How a physicist faked blockbuster superconductivity claims

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Ranga Dias, the physicist at the centre of the room-temperature superconductivity scandal, committed data fabrication, falsification and plagiarism, according to an investigation commissioned by his university. Nature’s news team discovered the bombshell 124-page report in court documents. The report methodically documents how Dias deliberately misled his co-authors, journal editors and the scientific community.

Nature | 12 min read

Read more: Superconductivity scandal: the inside story of deception in a rising star’s physics lab (Nature | 18 min read, Nature paywall)

Reference: Nature paper 1 & Nature paper 2 (both retracted)

H5N1, a virus that has killed hundreds of millions of wild and domestic birds, is spreading in US dairy cows for the first time. Researchers are closely monitoring the situation to see how the virus is infecting the animals. The overall threat to people remains low, but the outbreak in cattle could allow the virus to spread to humans. “There’s always a worry that viruses will surprise us,” says evolutionary virologist Daniel Goldhill. One dairy worker has been infected and is recovering. The viral strain isolated from the infected person is closely related to strains targeted by a candidate vaccine.

Nature | 7 min read

Image of the day

A huge photographic archive, saved from mould and neglect, reveals the founding of the world’s first police crime laboratory in France in 1910. The archive of more than 20,000 glass photographic plates includes the personal correspondence of Edmond Locard, a pioneer of forensic science and founder of the lab. Locard is famous for his maxim, “Every contact leaves a trace,” and trace selection remains the foremost challenge of modern forensic science. “There is a movement to look back to the past for guidance as to how to renew the science of policing,” says historian Amos Frappa. (Nature | 6 min read)

Features & opinion

‘Survival of the fittest’ doesn’t require all species to be hardwired for competition, argues evolutionary biologist Jonathan Silvertown in Selfish Genes to Social Beings. His examples, from lichen to pirates, show that cooperation is ubiquitous — although it ultimately evolved for the ‘selfish’ reason that mutual benefits are better than working alone. “If this seems heartless, it’s a reflection of the human tendency to apply human moral frameworks to biological phenomena,” writes reviewer and public health researcher Jonathan Goodman.

Nature | 6 min read

Despite kidney disease being very common, and kidney failure being deadly and expensive to treat, awareness of the disease is low. Leaders from the major professional organizations working in kidney health want the World Health Organization to include kidney disease in its list of priority non-communicable diseases that cause premature deaths. Adding it alongside other big killers such as heart disease and cancer will, the authors argue, bring attention to the growing threat, which is particularly dire for people in low- and lower-middle-income countries, who already bear two‑thirds of the world’s kidney-disease burden.

Nature Reviews Nephrology | 49 min read

The first year of data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) suggests that dark energy — the force that’s pushing cosmic expansion to accelerate — might be weakening over time. “It’s exciting,” says cosmologist Sesh Nadathur, who worked on the DESI analysis. “If dark energy is not a cosmological constant, that’s going to be a huge discovery.” But this intriguing result could disappear as DESI continues to measure the expansion of the Universe with unprecedented precision.

Quanta | 12 min read

Reference: DESI Year 1 Results papers

Infographic of the week

Although only 2% of respondents to Nature’s postdoc survey were based in Africa, their replies offer a tantalizing glimpse of an emerging part of the research workforce. Postdocs in Africa reported among the lowest pay and were three times more likely than respondents elsewhere to have a second job. At the same time, Africa-based postdocs were the most optimistic about their futures: 64% said that they felt positive about their future job prospects, compared with 41% globally. (Nature | 13 min read)

In our penguin-puzzle last week, Leif Penguinson was exploring a rock formation on the Barker Dam Trail in Joshua Tree National Park, California. Did you find the penguin? When you’re ready, here is the answer.

As I write this, the first inklings of the solar eclipse have begun in North America. I’ll have to make do with the NASA live stream, but I’m looking forward to seeing your best photos of the eclipse or related views from the day.

Thanks for reading,

Flora Graham, senior editor, Nature Briefing

With contributions by Katrina Krämer, Smriti Mallapaty and Sarah Tomlin

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