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Hello Nature readers,
Today we learn that US President Donald Trump has tested positive for the coronavirus. Plus, we explore what a Joe Biden presidency would mean for science and enjoy the editors’ favourites from 15 years of Nature Physics.
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Joe Biden is the Democratic candidate for US president.
(Alex Wong/Getty)
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US presidential hopeful Joe Biden has promised to get back behind the World Health Organization, rejoin the Paris climate accord and push forward on an ambitious strategy to tackle the climate crisis. He has also pledged to reverse travel bans, award more visas to highly skilled workers and make it easier for foreign scientists and engineers who graduate with PhDs to permanently stay in the United States. Biden’s science-friendly platform sits in contrast to that of incumbent President Donald Trump, who has faced scathing criticism from scientists over issues such as his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, dismissal of climate science and distaste for environmental regulation, just to name a few. Nature interviewed current advisers to Biden, advisers who served during his tenure as vice-president under Barack Obama and policy analysts about actions Biden might take in five key science areas if he’s elected.
Nature | 13 min read
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The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), a powerful US research funder, is the country’s second major player to mandate that the research it pays for must be free to read on publication. HHMI joins the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in supporting Plan S, a European-led open-access initiative. HHMI’s new policy states that from 2022, its scientists must either make papers open access or deposit their accepted manuscripts in a repository openly under a liberal publishing licence.
Nature | 4 min read
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The startup IonQ says that its latest 32-qubit quantum computer will be the world’s most powerful, in terms of a benchmark called quantum volume. IonQ claims the computer has a quantum volume of over 4 million. In March, tech-focused conglomerate Honeywell announced its record-breaking effort had a quantum volume of 64. The measure is a combination of multiple factors, and it’s a big increase in ‘fidelity’, which is behind the huge improvement. IonQ says that it expects its computers to consistently outperform classical computers within two years, reports Ars Technica.
Ars Technica | 8 min read
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COVID-19 coronavirus update
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US President Donald Trump speaks during an event on protecting the country’s senior citizens from COVID-19 in the East Room of the White House on April 30, 2020
(Win McNamee/Getty)
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US President Donald Trump has tested positive for the coronavirus, as has his wife, Melania Trump. Both are well and Trump will continue working from home in the White House without disruption, said his physician in a statement. Other leaders of countries hard-hit by the pandemic have had COVID-19, including UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Trump’s diagnosis is particularly consequential because his age, sex and weight put him in several high-risk categories — and because of the imminent US presidential election.
Scientific American | 3 min read
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Vaccination has contributed to saving more lives than has any other medical intervention in history. Now it has a central role in the battle against the coronavirus pandemic.
Nature tells the story of immunization, from its long history in southern Africa, India and the Ottoman Empire to today’s experimental cancer vaccines, in an interactive timeline.
Nature | Leisurely scroll
This article is part of Nature Milestones in Vaccines, an editorially independent supplement produced with financial support from Emergent BioSolutions, Q2 Solutions and Merck & Co.
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On the 15th birthday of Nature Physics, the journal’s past and present editors recount their favourite papers and what made chaperoning them to publication special. Former editor Ed Gerstner recalls a distressed phone call from graphene-discoverer Andre Geim asking whether an insight he had missed in a paper already published — that bilayer graphene has a Berry phase of 2π — was sufficient for publication. “Of course, I said yes,” writes Gerstner. “And it turned out to be one of the most influential papers Nature Physics ever published.”
Nature Physics | 25 min read
Reference:
Nature Physics paper
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The Greenland ice sheet is set to lose ice at a rate much higher than at any other time in our current epoch. An assessment of past, present and future ice loss show that, although present melt rates are comparable with the highest rates during the past 11,700 years, they will probably be surpassed in the future. The ice sheet is already increasing global mean sea level by about 0.7 millimetres per year. The good news: models also show that if we can slash carbon emissions, the ice sheet will recover. “If humanity really stepped up its game and became carbon neutral, it is conceivable that within a hundred or two hundred years the Greenland ice sheet might become stable,” geologist Jason Briner tells the Nature Podcast.
Nature Podcast | 35 min listen
Go deeper with the expert view from glaciologist Andy Aschwande in the
Nature News & Views article.
Read more: Arctic science cannot afford a new cold war (Nature Editorial | 5 min read)
Subscribe to the
Nature Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify.
Reference:
Nature paper
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“At night in the forest, you soon realize that a high-quality headlamp is your most precious piece of equipment,” says tropical-conservation scientist Ricardo Rocha, shown here in a white T-shirt with a colleague near Ranomafana National Park in eastern Madagascar. Rocha found that bats eat insects classified as agricultural pests and human-disease vectors. But the benefits might be lost along with the bats as Madagascar’s forests are destroyed for cropland. (Nature | 3 min read)
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Quote of the day
“We consider it an honor to be able to vote from space.”
NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, who is preparing for a mid-October launch, will vote from the International Space Station using a secure electronic ballot. (Associated Press)
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