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A JAXA team member carries Hayabusa-2’s sample capsule.JAXA/AP/Shutterstock
Hayabusa-2’s sample capsule has landed
A capsule that is (hopefully) carrying samples of the asteroid Ryugu, collected by the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa-2, has landed safely in Australia. Hayabusa-2 dropped the 16-kilogram container into Earth’s atmosphere from 200 kilometres up. The capsule is in “perfect” shape, says the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). But we can’t be sure about exactly what’s inside until the sample returns to Japan for analysis.
Watch the teeny capsule re-entry fireball, filmed by JAXA from the ground in Australia.
Snakebites’ huge toll on survivors in India
Snakebites annually cost India’s citizens the equivalent of 3 million years of health and productivity, according to the first estimation of the long-term effects for people who survive snakebites. More than half of the world’s snakebite deaths occur in India, where survivors are left with disabling conditions such as amputation, kidney disease and severe scarring. Snakebite disease doesn’t receive a lot of attention because it “is a poor man’s disease”, affecting mainly impoverished farmers and their families in rural areas, says biochemist Kempaiah Kemparaju.
HIV researcher will be Biden’s CDC chief
Physician Rochelle Walensky, the chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, will soon run the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reports Politico. Walensky is also a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an experienced HIV researcher. US president-elect Joe Biden has picked Walensky to replace Robert Redfield, a fellow HIV researcher who has overseen the formerly world-leading organization’s stumbling response to the pandemic.
Moon rocks ready to return to Earth
The first rocks collected from the Moon in more than 40 years will now make their way back to Earth. China’s Chang’e-5 lander and ascender drilled and scooped some 2 kilograms of dust and debris from the Moon. The ascender then launched back to space, where it reconnected with the orbiter. The two crafts gripped tight and the ascender successfully transferred the precious material to the orbiter — the first ever robotic rendezvous to take place while orbiting the Moon. The orbiter will now begin its return journey towards Siziwang Banner in Inner Mongolia, northern China, and is expected to arrive next week.
Watch the robotic rendezvous: China Aerospace Science and Technology corporation on Weibo
Read more: China set to retrieve first Moon rocks in 40 years (Nature | 5 min read, from November)
Alaska islands could be one massive volcano
Six volcanic peaks off the coast of southern Alaska might actually be a series of connected vents surrounding a single, volcanic giant, with a caldera hidden deep beneath the surface of the Pacific ocean. If true, the underwater basin could have been produced by an enormous blast, just shy of being labelled a super-eruption. But many unknowns about the structure remain, including its size and whether it was made from one large eruption or multiple smaller blasts. The evidence is being presented at the American Geophysical Union’s meeting later this month.
National Geographic | 7 min read
COVID-19 vaccine update
UK hospitals start vaccinating tomorrow
Doses of the Pfizer—BioNTech vaccine have begun to arrive in UK hospitals after it received emergency authorization last week. The first shots will be given to people over age 80, starting tomorrow. Care-home residents had been designated as a top priority to receive the jab, but health authorities are still exploring how to distribute the vaccine outside hospitals because it comes in deep-frozen packs containing 975 doses that must be stored at –70 ℃ .
A day in the life of Anthony Fauci
Physician Anthony Fauci, the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the face of the country’s COVID-19 response, turns 80 this month — but a glimpse at his daily schedule shows that he’s far from slowing down. Starting at 5:10 a.m. and going “until he couldn’t keep his eyes open”, Fauci has just one 20-minute break in his work day. “It’s just, you know, drinking out of a firehose trying to keep ahead of everything that’s going on,” he says.
The Swiss cheese model of protection
From physical distancing to vaccines, there are many layers of defence that can protect us from COVID — but none of them is impenetrable. The multilayered ‘Swiss cheese’ model helps us to visualize how, when we combine all the strategies, no one hole lets the virus through. “It’s not really about any single layer of protection or the order of them, but about the additive success of using multiple layers, or cheese slices,” says virologist Ian Mackay, who has brought the Swiss cheese model to bear on COVID, illustrated with a stack of hole-riddled slices of the eponymous cheese. And the ‘the misinformation mouse’ can nibble away at any of those layers.
The New York Times | 10 min read
Ian M. Mackay (CC BY 4.0)
Features & opinion
You don’t need a postdoc to work in industry
Experience as a postdoctoral researcher might not fast-track your career outside academia — or guarantee a good pay cheque right out of the gate. A 2017 study about biomedicine careers found that the majority of PhD recipients would be better off financially if they skipped the postdoc entirely. The Working Scientist podcast explores the pros and cons with industry insiders.
Nature Careers Working Scientist podcast | 22 min listen
Enter the Wood Wide Web
Fungal threads link nearly every tree in a forest — even trees of different species. Nutrients and possibly signals pass through this shared mycelium — although the full extent of trees’ interconnectivity is under debate. Take a walk through the forests of British Columbia with forest ecologist Suzanne Simard — whose research inspired the term ‘Wood Wide Web’ — and other researchers in this richly photographed feature.
The New York Times | 23 min read
Where I work
Federica Benvenuti is a group leader in cellular immunology at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Trieste, Italy.Credit: Rocco Ceselin for Nature
Immunologist Federica Benvenuti investigates the guard dogs of the immune system while training young scientists from developing nations. (Nature | 3 min read)
