Daily briefing: How to share surplus COVID-19 vaccines

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Promising HIV-prevention drug has a flaw

One year ago, an injectable drug was lauded for preventing HIV — but it looks less perfect today, in light of a new analysis. Researchers revisited blood samples collected in a 4,570-person clinical trial of the drug, called cabotegravir. They found that four people who contracted HIV, despite having received injections of the medication, had been infected for more than a month before ordinary HIV tests detected the virus. The team thinks that cabotegravir suppressed the virus enough to prevent the HIV tests from detecting it during early stages of infection. During this time, the virus developed resistance to cabotegravir. “The take-home message here is that we need better diagnostics, and we need to be ready to get people into suppressive treatment as soon as you diagnose the infection,” says HIV-prevention researcher Raphael Landovitz.

Nature | 6 min read

Plan now for COVID-19 vaccine surpluses

Countries such as Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom have secured enough doses of COVID-19 vaccines to protect their populations many times over. Though many are still struggling to roll the jabs out, eventually they will have hundreds of millions of surplus doses. Global health leaders say the time is now to plan how to share that bounty. “There are a whole set of issues that one needs to work through with regulators, and indemnification and liability on the contracts between manufacturers and countries that say how the doses can be used,” explains Nicole Lurie at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which helps to run the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) programme, an international coalition aiming to fairly distribute vaccines. “It’s not as simple as just saying to COVAX, here are some doses.”

Science | 6 min read

A mind-reading headband for horses

A wearable electroencephalogram (EEG) headband for horses could give us insight into how the animals feel. Researchers developed the device to measure the mental states of horses housed in typical stables compared with those who spend most of their time outside. Of 18 horses tested, the confined animals showed more right-hemisphere gamma brain waves, which can be a sign of anxiety, distraction or depression in people. Horses in open fields had more left-hemisphere theta waves, which are generally a sign of a calm and attentive mind in people. The technique could offer a glimpse into the mental states of other animals, too. But scientists caution that brain-wave interpretations for humans don’t necessarily translate to other species.

Science | 5 min read

Reference: Applied Animal Behaviour Science paper

Features & opinion

Fresh takes on the CRISPR revolution

In two new books, biographer Walter Isaacson and bioethicist Henry Greely grapple with the thorny ethical questions and bitter scientific competition behind genome editing. “Reading them together gives insight into what the CRISPR story means — for knowledge, for society and for research as an endeavour,” writes reviewer Jackie Leach Scully.

Nature | 6 min read

What I learnt from 700 e-mail applications

Mechanical engineer Ronith Stanly wrote more than 700 e-mail applications for research opportunities following his undergraduate degree — and was unsuccessful almost as many times. “But the rejections taught me valuable, career-defining lessons,” writes Stanly, who is now starting a PhD programme in Stockholm. He shares how he came to stand out from the crowd.

Nature | 6 min read

Why nuclear energy’s role is shrinking

Anniversaries of the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters highlight the challenges of relying on nuclear power to cut net carbon emissions to zero. “Clearly, nuclear energy will be with us for some time,” argues a Nature editorial. “But it is not proving to be the solution it was once seen as for decarbonizing the world’s energy market.” Instead, the focus must be on renewable energies that are available to all nations and don’t involve national or international defence apparatus.

Nature | 5 min read

Spotlight

Ecology in China

China’s rapid development has kept ecology low on its list of priorities. Now, ahead of the 2021 United Nations biodiversity conference — which the country is hosting — scientists are helping China to prepare for more balanced growth, both economically and ecologically.

• An eco-island near Shanghai aims to demonstrate how to limit the ecological costs of urbanization in China. Linjun Xie, an urban sustainability and environmental governance researcher, explains how the Chongming Eco-Island Project can be a model for more environmentally sustainable urban development in China. (Nature | 5 min read)

• British zoologist Alice Hughes has been working at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden in Menglun, China, for nearly eight years. She discusses the challenges of working as a non-Chinese female scientist in a leadership role and what she has learnt about the country’s approach to ecological conservation. “The most positive thing for me is that science matters here,” she says. (Nature | 8 min read)

• Ecologists are keen to build on metropolitan China’s increased awareness of the threats posed by environmental neglect. The shift has been partly prompted by the knowledge that the pandemic probably arose from human contact with wild animals. The government is struggling to grapple with the challenges of a rapidly increasing urban population and a historical disregard for the value of nature. (Nature | 7 min read)