How to keep tabs on your tools in the lab
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Today we hear that longevity researchers are turning their attention to pets, explore the future of psychedelic drugs to treat mental-health conditions and get tips on how to keep tabs on your lab tools.
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Longevity research turns to pets
Longevity researchers are exploring ways to extend the lives of pets, spurred by the boom in human-lifespan research. Most efforts currently focus on improving animal diets, and some researchers are exploring the potential of repurposing drugs that have been approved for humans for use in their furry friends. Other groups are starting from scratch to develop animal-specific treatments, including drugs and gene therapies, to treat conditions that range from muscle wasting in cats to heart conditions in dogs.
Scientists relieved by Lula’s surprise victory
“It’s hard to express just how happy the scientific community and the Brazilian society is with Lula’s victory,” says physicist Paulo Artaxo of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s re-election. Many researchers had worried that if right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro won, he might slash funding for and undermine Brazilian science, as his father had during his own tenure as Brazil’s president. Lula has pledged to continue his previous support for science, but his challenge will be “to transform his scientific policies into lasting progress”, says engineer Francilene Garcia.
Jumping spiders need to snooze too
Jumping spiders (Portia fimbriata) seem to experience something akin to rapid eye movement (REM) during sleep — and might even dream. Researchers found that P. fimbriata go through periods of inactivity at night and that they’re slower to respond to noises during that time. The arachnids’ eyes also move quickly and their legs twitch at different points of the night, which points to an REM-esque slumber. The findings suggest that the spiders’ brains are sophisticated enough to require a sleep state, researchers say.
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The future of psychedelics
After a regulatory setback in 2024, some pharma companies are betting big on psychedelic drugs for the treatment of mental-health conditions. Clinical-trial results have shown that such drugs can have benefits for conditions from anxiety to substance-use and eating disorders. Other research is focused on tweaking psychedelic compounds to make them more viable for the clinic. Still, researchers must not assume this momentum will last, says psychedelics researcher Philippe Lucas — roadblocks such as the US government’s ‘war on drugs’ have stalled the field before, and could do so again, he says.
How women started the first conversation
In The Revolutionary Origins of Language, anthropologists Chris Knight and Jerome Lewis argue that social cohesion, not conflict, was the catalyst for human speech. The authors offer a complex mixture of evidence, mostly drawn from prehistoric and present-day Africa, to support their own theory. They suggest that women probably had a key role in inventing language through the “subtle work of maintaining group cohesion”. The pair’s hypothesis seems reasonable, but “the origins of language continue to be a tantalizing enigma”, says science writer Andrew Robinson in his review.
Keeping tabs on tools in your lab
In shared laboratories, tools going walkabout can bring experiments to a grinding halt — or simply get on scientists’ nerves. For tips on how to keep tabs on your tools, Nature spoke directly to researchers about how they protect their work, equipment and sanity without becoming the lab secret police. Their advice includes clearly labelling any equipment that is solely yours, keeping spares of essential kit and not being afraid to — politely — ask colleagues for your tools back.
Quote of the day
Production designer Dan Bishop and his team worked with archaeologists to ensure that the sets they built for the upcoming comedy series Dig accurately depicted real-world dig sites. (The New York Times | 4 min read)
Today I’m celebrating dictionary.com’s word of the year: maxxing. Most often used as a suffix, the word means “pursuing an activity to the fullest or optimizing a certain aspect of your life”. To give an example: today I have been ‘Briefingmaxxing’.
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