GoKawiilB cells seem to provide crucial support for muscles during exercise in mice. Plus, the winners of this year’s Breakthrough Prizes and the best ways to debug your scientific software.
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David Hertzog (left) and Katherine High were among the winners of this year’s Breakthrough prizes.Credit: Dennis R. Wise & Colin Lenton
Three physicians who contributed to the development of the first FDA-approved gene-augmenting therapy, have picked up one of this year’s Breakthrough prizes — among the most lucrative awards in science. Luxturna, which replaces a faulty gene in the retina with a working one, has been “transformative for one form of blindness that was untreatable”, says retinal neuroscientist Omar Mahroo. Other prizes were awarded to the several hundred collaborators who contributed to a decades-long quest to measure the magnetic properties of the subatomic muon particle, and the scientists whose work led to the first approved CRISPR gene-editing therapy, Casgevy, which treats sickle-cell disease and β-thalassaemia.
Nature | 8 min read
B cells — the ‘security guards’ of the immune system — also provide crucial support for muscles during exercise. B-cell-deficient mice performed worse on strength and endurance tests than did mice with healthy B-cell counts. Researchers found that the absence of B cells lowers the amount of the amino acid glutamate, which is associated with improved mitochondrial and skeletal muscle function, released by the liver. A lack of glutamate in muscle tissue and the bloodstream could explain the decrease in exercise performance, they suggest.
Nature | 4 min read
Reference: Cell paper
419,643 km The distance between the crew of NASA’s Artemis II Moon mission and that of China’s Tiangong space station on 6 April — the farthest that any people have been apart, ever — as calculated by astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell. (Space.com | 6 min read)
Members of the deeply divided US House of Representatives seem to agree that issues in scientific publishing deserve more attention from government — but are less united on what that action should look like. A congressional hearing brought together stakeholders to discuss such quandaries as article processing charges, ‘paper mills’ that sell authorships on fake or low-quality papers, and AI-written junk. The hearing follows a provision in the US government’s proposed 2027 budget that would prohibit researchers and universities from spending federal funds on “expensive subscriptions” to academic journals and “prohibitively high” publishing fees.
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