for support,” writes clinical neuroscientist Ziv Ben-Zion. He recommends mandatory safeguards for artificial-intelligence (AI) chatbots such as ChatGPT — including a ban on simulating romantic intimacy or engaging in conversations about suicide, death or metaphysics.
To make teaching materials more accessible to his time-pressed undergraduate students, biologist William Mills turned his lessons into a series of bitesize podcasts. At the end of the semester, two-thirds of his students had used it, and gave it an average score of 8.5 out of 10 for usefulness. (Nature | 6 min read)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-02101-z
Today I’m pondering what it would be like to have dinner with an orca whale. A new study reports 34 attempts by wild Orcinus orca to offer humans food, including tasty morsels of fish, seabirds and kelp. The study only includes cases where whales were “going out of their way to engage with people rather than vice versa”, says cetacean researcher Jared Towers. But if you’re offered a nibble by an orca, please politely decline, says Towers — it’s better for whales and people to keep a safe distance.
While I gather a few choice cuts of seaweed to offer co-workers at this evening’s summer party, why not send me your feedback on this newsletter? Your e-mails are always welcome at briefing@nature.com.
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