Scientific American
As the U.S. president announces his advisers and agency heads,
Nature’s guide tracks the appointees who matter most to science
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Alondra Nelson speaks in Wilmington, Delaware after being named Deputy Director for Science and Society in the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Credit: Angela Weiss
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After winning the US presidential election, Democrat Joe Biden moved quickly to begin naming the experts who will advise him on a range of issues including science.
He immediately announced a task force of public-health specialists who will counsel him on a strategy to curtail the coronavirus pandemic, and he created a new position on the White House National Security Council devoted to climate change. Scientists have welcomed Biden’s swift actions in picking advisers with strong backgrounds in research and evidence-based policy. His predecessor, former Republican president Donald Trump, appointed multiple climate-change sceptics to
A new study found a low-fat, plant-based diet could help people lose weight and burn body fat. But an animal-meat-based, high-fat ketogenic diet was found
Dr. Anthony Fauci will be the featured speaker in the University of Montana s 2021 Mansfield Lecture February 17. The presentation will be Wednesday, February 17, at 12 noon. The public will be able to view it online on the Zoom platform, according to Deena Mansour, executive director of the UM Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center. Dr. Fauci is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. He is one of the world’s most-cited biomedical scientists.
On February 17, Dr. Fauci and Dr. Robert Saldin, Director of the Mansfield Ethics and Public Affairs Program will have a conversation about COVID-19. There will be questions from the public and expected topics will include the current situation in the U.S. and throughout the world, and when will normal life return, and what will normal look like?
[co-author: Martika Harper, MS.]
The COVID-19 pandemic has had an immense impact on clinical trials in the US. Many clinical trials have been suspended or stopped due to the demands of the pandemic. Not only does interruption of these trials leave participants at a standstill with treatment, but it also negatively impacts other stakeholders like sponsors and researchers. The pandemic has put a damper on research funding as well as treatment options for at-risk participants. Many researchers and institutions have been impacted in three main areas: financial losses, having to redirect research focus, and adapting to a new clinical trial process.
Pseudonocardia and
Streptomyces bacteria are their farmhands, producing metabolites that protect the crop from pathogens. Surprisingly, these metabolites lack common structural features across bacteria from different geographic locations, even though the ants share a common ancestor. Now, researchers report in
ACS Central Science they have identified the first shared antifungal compound among many of these bacteria across Brazil. The compound could someday have medical applications.
Attine ants originated as one species at a single location in the Amazon 50 million years ago. They have evolved to 200 species that have spread their farming practices throughout South and Central America. In exchange for food, bacteria at these farms produce small molecules that hold pathogenic fungi such as