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Recent ballot initiatives instituting a tax on sugary drinks in the US, alongside related efforts by other countries and support from the World Health Organization, bring to the forefront the need for greater scientific insight into how sugars affect metabolic health.
The US Food and Drug Administration approved a muscular-dystrophy drug against the scientific advice of its own staff and advisors. Despite leadership's attempts to downplay the controversy, doubts now surround standards for accelerated approval.
From organoids to population-level studies, mental health research has begun to crack long-standing mysteries. Longitudinal investigations into brain and cognitive development among adolescents, such as the forthcoming 10,000-person ABCD project, will help to mature the field.
The suicide rate in the US is increasing, whereas funding for research into suicide prevention has decreased. It will take more investment to truly understand the mechanisms of action underlying the causes of this global killer and to design new treatments for those causes. But efforts must come from all segments of society.
Here, we announce two policy changes across Nature journals: data-availability statements in all published papers and official Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB) validation reports for peer review.
Reporting of data from clinical trials comes slowly or not at all. Impending regulations in the US promise to improve the situation, but full compliance will require better incentives from institutions and a greater understanding that reporting data does not jeopardize the publication of results.
The US Food and Drug Administration's priority review voucher system for drugs to treat neglected disease has come under scrutiny for lacking preconditions that ensure fair pricing of the products that they aim to usher forward. That loophole needs to be closed.
Science naysayers have become increasingly vocal in the US government. Attacks on science—whether biological, social or climate—threaten human health, now and in the future.
Amid heightened concerns about the Zika virus outbreak in parts of the Western Hemisphere, it is worth remembering that the most extreme countermeasures are not necessarily the only ones worth trying. We must engage in calculated and diverse responses that will ensure sustainable outcomes for this and other outbreaks.
In December, the US government approved a $2 billion increase in the budget of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the 2016 fiscal year. With that increase comes relief, optimism and the pressure to spend wisely.
Reproducibility projects yield headline-grabbing numbers, not practical steps for minimizing the investment in and publication of irreproducible research. If used inappropriately, these numbers may have unintended consequences.
