Ten-Year Study of Academic Promotion Criteria: The Case for CAR-T Cell Therapies in the Low-Middle-Income Countries
No one with the history of mathematics was better known for less. But Venn’s creation — the interlocking circles known as Venn diagrams — are useful when simple and provocative when complex, argues maths writer and puzzle-maker Jack Murtagh. When the diagram’s number of circles increases, more and more questions are asked about geometry and symmetry.
Researchers used hundreds of policy documents covering 121 countries and 27 languages to find trends in academic-promotion criteria at nearly 250 universities. Unsurprisingly, some 97% of the documents included research output as a criterion for promotion. The gold standard for metrics in upper-middle-income countries remains quantitative, while high-income countries increasingly rely on detailed assessments of researcher quality. Study co-author Yensi Flores Bueso hopes this work “provides a foundation to rethink policies that foster equity, inclusivity and research integrity as fundamental pillars of our research culture”.
CAR-T-cell therapies, made by re-engineering a person’s own immune cells, are some of the technologies to keep an eye on this year.
The Nature of Microplastics: Observing Cancer Cells in the Bloodstream through Tunnelling Nanotubules Induced by Microplastic Particles
When a T cell (right) tries to attack a cancer cell (left), the cancer cell fights back by sending defective mitochondria in an extracellular ‘parcel’ called a vesicle, which the T cell takes in. The T cells are unable to break down the defects because they are coated in aprotein calledUSP 30. At the same time, the cancer cell steals healthy mitochondria from the T cell through a passage it can make between them called a tunnelling nanotube. Without healthy mitochondria, T cells can’t properly make energy and they become ineffective at killing cancer cells. (Nature News & Views | 7 min read, Nature paywall)
Global quantum intelligence says the current volatility in the quantum-computing share market isn’t justified by the breakthrough in the field. Share prices in several quantum-computing companies crashed this month in response to unenthusiastic comments from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Google announcements in 2024 had pushed them to record highs. There were many announcements, and the stock market has overreacted, according to Doug Finke, a computer scientist. The difficulty with properly valuing quantum stocks is that there are no mature products to sell, and no one company is really moving ahead in the race to make a useful quantum computer.
Scientists have tracked microplastics moving through the bodies of mice, for the first time. The tiny plastic particles are gobbled up by immune cells, travel through the bloodstream and eventually become lodged in blood vessels in the brain. Researchers say it is unclear if such obstructions exist in people, but they did seem to affect the mices movement.
The researchers observed the glowing cells after injecting the plastic spheres into the mice. Smaller particles reduced the number of obstructions.
A researcher at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque said that it is possible to see microplastics in the bloodstream. “It’s very interesting, and very helpful.”
Microplastics are specks of plastic, less than 5 millimetres long, that can be found everywhere, from the deep ocean to Antarctic ice. They are in the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat. They can even enter our bloodstreams directly through plastic medical devices.
