GoKawiilAlmost 40% of respondents to a survey said that their supervisor was disorganized and a poor communicator. Plus, promising results against a hard-to-treat cancer and whether AI will help or hinder social sciences.
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Pancreatic-head tumours (red, artificially coloured) have proved highly resistant to treatment, but a new drug nearly doubles the lifespan of people with this type of cancer.Credit: PNMB/Science Photo Library
A drug that targets a so-called ‘undruggable’ family of proteins has nearly doubled survival in people with an advanced form of pancreatic cancer. The experimental drug, daraxonrasib, disarms all three RAS proteins, which are linked to some of the deadliest cancers. In a trial of 500 people with advanced pancreatic cancer, those who received daraxonrasib lived another 13.2 months, compared with 6.7 months for those treated with chemotherapy. Researchers hope that combining the drug with other treatments could produce longer-lasting benefits.
Nature | 7 min read
Reference: New England Journal of Medicine paper
Bad experiences with supervisors are one of the leading reasons that early-career researchers leave academia. In a survey of more than 2,600 researchers, almost 40% of respondents said that their supervisor was disorganized and poor at communication and at least 30% reported issues concerning their supervisor’s behaviour, such as abrupt attitude changes and a lack of empathy. Of the 206 respondents who identified themselves as former researchers, nearly half cited negative experiences with their supervisors as a factor in their decision to leave academic research.
Nature | 5 min read
Reference: bioRxiv preprint (not peer reviewed)
Prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi let people gamble on everything from the progress of disease outbreaks to the outcomes of quantum-computing research. But some researchers are not convinced that the ‘wisdom of crowds’ reflected by these platforms can rival the work of expert scientists. There are also growing concerns about market manipulation and insider trading — for example, officials who oversee the Nobel Peace Prize are investigating a surge in bets for Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado hours before she was awarded the prize.
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