A fossil from Taiwan is Denisovan
Denisovan’s Mysterious Taiwan Fossil: A Case Study in Quantum Topology and Mental Health, Among Early-Carer Researchers
A Denisovan died more than 20 years ago. Plus, the states hit hardest by NIH cuts in charts and an acoustics lab inside an abandoned nuclear plant.
A lack of support at institutions has led to the development of movements by graduate students and interns to find solutions to mental-health issues among early-career researchers. The efforts focus on five areas: reducing stigma, improving mental-health literacy, improving supportive skills, encouraging peer-support networks, and creating structures across the research enterprise to take responsibility for mental health.
The H2-2 quantum machine has been reported to be faster than ordinary, or classical, computers, because it can distinguish between different types of knot on basis of topological properties. The finding hints at where the innovative computers could someday be particularly useful. This is due to unexplained connections between quantum physics and topology. “That these things are related is mind-blowing, I think,” says Konstantinos Meichanetzidis, a Quantinuum researcher who led the work behind the preprint.
Source: Daily briefing: Mysterious Taiwan fossil is Denisovan
The Complete Genome of Six Apes Revealed by a Radiological Laboratory During the COVID-19 Pandemic
A fossilized jawbone discovered more than 20 years ago belonged to an ancient group of humans called Denisovans. The jawbone was fished up 25 kilometres off the west coast of Taiwan. The confirmation that the bone belonged to a Denisovan — the result of more than two years of work to extract ancient proteins from the fossil — expands the known geographical range of the group, from colder, high-altitude regions to warmer climates.
The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has terminated nearly 800 research projects, wiping out significant chunks of funding to entire scientific fields. The Trump administration has taken a hard line on issues related to the health of sexual and gender minorities, with some of the research funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. In the five states with the biggest losses are Massachusetts, California, Maryland, Texas and New York.
In a decaying nuclear power plant in Washington state, scientists have created a sound-testing laboratory that takes advantage of the site’s unique characteristics. Former NASA researcher Ron Sauro and his team test everything from soundproof building materials to washing machines while battling the challenges of working within an abandoned reactor building — such as a terminally leaky roof and deadly unfinished lift shafts.
The complete genome of six ape species has been mapped out, after two decades of work. An understanding of the apes’ genomes gives geneticists insights into the genetic factors that differentiate humans from our closest evolutionary relatives. The results will also be key to analysing the genetic diversity of at-risk ape populations — all six species sequenced are listed as either endangered or critically endangered. Kateryna Makova, a study co-author and evolutionary geneticist said that she had never thought this would happen in her lifetime.
Then in March 2020 the COVID-19pandemic hit. By June, as Bolsonaro’s administration continued to dismiss science as an elitist pursuit, our lab shifted from evolutionary research to processing COVID-19 tests with Macaé’s city hall. Our qPCR machines, once mapping beetle gene expression, were repurposed for diagnoses in a testing effort that helped to keep Macaé’s fatality rate below the state average. The institute lost access to me because of a strict sanitary barrier, and it became a Diagnostic Lab due to this crucial initiative. My assays were stopped indefinitely.
After Bolsonaro came to power in 2019, more than 5,600 grants vanished under sweeping austerity measures that targeted research and higher education. The cuts left thousands of researchers in limbo as national funding agencies such as the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education and Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development slashed their budgets. Faculty members scrambled for emergency support while researchers rationed reagents and faced the prospect of stalled projects.
A colleague of mine almost lost her career after the government axed her scholarship a week before she was due to start. Without warning, she found herself locked out of the lab. She spoke out, and the story of her funding being axed, struck a nerve with the public. She couldn’t walk away from the support that came together quickly.
One of my friends left her PhD job because of threats: she couldn’t afford rent without her stipend. A man moved abroad to continue his research after months of uncertainty. I, too, thought about quitting. I had already changed fields once, so I knew I couldn’t do it again. Not even under Bolsonaro.
The cuts sparked nationwide protests led by students, professors and scientific societies, with banners in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasília declaring: “Knowledge is not an expense.” I felt a powerful unity during the march with a lot of people.
In July of 2005, I got funding for an eight-month internship at the University of Cologne, Germany, which helped me get the resources to complete my PhD. August 2020 and February 2021 were the days when the trip was scheduled.
By then, I had booked flights, rented an apartment and spent nights reading catastrophic headlines detailing Bolsonaro’s relentless attacks on science — dismissing the virus as “just a little flu”, promoting hydroxychloroquine as a treatment despite overwhelming evidence of its ineffectiveness and systematically slashing science budgets and environmental protections across the Amazon rainforest.
Germany closed its borders to Brazilian travellers the day before I left due to high case numbers and new versions of COVID-19. I was unable to recoup the costs. Because the funding agency covered only part of the trip, the financial loss came out of my own pocket — another harsh reminder of how unstable my research situation had become.
Meanwhile, online trolls, and even some family members, mocked my research as frivolous, championed funding cuts and embraced debunked so-called COVID-19 cures such as hydroxychloroquine. I learned to thrive in uncertainty, with skills that no grant could fund.
Completing my PhD required more than scientific rigour — it demanded that I confront my own limits. Each day I have to fight my resolve amidst the political turmoil of those years. My spouse guided me to mental health care. My advisers, Rodrigo Nunes da Fonseca and Helena Araújo, despite facing their own institutional chaos, found time to strategize about grants and training opportunities.
The 2022 Brazilian election: a political revolt against a rigged coup in the wake of Donald Trump’s re-election
Bolsonaro was voted out of office in October of 2022. A mob of his supporters attacked government buildings in Braslia after he claimed that the election was rigged. The attacks mirrored a similar assault one year earlier on the US Capitol in Washington DC, following Donald Trump’s defeat at the end of his first term as president. In Brazil, courts and Congress stopped the attempted coup. In June 2023, a judge banned Bolsonaro from running for office for eight years. This March, the Brazil Supreme Federal Court unanimously accepted the complaints against Bolsonaro; he could face a criminal trial by the end of the year.