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Fruit bats carry Nipah virus, which has infected people in India and several other countries.<\/span>Credit: C. K Thanseer\/DeFodi images via Getty<\/span><\/p>\n Aedes aegypti mosquitoes engineered to carry vaccines in their saliva have been used in the lab to inoculate bats against the rabies and Nipah viruses. Researchers fed the mosquitoes blood that contained a vaccine against one of the two viruses, which were then passed on either when the insects fed on bats or when the bats ate them. The team hopes that this method could be used to stop such viruses from spilling over\u2019 from bats into humans. But other researchers are sceptical that the method would be effective in the wild. <\/p>\n Nature | 4 min read<\/p>\n Reference: Science Advances paper<\/p>\n People who use large language models are picking up writing patterns, reasoning methods and even opinions from the chatbots, some research suggests. This pattern threatens to homogenize human writing and discourse, argue some computer scientists, and could even influence text written by people that aren\u2019t first-hand AI users. But not all researchers in the field agree. In one study, a team of scientists found that certain groups of writers held on to their personal writing style after using AI, and some even developed one that was more markedly distinct from that of the LLM.<\/p>\n Nature | 6 min read<\/p>\n Reference: arXiv preprint 1 (not peer reviewed), Science Advances paper, Trends in Cognitive Science opinion piece & arXiv preprint 2 (not peer reviewed)<\/p>\n After missiles damaged oil depots and refineries this week, Iran\u2019s capital Tehran has been blanketed by pollutant-laden \u2018black rain\u2019. Experts say that this rain probably contains both soot, which can damage people\u2019s lungs and eyes, and cancer-causing chemicals such as benzene and toluene, released by the burning of oil-refining byproducts. The pollutants could be dispersed in the air if there are no new fires, says atmospheric chemist Gabriel da Silva. But Tehran\u2019s position in the Alborz mountain range can lead to temperature inversions, a meteorological phenomenon that traps polluted air masses. Rain could also disperse the chemicals, but that could lead to contamination in soil and waterways, da Silva says.<\/p>\n Nature | 5 min read<\/p>\n A species of gut bacteria that proliferates as mice get older plays a part in cognitive decline. Researchers found that the bacterium, Parabacteroides goldsteinii, interferes with signalling along sensory nerves that connect the gut to the brain by producing fatty acids, which trigger the release of inflammatory molecules from immune cells. Although the experiments were conducted in mice, the gut\u2013brain circuit that the team identified \u201cis likely conserved in humans\u201d, says biochemist David Vauzour, which, if confirmed, could lead to gut-targeted therapies to reverse cognitive decline in people.<\/p>\n Nature | 5 min read<\/p>\n Reference: Nature paper<\/p>\n The United Kingdom is looking to make big changes to how it funds research \u2014 and physics is in the crosshairs. The country\u2019s largest research funder, UK Research and Innovation, is ending or reducing investment in projects in particle physics, astronomy and nuclear physics. Some of the biggest cuts will hit UK physicists\u2019 participation in international projects such as CERN, Europe\u2019s particle-physics laboratory. Nuclear physicist Paul Howarth, the new leader of the country\u2019s Institute of Physics, tells Nature that \u201cconstructive dialogue\u201d with the government is needed, or the country risks losing the next generation of scientists.<\/p>\n Nature | 5 min read<\/p>\n By some estimates, some 60% of US and European adults take dietary supplements regularly \u2014 whether stalwarts such as omega-3 or up-and-comers such as collagen and lion\u2019s mane. But hard evidence for the effectiveness of some supposedly \u2018evidence-backed\u2019 supplements can be difficult to come by. Compared with research on vitamins and minerals that treat nutrient deficiencies, \u201cthe science is rather more sketchy\u201d on compounds thought to be beneficial to health, says nutritional scientist Paul Coates, who formerly led the arm of the US National Institutes of Health responsible for supplement research. \u201cIt\u2019s done by good people, often in model systems, but the effect sizes are pretty tiny.\u201d<\/p>\n Nature | 14 min read<\/p>\n This article is part of Nature Spotlight: Nutrition<\/p>\n Astrobiologist Michael Wong published seven academic articles as either the first or corresponding author last year \u2014 but also has a five-year gap in his record during which he has no lead-author publications. Producing papers shouldn\u2019t be the metric by which his success as a researcher is measured, he argues. (Nature | 7 min read)<\/p>\n Today I\u2019m learning about physics through the medium of dance. The piezoelectric effect \u2014 the generation of electricity in some crystalline materials when they\u2019re subjected to mechanical stress \u2014 was central to physicist Sofia Papa\u2019s research during her PhD, and she put her thesis in motion when she entered Science\u2019s 2026 Dance Your PhD contest. Her entry, in which she and her colleagues dance in blue and red outfits to represent positive and negative charge, proved a winner. <\/p>\n Help us keep this newsletter on beat by sending your feedback to briefing@nature.com.<\/p>\n Thanks for reading,<\/p>\n Jacob Smith, associate editor, Nature Briefing<\/p>\n With contributions by Flora Graham<\/p>\n \u2022 Nature Briefing: Careers \u2014 insights, advice and award-winning journalism to help you optimize your working life<\/p>\n \u2022 Nature Briefing: Microbiology \u2014 the most abundant living entities on our planet \u2014 microorganisms \u2014 and the role they play in health, the environment and food systems<\/p>\n \u2022 Nature Briefing: Anthropocene \u2014 climate change, biodiversity, sustainability and geoengineering<\/p>\n \u2022 Nature Briefing: AI & Robotics \u2014 100% written by humans, of course<\/p>\n \u2022 Nature Briefing: Cancer \u2014 a weekly newsletter written with cancer researchers in mind<\/p>\n \u2022 Nature Briefing: Translational Research \u2014 covers biotechnology, drug discovery and pharma<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You have full access to this article via your institution. Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here. Fruit bats carry Nipah virus, which has infected people in India and several other countries.Credit: C. K Thanseer\/DeFodi images via Getty Aedes aegypti mosquitoes engineered to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[9517,23800,13351,20186,23799],"class_list":{"0":"post-46767","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-bats","9":"tag-inoculate","10":"tag-mosquitoes","11":"tag-rabies","12":"tag-vaccinecarrying"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Features & opinion<\/h2>\n
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