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Nature Briefing

Hello Nature readers,
Today we explore what we know about COVID’s toll on smell and taste. We look at the trial results of the CoronaVac vaccine, developed by Sinovac in China. And we ponder what ever happened to the dire wolf.
Underwater photos of Volta’s electric eel (Electrophorus voltai) in Xingu River.
Not always a lone hunter, the Volta’s electric eel can join forces with dozens of its kind to haul in a big catch. (L. Sousa)

Electric eels hunt in packs

Electric eels (Electrophorus voltai) in Amazon rivers don’t just pack the strongest shock ever measured in a living animal. They also gang up to herd shoals of fish and deliver a coordinated death zap. “I was shocked,” says biologist Douglas Bastos. “This behavior is unprecedented for electrical eels and also rare among freshwater fishes.”

Science | 5 min read
Reference: Ecology and Evolution paper

News round-up

Top stories from earlier in the week:

  • Last year had the joint highest global temperatures on record. Only 2016 was as hot, but that year saw a natural warmth-boosting El Niño weather event. Temperature data released by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service showed that the past six years have been the hottest six on record. (The Guardian | 4 min read)
  • Researchers have produced the most comprehensive genomes yet of the platypus ( Ornithorhynchus anatinus) and echidna ( Tachyglossus aculeatus). The only two extant monotremes (egg-laying mammals) are sometimes seen as the odd ones out of the mammal world. But because they diverged from other mammals so early — about 187 million years ago — some of their most bizarre traits might reflect those of our shared ancestors. (The New York Times | 4 min read)
  • Researchers have observed a new mode of locomotion in the brown tree snake ( Boiga irregularis) in Guam: tying its body into a lasso. Video footage shows how the invasive snake uses the technique to shimmy up smooth poles installed to protect bird nests. (Science | 4 minute read)
  • Macaques at the ancient Uluwatu temple in Bali judge which items are best to steal to earn the highest reward. Studying the monkeys’ interactions over 273 days, researchers found that macaques demanded more or higher quality food to return items such as wallets, prescription glasses and mobile phones than they did for lower value items, such as hairpins and camera bags. (Guardian | 2 min read)

COVID-19 coronavirus update

COVID’s toll on smell and taste

Many people infected with SARS-CoV-2 lose their sense of smell or taste — even without displaying other symptoms. Some haven’t yet recovered these senses. And for a proportion of people who do, everything smells unpleasant. Although the mechanisms are not fully understood, there is an emerging consensus that smell loss occurs when the coronavirus infects cells that support neurons in the nose. A lack of research means few established treatments exist. But one option is smell training, in which people sniff prescribed odours regularly to relearn them.

Nature | 7 min read

CoronaVac vaccine reports mixed results

Researchers in Brazil have reported that CoronaVac, developed by Sinovac in China, was 50.4% effective at preventing severe and mild COVID-19 in late-stage trials. That’s much lower than those from early trials of the same vaccine in Turkey and Indonesia, and below the efficacy first reported by the Brazil trial team last week. It’s also well below the 90% efficacies of several leading vaccines. But if the latest results check out — they have not been peer reviewed — the two-dose vaccine could be immediately beneficial in countries with raging outbreaks. CoronaVac is stable at refrigerated temperatures and easy to distribute.

Nature | 6 min read

Do dose delays promote dangerous mutations?

Researchers are divided over strategies to extend the time between jabs of two-dose COVID vaccines. Some virologists worry that the approach will create large groups of people with partial immunity. These people might have enough antibodies to slow the virus and avoid developing symptoms — but not enough to wipe it out. This might give SARS-CoV-2 more time to mutate in ways that could compromise vaccine efficacy. Other experts say the risk — which is still just theoretical — doesn’t outweigh the benefits of protecting more people during out-of-control outbreaks. “It’s carnage out there,” says evolutionary microbiologist Andrew Read. “Twice as many people with partial immunity has got to be better than full immunity in half of them.”

Science | 4 min read

Notable quotable

“In virology, as in many other fields, knowing your enemy is critically important.”

Conspiracy theories about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 have led to political interference in essential scientific investigations into the biology of the virus, argues global-health and security researcher Angela Rasmussen. (Nature Medicine | 5 min read)

COVID-19 coronavirus round-up

Top stories from earlier in the week:

  • Interim data suggest that most people who catch and recover from COVID-19 appear to be immune for at least five months afterwards. The handful of people who do become reinfected can carry high levels of the virus in their nose and throat — which could help the virus to spread. (Nature | 4 min read)
  • Scientists don’t yet know whether vaccinated people can spread COVID-19. Although vaccines have been proven to protect recipients from getting ill, research has yet to determine whether they prevent the virus from replicating altogether. Or whether they trigger IgA antibodies, found in outward-facing mucosal surfaces such as those in the nose and throat, which are important in preventing transmission. (Quartz | 3 min read)
  • As we celebrate emergency approvals of the first COVID-19 vaccines, finding participants for trials of earlier-stage vaccine candidates has become challenging. “Once you have a vaccine that is available,” notes vaccinologist Scott Halperin, “a placebo-controlled trial is no longer ethical or acceptable.” Next-generation vaccine makers are therefore considering ways of proving their products’ effectiveness without placebos. (Nature | 7 min read)

Features & opinion
Tentacles fold around the head of a human figure
(Illustration by Jacey)

Futures: The dream cartel

Author Preston Grassmann delves further into the fictional dream market of Canvas Town in the latest short story for Nature’s Futures series. Grassmann was inspired by a festival in Thailand in which crowds gather to release paper lanterns into the sky as a symbol of purging painful memories. “I wanted to take another look at what that might mean if that ‘release’ was more than symbolic,” says Grassmann.

Nature | 4 min read

Podcast: What happened to the dire wolf?

Dire wolves (Canis dirus) were once the most common predator in North America. Then, 13,000 years ago, they disappeared. Ancient genomics and proteomics reveal that dire wolves were very different from similar-looking, smaller grey wolves (Canis lupus), which survive to this day. That genetic difference might have been the stumbling block for dire wolves’ survival, because it couldn’t interbreed with other dog-like animals. The dire wolf broke “rule number one” for surviving as a canid species, says palaeogenomicist Laurent Frantz — hybridizing with others. “The environment was changing quite rapidly at the end of the pleistocene,” Frantz tells the Nature Podcast. “It wasn’t able to adapt fast enough potentially because it wasn’t able to borrow genes from these incoming species.”

Nature Podcast | 32 min listen
Subscribe to the Nature Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify.
Reference: Nature paper
Click to listen

Features & opinion round-up

Top stories from earlier in the week:

  • The Pfizer–BioNTech and Moderna COVID vaccines are the first RNA vaccines authorized for use in humans, despite efforts going back decades. Nature explores how manufacturing and distribution challenges held the technology back and what the future holds now that the power of RNA vaccines has been unleashed. (Nature | 11 min read)
  • An embryo develops from a sphere of cells thanks in part to the forces that squeeze, bend and tug the growing animal into shape. Researchers have begun to define the mechanisms by which cells sense, respond to and generate forces using innovative tools and techniques, both in vitro and in whole animals. (Nature | 10 min read)
  • Indigenous researchers — and Indigenous knowledge — remain at risk of being overlooked. Nature spoke to four Indigenous academic scientists about the challenges that these early-career researchers face, and how scientists can respectfully and effectively bring together traditional knowledge and Western science. (Nature | 12 min read)
  • A history of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in the United States to receive a medical degree, and her sister Emily, a fellow physician, reveals the complex personalities who dared to kick down the door of the all-male US medical establishment. (Nature | 6 min read)

Where I work
Clara Barker sitting in a lab, wearing shoes with blue, pink and white striped soles
Clara Barker is a materials scientist and manager of the Centre for Applied Superconductivity at the University of Oxford, UK. “As you can see from the sole of my shoe, which is decorated with the transgender pride flag, I’m a trans scientist,” says Barker. “I’d long believed that coming out as transgender would be career-ending. Instead, Oxford was the first place where I could be myself, where I’ve enjoyed being in the laboratory, because I was no longer pretending or hiding — I was accepted for being me.” (Nature | 2 min read) (Leonora Saunders for Nature)

Quote of the day

“I decided to search for ‘number of Black women with degrees in computational biology’ on the Internet and found nothing… The next person that searches for Black women in computational biology will be able to find us.”

Jenea Adams, the founder of the Black Women in Computational Biology Network, discusses the organization and her hopes for efforts to dismantle structural racism in academia. (Nature Computational Science | 9 min read)

Today the lovely Leif Penguinson is watching the snow fall on the River Wharfe in the grounds of Bolton Abbey, North Yorkshire. Can you find the penguin?

The answer will be in Monday’s e-mail, all thanks to Briefing photo editor and penguin wrangler Tom Houghton. As you’re getting the weekly edition, you’ll have to subscribe to see it — please update your preferences if you’d like to switch.

This newsletter is always evolving — tell us what you think! Please send your feedback to briefing@nature.com.

Flora Graham, senior editor, Nature Briefing
With contributions by Nicky Phillips

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