Daily briefing: NASA’s input could be ‘a teachable moment’ for UFO-hunters

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Miniature robot carries heavy load

A four-legged, insect-sized robot can crawl, leap and lift a load that is 22 times its own weight. The miniature machine is powered by tiny actuators that create small chemical explosions in each foot that can launch the robot 56 centimetres into the air.

Nature | 2 min read

Reference: Science paper

Breakthrough Prize for cystic fibrosis drug

The trio of chemists who developed the cystic fibrosis treatment Trikafta has won one of this year’s US$3-million Breakthrough prizes — the most lucrative awards in science. The combination drug can increase life expectancy for people with cystic fibrosis from around 30 to more than 80 years. Prizes were also awarded to two geneticists who discovered genes associated with the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, two physicists for their work on conformal field theories and a mathematician for contributions to differential geometry.

Nature | 7 min read

MDMA passes key hurdle for US approval

The psychedelic drug MDMA could be approved in the United States as treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as soon as next year. In a trial involving 104 people, 71% of those who received MDMA alongside therapy lost their PTSD diagnosis, compared with 48% of those who received a placebo and therapy. The low drop-out rate of only 9% was particularly promising, says neurologist and study co-author Jennifer Mitchell. Psychiatrist Erick Turner points out that, because MDMA produces an intense psychedelic experience, many trial participants correctly guessed whether they received the drug. “That is not a blinded study,” he says.

Nature | 6 min read

Reference: Nature Medicine paper

NASA UFO check is ‘a teachable moment’

Yesterday, NASA released a report from an independent panel that looked at how and why the organization might want to be involved in studying unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), more commonly known as UFOs. Whether data collection turns up alien visitors or not, the process would be beneficial to society, says astrophysicist David Spergel, who chaired the panel. “We have a problem in our society that people think there’s conspiracies and lots of things are hidden,” says Spergel. “To me, one of the most important recommendations in the report is that NASA develop an app for people’s cell phones that they can use to collect data. It’s an opportunity to engage the public in what science is about.”

Nature | 5 min read

Features & opinion

Trials of artificial wombs could start soon

Next week, US regulators will start discussing human trials of a system that mimics the womb, which could reduce deaths and disability for the millions of babies that are born extremely premature. In 2017 experiments, preterm lambs survived for up to four weeks in the artificial womb. But “it’s a big leap to go to humans from lambs”, says fetal-medicine specialist Eduard Gratacós. Aside from safety concerns, the development of artificial wombs would raise ethical questions, such as what they mean for the definition of fetal viability.

Nature | 11 min read

How to create an equitable coding language

A broken elbow gave computer scientist Amy Ko an insight into the degree to which her discipline caters mainly to non-disabled people. “My work could no longer keep up with my thoughts,” she recalls. Popular platforms require a mouse, which excludes people with motor disabilities, and most code-editing programs assume that users have sight. Ko is developing a programming language, Wordplay, that strives to avoid assumptions about ability or natural-language fluency. It has no natural-language keywords (such as ‘if’ and ‘while’) and can be navigated, screen-read and edited using a mouse, keyboard and speech.

Nature | 5 min read

Podcast: Sustainable sticking

Scientists have developed a glue that takes inspiration from the proteins that marine animals such as mussels use to stick to rocks. It’s as strong as superglue — and, because one of its main components is made from soya oil, it could have a much smaller carbon footprint than conventional adhesives. “The plants absorb so much CO₂ to form the components that we want,” chemist Jonathan Wilker tells the Nature Podcast. In a rough estimate, “you can get the numbers to be actually carbon negative”.

Nature Podcast | 34 min listen

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Today, Leif Penguinson is visiting Honey Island Swamp, a marshland in Louisiana. Can you find the penguin?

The answer will be in Monday’s e-mail, all thanks to Briefing photo editor and penguin wrangler Tom Houghton.

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Flora Graham, senior editor, Nature Briefing

With contributions by Katrina Krämer and Dyani Lewis

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