GoKawiilEstimates range from 17 to 995.5. Plus, one man with paralysis is using a brain–computer interface at home and GLP-1 obesity drugs appear to boost testosterone and sperm quality.
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Casey Harrell using the brain-computer interface at his home. Credit: Regents of the University of California, Davis
A man with paralysis uses a brain implant to help him to communicate and use his computer at home. The brain–computer interface (BCI) translates the neural activity of 48-year-old Casey Harrell, who was diagnosed with a type of motor neuron disease six years ago, into text that appears on a computer screen and enables him to operate a computer, send text messages and e-mails and continue his job working in climate advocacy. It is “nothing short of revolutionary”, says Harrell.
Nature | 5 min read
Reference: Nature Medicine paper
The latest generation of obesity drugs might increase testosterone levels and improve the quality of sperm in men, according to a systematic review. Researchers identified five randomized controlled trials of GLP-1 medications that included measurements of testosterone levels. The results of two of these showed that testosterone levels rose in those taking GLP-1 drugs, and one trial also showed an increase in sperm quality. More robust trials are needed to confirm the association, says endocrinologist and review co-author Pratibha Natesh. But emerging evidence from other sources points in the same direction. The results were presented at the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting.
Nature | 5 min read
7.4 million The number of plant and fungal specimens in the collection of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, in the United Kingdom, that have been released in a new digital collection that is freely available to researchers worldwide. (Nature | 5 min read)
Four senior Chinese academics have been disciplined after ‘Student Geng’ — a vlogger and former PhD student whose real name is Geng Hongwei — flagged data anomalies in their published papers in a series of social-media videos. In the posts, watched almost ten million times, Geng analyses patterns in the data of papers published in Nature and other Nature-branded journals and concludes that some figures might have been fabricated. Geng’s virality has laid bare some challenges faced by China’s academic system, which is “very prone” to misconduct in part because of the high volume of papers its researchers publish, says research-integrity sleuth Elisabeth Bik.
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