Daily Briefing: Tiny doses of LSD seem to boost cognition

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Fossil hints at ancient lizard escape tactic

A 99-million-year-old fossilized lizard tail seems to be the oldest-known evidence of the creatures’ ability to intentionally detach their appendages. Many modern-day lizards escape from predators by shedding and leaving behind their tails as a distraction, an ability called caudal autotomy. A 3D reconstruction of the fossilized tail revealed rosette-like wedges of muscle around a clean-cut bone — characteristics similar to those of modern shed tails. Researchers had long suspected that this behaviour was ancient in origin, but had found little evidence of it in known fossils.

Science | 5 min read

Reference: Palaeontologica Electronica paper

US government probes postdoc visas

The US government has launched an investigation into nine universities’ employment of international researchers. The probe’s purpose is to reduce “visa fraud”, according to vice-president JD Vance, who said that these universities are using too many J-1 visas — the main type used by international postdoctoral researchers in the United States. Critics say that the rationale for the investigation is flawed, that international postdocs play a crucial part in US laboratories and that the announcement is deepening the sense of unease felt by international scientists.

Nature | 6 min read

China picks first group for 15-year grants

The National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) has selected 44 young researchers as its first group to receive funding for up to 15 years, through one of the longest research grants available to scientists globally. Each will receive initial funding for five years, then be considered for a further five years after that time has elapsed, and so on. The grants come with no short-term targets, says Dou Xiankang, president of the NSFC. “We will assess only one thing: whether you are there in the laboratory.”

Nature | 5 min read

Climate attribution scholars ‘under attack’

Climate scientists in the United States are facing a surge in public-records requests about their work linking emissions from fossil fuels to environmental harms. “Climate attribution is under attack,” says climate scientist Christopher Callahan. Requests of this kind are legal. But some researchers say the field has become a target because it plays a growing role in lawsuits against major industrial emitters. They say that the volume of requests seems intended to dissuade work on climate attribution, wastes time and public money, and could suppress healthy scientific debate.

Nature | 9 min read

Rover will do land-and-grab on Phobos

The Japanese space agency, JAXA, yesterday launched a pioneering mission to grab and return a sample from one of Mars’s moons, Phobos. The Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) probe will drop a rover developed by the French space agency CNES and dubbed Idefix, after the little dog from the Asterix comics (Anglophones might know him as Dogmatix). Idefix weighs 25 kilograms on Earth, but will weigh only 12 grams — about the weight of one Earth pencil — when it lands on Phobos in August 2027.

Aerospace America | 6 min read

Infographic of the week

Tiny doses of the psychedelic drug LSD seem to boost some elements of cognition — but only in women. In a small trial, women who took 15 micrograms of the drug focused for longer periods and responded faster to a stimulus than did those who were given a placebo. This trial alone can’t confirm that LSD was behind these benefits, but the signal “warrants further investigation”, says psychopharmacologist Mikkel Højlund. (Nature | 4 min read)

Reference: European College of Neuropsychopharmacology Congress Abstract (Source: Iva Totomanova et al.)

Features & opinion

The sleep-disorder drug set to make waves

In August, a type of drug called an orexin agonist was approved by US regulators to treat narcolepsy — the first of what researchers hope will be many uses for this class of drug. Several pharma companies are already exploring the effectiveness of orexin agonists to treat conditions beyond sleep disorders, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). “Diabetes was the tip of the iceberg for GLP-1s, and I’m convinced the same story will play out for orexin,” says Andrew Plump, president of research and development at pharmaceutical company Takeda.

Nature | 8 min read

Chatbots: not conscious and never will be

Large language models (LLMs) can mimic thought and feeling with uncanny skill — but they are not conscious, and deeming them so could hinder attempts to regulate them, argue neuroscientists Anil Seth and Giulio Tononi and philosopher Ned Block. LLMs beguile us by aping human language, the authors argue, noting that other impressive systems — such as AlphaFold, the protein-structure-prediction tool — aren’t considered to possess consciousness. And the mind isn’t merely a carbon-based computer — the living tissue of the human brain is essential, according to the leading theories of consciousness. Silicon-based computers are very unlikely to be sufficient for consciousness, and don’t satisfy certain crucial properties that conscious brains do, the authors write.

Nature | 13 min read

mCDR: can it work? Can it pay?

Researchers and start-up companies have plenty of ideas for ways to enhance the ocean’s natural ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, from adding alkaline slurry to growing kelp forests. One of the biggest challenges of marine carbon-dioxide removal (mCDR) is measuring how much CO₂ is being sequestered — crucial for nabbing the carbon credits that could pay for these projects on large scales.

Scientific American | 16 min read

Brace yourself for some beautiful bats. The US Bureau of Land Management’s celebration of the flying mammals begins on 24 October, when the agency will ask you to vote for the handsomest bat on its social channels. Be warned: bat puns incoming.

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