UK to open first ‘body farm’ | Nature Briefing

Hello Nature readers,

Today we hear a call for society to fight back against technology companies campaigning to bend research and regulation for their benefit, discover the small tweaks that can help to smooth the review process for your paper and ponder new physics to probe the origins of life.

Tedros Adhenom Ghebreyesus (centre) meets with Ebola responders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after an epidemiologist was murdered. (Junior Kannah/WHO)

‘The world has never seen anything like this’

These dark words are from the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, about the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A maelstrom of factors, including political instability, ongoing conflict, insufficient funding and a series of direct attacks on Ebola responders, have created “a perfect storm” for the spread of the disease. Particularly painful was the murder last month of epidemiologist Richard Mouzoko. “I was thinking of his four kids, and looking at his friends there in the field, and thinking about the risk they were taking to save others,” Ghebreyesus told Nature. “I just broke.”

Nature | Read this article at nature.com/nature/articles?type=news-q-and-a

EXCLUSIVE: UK to open first ‘body farm’

Forensic scientists are working with the British military to open the United Kingdom’s first body farm — a site where researchers will be able to study the decomposition of human remains. Project leaders hope this year to open the farm, which documents obtained by Nature under the Freedom of Information Act suggest is on land owned by the Ministry of Defence. Such forensic cemeteries exist in the United States, the Netherlands and Australia. Farms take donated bodies and bury them or leave them on the surface to decompose, generating data on tissue and bone degradation under controlled conditions to help criminal and forensic investigators.

Nature | Read this article at nature.com/latest-news

Chinese hospitals set to sell experimental therapies

Select elite hospitals in China could soon be able to sell experimental therapies that engineer a patient’s own cells to treat diseases such as cancer — without approval from the nation’s drug regulator. The proposal comes three years after the government shut down the sale of unapproved cell therapies following the death of a student who had received such a treatment. Some scientists say that the policy would give people with terminal illnesses faster access to potentially effective treatments, whereas others question whether the regulations would be able to ensure that treatments are safe before they are sold.

Nature | Read this article at nature.com/latest-news

Solar-powered hydrogen generator is most productive yet

A 5-centimetre-square device can harness concentrated solar energy to generate clean-burning hydrogen gas. The gadget uses a photo-electrochemical reaction to split the oxygen and hydrogen in a water-based electrolyte. On the basis of tests in the lab, the system could produce an estimated 47 litres of hydrogen over six sunlit hours, moving us closer than ever to an affordable and practical source of renewable hydrogen fuel.

Nature | Read this article at nature.com/nature/articles?type=research-highlight

Reference: Nature Energy paper 

FEATURES & OPINION

Don’t let industry write the rules for AI

Technology companies are running a campaign to bend research and regulation for their benefit; society must fight back, says law professor Yochai Benkler. “Companies’ input in shaping the future of AI is essential,” argues Benkler. “But they cannot retain the power they have gained to frame research on how their systems impact society or on how we evaluate the effect morally.”

Nature | Read this article at  nature.com/nature/articles?type=world-view

David Thouless, a quiet giant of physics

A deep and original thinker, David Thouless made many significant contributions in areas as wide-ranging as nuclear matter, statistical mechanics and condensed-matter physics. Thouless, who died last month, shared a physics Nobel prize in 2016 for his work on phase transitions — for example, when water becomes ice. Thouless called himself an introvert who preferred to collaborate than lead, and is warmly remembered for his gentlemanly demeanour and brilliant — if economically expressed — scientific insights.

Nature | Read this article at  nature.com/nature/articles?type=obituary

Belt and Road is changing world science

The Belt and Road Initiative, China’s mega-plan for global infrastructure, is profoundly changing how science happens in low- and middle-income countries. In this week’s podcast, discover the five-part Nature series that is revealing how the project is powering China’s rise as a science-development superpower, along with the rest of the week’s science news.

Nature Podcast | Listen to nature.com/nature/articles?type=nature-podcast

BOOKS & ARTS

An artist’s impression of early ‘protocells’ proliferating. (Henning Dalhoff/Science Photo Library)

New physics for the first spark of life

A new book by complex-systems researcher Stuart Kauffman provocatively concludes that there is no mathematical law that could describe the evolving diversity and abundance of life in the biosphere — biology is “beyond physics”. Theoretical physicist Sara Imari Walker agrees that life cannot be explained by our current laws of physics, but argues that the science should not be defined by what it has described in the past. What we need is new physics, Walker says.

Nature | Read this article at nature.com/books-culture

Five best science books this week

Barbara Kiser’s pick of the top five science books to read this week includes a call for profits for the people, a survey of six millennia of cities, and a look at the roots of sickness and health.

Nature | Read this article at nature.com/books-culture

SCIENTIFIC LIFE

Female physicists make slow academic headway

Slowly, women are earning an increasing proportion of physics PhDs and faculty positions in the United States. Twenty percent of US doctoral degrees went to women in 2017, a slight increase of 2% over 10 years, according to a report from the American Institute of Physics. But the proportion is unlikely to rise anytime soon, given that just 21% of physics bachelor’s degrees in 2017 went to women. The pipeline seems to be springing a leak after secondary school, in which physics classes are relatively evenly split between male and female students.

Nature | Read more at nature.com/nature/articles?type=career-column

Reference: Physical Review Physics Education Research paper 

Tweaks to smooth your paper’s review process

If you missed Nature climate-science editor Michael White’s Twitter thread of good formatting choices for scientific papers when I mentioned it last month, don’t miss his article expanding on his top tips. White emphasizes that papers should be published according to the merit of their scientific contribution, not the polish of their presentation, but his suggestions will keep your paper from becoming bogged down by quirks that can distract or confuse reviewers.

Nature | Read more at nature.com/nature/articles?type=career-column

“Just learned that I received a grant for which my cat accidentally clicked ‘submit’ while I was out walking the dog,” writes clinical psychologist Jessica Schleider. May we all have a friend like Mochi. Let me know what your pets have done for you lately — or any other feedback — at briefing@nature.com. 

Flora Graham, senior editor, Nature Briefing 

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