Los fabricantes del comedero para pájaros equipado con cámara, Bird Buddy, han presentado dos nuevos productos en Salón de electrónica de consumo 2025 Bajo una nueva marca llamada Wonder que te permite espiar la naturaleza y ayudar a los polinizadores a prosperar.
La Petal, una cámara alimentada por energía solar con lentes intercambiables y tecnología Nature Intelligence (también conocida como IA), se puede sujetar a un clip, a un brazo o pierna flexible, por lo que se puede instalar casi en cualquier lugar que desee al aire libre. Analizará todo lo que ve para hacerte saber en qué pájaros, insectos y otras criaturas te has detenido. El segundo producto, Wonder Blocks, es un sistema modular que se parece un poco a un edificio residencial para insectos y pájaros. Todo es muy bonito.
el se pregunta
La Petal Camera viene en colores suaves y brillantes como naranja, azul y amarillo, por lo que luce como en casa en una maceta o envuelta alrededor de una rama delgada de un árbol. Puede grabar imágenes en vivo y transmitirlas a su teléfono, enviando comentarios sobre “vistas y sonidos de la naturaleza, desde un pájaro que nace hasta una mariposa batiendo sus alas y una flor que se abre y es polinizada por abejas”, según la compañía. Si también tienes Wonder Blocks, puedes usar Petal para monitorear la pequeña comunidad que se forma allí.
Hay muchas opciones en cuanto a ingredientes que puedes agregar a Wonder Blocks; El sistema completo incluye una base en la parte inferior, un hotel para insectos, una base para plantas grande, una bandeja para semillas, un hotel para abejas y un comedero para mariposas en la parte superior. Tanto Petal como Wonder Blocks se lanzarán en Kickstarter esta primavera.
Wonder cree que debes conocer tu patio trasero como la palma de tu mano.
La nueva compañía de los creadores del popular comedero inteligente para pájaros Bird Buddy ha presentado una cámara natural impulsada por IA llamada Petal en CES presentado Evento para los medios el domingo por la noche. Francie Zidar, directora ejecutiva de Wonder y cofundadora de Bird Buddy, dijo que el dispositivo se inspiró en los comentarios de la comunidad y fue diseñado para poner a los usuarios en “nombre de pila” con su naturaleza local.
La Petal es una cámara colorida con forma de copa que se puede montar de dos maneras diferentes: puedes envolver su tallo flexible alrededor de algo (como una rama o un poste de cerca) o fijarla al costado de una maceta usando su clip universal. . Está diseñado para integrarse bien con su entorno natural en ambos casos, una idea que se refleja en el accesorio opcional del panel solar, que tiene forma de hoja. Como conjunto completo, parece una simple flor electrónica.
Velocidad de la luz triturable
Crédito: Haley Henschel/Mashable
The Petal toma fotografías y transmite en vivo sus alrededores (e identifica a sus residentes) y envía las imágenes al teléfono inteligente del usuario para que pueda obtener una visión más íntima de lo que sucede en su patio o jardín. Zidar le dijo a Mashable que la IA incorporada de Nature Intelligence interviene para identificar cualquier valor atípico (por ejemplo, una hoja seca, una cantidad anormal de pulgones o el chirrido de los polluelos de pájaro azul recién nacidos) mientras equilibra las alertas de atención procesables con “Personal”. ¡Qué cosa genial!
Zidar dijo que la próxima función de chat brindará a los usuarios de Petal la capacidad de “hablar” con la naturaleza. Por ejemplo, preguntarle a una flor si está solitaria o no le dará recomendaciones sobre otras plantas que prosperan en condiciones similares.
Crédito: Haley Henschel/Mashable
Para aquellos con patios traseros menos animados, Wonder también ha lanzado un sistema modular “Wonder Block” para el hábitat de la vida silvestre: piense en bandejas de semillas, hoteles para insectos y comederos para mariposas. Ya conoces el dicho: Si lo construyes, (los pájaros y las abejas) vendrán.
Zidar dijo que Petal se lanzará en Kickstarter en algún momento de esta primavera y se venderá por menos de $ 100, con envío previsto para principios de 2026. Aún no se ha fijado un lanzamiento de Wonder Blocks.
Flappy Bird ha establecido un estándar (o más bien un estándar arbitrario) para la simplicidad de los juegos móviles. Entre esto y el nivel de dificultad extrañamente alto, el juego creó una combinación diabólica de jugabilidad adictiva que nunca había visto antes ni después.
Cuando el desarrollador independiente Duong Nguyen lanzó este juego en 2014, se convirtió en un éxito casi instantáneo. Todos golpeaban desesperadamente las pantallas de sus teléfonos inteligentes y iPads en un vano intento de mantener un pequeño pájaro animatrónico en el aire sin chocar con una serie de tubos de color verde brillante. No había casi nada en el clásico juego de desplazamiento lateral, solo el pájaro aleteando y los tubos corriendo hacia él con pequeños espacios para que el pájaro vuele, suponiendo que puedas tocar lo suficiente para mantener a Flappy en el aire, pero no demasiado alto ni demasiado bajo.
La mayoría de las personas no logran penetrar los primeros tubos. Pero los expertos lograron piratear decenas de ellos. Todavía recuerdo la intensa concentración de mi hijo menor mientras guiaba a Flappy a través de docenas de tubos. Creo que la mayor cantidad de tubos que pude atravesar fueron 13 tubos.
A pesar del altísimo índice de frustración del juego, la gente lo jugaba con la misma dedicación que ahora. palabra o ComunicacionesPero al menos estos juegos se pueden resolver. Flappy Bird no era realmente así.
locura flappy
Como recordarás, la fascinación por el juego se hizo evidente y, finalmente, un interés intenso y sostenido. Obligó a Nguyen a esconderseEliminó el juego de la App Store y casi nunca más se le vio ni se supo de él.
A lo largo de los años, ha habido numerosos intentos de devolver a Flappy Bird al primer plano. La aplicación era tan simple que cualquiera probablemente podría haber programado una nueva aplicación, pero cualquier aplicación que surgiera no capturó la imaginación de los usuarios tanto como la aplicación original.
Ahora bien, puede haber Nuevo pájaro Flappyno de Nguyen, sino de una multitud de fanáticos que creen que pueden reconstruir lo que fue y convertirlo en algo nuevo y quizás mejor.
Por supuesto, están tan equivocados como el personaje del juego del mismo nombre y tienen las mismas posibilidades de volar a alturas similares a Flappy Bird que Flappy Bird mientras navegan por esas tuberías, es decir, no muchas.
El nuevo juego Flappy Bird comenzará en el lado equivocado… o mejor dicho… al no recrear el juego Flappy Bird original, sino agregar niveles, máscaras y funciones multijugador. En otras palabras, harán de Flappy Bird para iOS y Android un juego móvil muy tradicional. Puede que incluso se parezca a Angry Birds, pero sin inteligencia ni ingenio.
Flappy Bird no tuvo éxito porque la gente anhelaba algo más o quizás mejor visualmente. Jugaban y jugaban porque Flappy Birds estimulaba una parte de su cerebro de mono decidida a resolver problemas. La misión Flappy Birds era un problema casi insoluble. Nguyen lo programó de tal manera que no hubiera ambigüedad en el control de vuelo. En cambio, requirió un tipo de toque de precisión que no se ha visto en ningún otro juego antes o después.
Algunos podrían afirmar que muchos jugaron por odio en un intento desesperado de sortear el sistema Flappy Bird. Pero muy pocas personas lo hicieron y, aun así, jugamos una y otra vez y nos quejamos con Nguyen en las redes sociales (y lo despedimos).
El nuevo juego de Flappy Bird sin duda será más fácil. Los jugadores ganarán y compararán sus tiempos totales de vuelo a través del laberinto. El nivel de habilidad se reducirá considerablemente, pero al menos obtendrás niveles entretenidos.
Basta de nostalgia
No sé por qué tenemos que revivir cada momento de nuestro pasado y luego quitarnos el marcapasos y reiniciar los corazones de la memoria. Si no podemos revivirlo, actuamos como el Dr. Frankenstein y lo reconstruimos.
Al igual que el monstruo de Frankenstein, estos recuerdos reconstruidos se parecen poco al original, pero contienen lo suficiente como para desencadenar otra respuesta simia: la nostalgia. Es por eso que estamos volviendo a mirar jugo de escarabajo Después de casi 35 años. Claro, esta nueva película podría ser buena, pero por… Jugo de escarabajo 2allá tierra perdida (Lo siento, Will Ferrell.)
El regreso de Flappy Birds no sólo será motivo de celebración, sino también un recordatorio de que no podemos dejar las cosas como están. No quiero un nuevo juego de Flappy Birds, quiero el juego original sin modificaciones, de vuelta en la App Store para poder fallar una y otra vez hasta desear nunca haber descubierto o redescubierto el juego en primer lugar.
Hace diez años, un sencillo juego móvil llamado El pájaro voluble Este juego ha causado sensación en todo el mundo. El juego se convirtió en un gran éxito a principios de 2014 tanto en iOS como en Android, y rápidamente le dio fama y fortuna a su creador, Dong Nguyen, radicado en Vietnam. El pájaro voluble En un momento, supuestamente generaba decenas de miles de dólares en ingresos publicitarios diariamente.
Pero en febrero de 2014, Nguyen había eliminado por completo el juego de todas las tiendas de aplicaciones móviles. Otros han intentado clonar el juego a lo largo de los años, pero nunca han podido replicar el éxito del original.
Ahora, más de diez años después, ha surgido un grupo llamado Fundación Flappy Bird. Relanzar El juego. El grupo, que se describe a sí mismo como un “nuevo equipo de fans apasionados”, tiene la marca Flappy Bird, aunque parece que no la obtuvieron de Nguyen. Creador del juego que muchos creen que lo inspiró. El pájaro voluble El proyecto también cuenta con apoyo.
Pero una cosa que la Fundación Flappy Bird no tiene es Nguyen.
Nuevo juego Flappy Bird
Fundación Flappy Bird Liberado El jueves se estrenará un avance que muestra lo que los fanáticos pueden esperar del nuevo juego.
Es posible que el tweet haya sido eliminado.
se llama El pájaro volubleEl personaje original de Yellow Bird ha vuelto. Los jugadores aún tocan la pantalla para batir sus alas y moverse hacia arriba y hacia abajo para evitar chocar contra las tuberías.
Sin embargo, hay muchas cosas nuevas. El pájaro voluble Ahora también según la nueva web del juego.
Hay personajes jugables adicionales, así como diferentes niveles. El tráiler muestra un mapa del mundo, lo que sugiere un modo historia. También hay otros modos de juego que implican dirigirte. El pájaro voluble A través de aros de baloncesto. Parece que también habrá un modo en línea llamado Flappy Bird Rivals donde los jugadores podrán enfrentarse a otros 99 rivales.
Velocidad de la luz medible
Nuevo El pájaro voluble El lanzamiento del juego está previsto para octubre en la web y otras plataformas, con aplicaciones dedicadas para iOS y Android en 2025.
devolver El pájaro voluble? un poco.
El pájaro voluble'Return' resulta extraño porque su creador, Dong Nguyen, no estuvo involucrado. De hecho, Nguyen parece no tener nada que ver con la película. El pájaro volubleNinguna parte ha anunciado nunca la fecha de lanzamiento de su nuevo álbum y se dice que ella no ha vendido los derechos del mismo.
Nguyen dijo que no está contento con la atención. El pájaro voluble Trajo, dijo antes que no quería. El pájaro voluble Existir en absoluto.
“Flappy Bird está diseñado para jugarse en unos minutos cuando estás relajado”, dijo Nguyen. Forbes En una entrevista de febrero de 2014, poco después de que el juego fuera eliminado de las tiendas de aplicaciones, dijo: “Pero se ha convertido en un producto adictivo. Creo que se ha convertido en un problema. Para resolver este problema, es mejor eliminar el juego de las tiendas de aplicaciones”. “. El pájaro voluble“Se ha ido para siempre”.
Entonces, ¿cómo está trabajando la Fundación Flappy Bird para revivir el juego?
En su publicación en la que anunció: “¡¡Estoy de vuelta !!” El pájaro voluble una cuenta en El pájaro voluble® ¡Juego!
Pero la Fundación Flappy Bird obtuvo los derechos de Gametech Holdings LLC, no de Nguyen. De acuerdo a Documentos judicialesAdquisición de Gametech Holdings LLC El pájaro voluble sus derechos solicitando los derechos de la marca abandonada de Nguyen. inverso Gametech Holdings LLC señala que utilizó las declaraciones públicas de Nguyen sobre el abandono de Flappy Bird para adquirir con éxito la marca en septiembre de 2023.
Si bien el hecho de que Nguyen no esté involucrado en cada paso aquí puede dejar un mal sabor de boca en algunos fanáticos, la Fundación Flappy Bird tiene un miembro vinculado al original. El pájaro voluble.
El creador aparentemente anónimo de Piou Piou vs. cactus es se dice Parte de la Fundación Flappy Bird. Cuando Nguyen logró el éxito con El pájaro volubleHa sido criticado por supuestamente “tomar prestados” elementos de Piou Piou vs. Cactus, como el infame diseño de color amarillo. El pájaro voluble Personalidad. Algunos de ellos incluso adivino Ese Nguyen realmente cerrado El pájaro voluble Para evitar problemas legales con el creador de Piou Piou vs. Cactus.
Entonces, Flappy Bird está de regreso, aunque con una nueva y misteriosa historia de fondo. ¿Flappy Bird regresará? Esto es posible. Sin embargo, ya está allí. Críticos El nuevo juego se basa en lo que parece ser una nueva incorporación al juego Flappy Bird: el pequeño y espeluznante regalo.
La película de Gerwig de 2017, “Lady Bird”, una comedia dramática semiautobiográfica al estilo de “400 Blows” dirigida a la generación A24, es esencialmente un escaparate de Saoirse Ronan en el papel de la encarnación en pantalla de Gerwig, Christine “Lady Bird”. ” Macpherson. Sin embargo, Chalamet apenas se distancia de sus escenas como Kyle Scheibel, el joven arrogante de la escuela secundaria católica de Christine, que es una obviedad para la adolescente volátil e imprudente de Ronan (que sueña con dejar su vida tranquila en la clase trabajadora de Sacramento en el principios de la década de 2000 para la universidad). Prestigioso en la costa este) solo para enamorarse de él.
Con toda seriedad, la interpretación de Chalamet de “¡Esto es tan poderoso!” Se merece un premio por sí solo.
La propia Lady Bird Se eleva alto en Rotten Tomatoes Con una calificación crítica impecable del 99 por ciento de 400 reseñas frente a una puntuación promedio estelar de 9,1 sobre 10, lo que la convierte en la película mejor calificada del actor según las métricas del sitio. ¿Eso también lo hace? mejor ¿Uno? Es un caso extraño el de la película mejor valorada de un actor famoso en la web, que además es una película en la que él desempeña un papel secundario (y A diferencia de “Better” de Jude Law en RTChalamet aún no tiene un personaje en pantalla para interpretar en “Lady Bird”.) Por mucho que disfruto personalmente la película, Mujercitas de Gerwig es actualmente mi favorita de las películas que ha dirigido hasta ahora, y le da a Chalamet mucho que hacer. (Ronan tiene un descanso para él El corazón esta vez para Lori Joe es solo la guinda del pastel).
Eso es lo que pasa con Rotten Tomatoes: es útil si quieres conocer el mayor consenso crítico para una película o programa de televisión en particular (Por otro lado, las puntuaciones de audiencia son bastante inútiles.). Pero nunca lo harás realmente Conoce tu postura sobre este tema para que puedas profundizar en sus profundidades y comprobarlo por ti mismo.
“Spinneys Pizza era el restaurante que visitaron las chicas después del partido de campeonato. Aunque cortamos un poco la escena, pudimos reutilizar la pizza y el logotipo más adelante en la película”.
Esto significa que habríamos visto a Spinney's Pizza aparecer muy temprano en la película después de que Riley y sus amigos obtuvieran esa gran victoria que los llevó a ser reclutados en el campamento de hockey. Afortunadamente, dijo Mann, pudieron recrear Spinney's Pizza para una aparición más adelante en la película. En la escena en la que Riley está con los Firehawks durante el campamento de hockey, están comiendo pizza en un área común y, si miras con atención, notarás en las cajas que los pasteles provienen de Spinney's Pizza. A continuación, puedes ver que la forma de Spinney inspiró el logo de la pizza en varios diseños de arte conceptual.
Animación de Pixar/Libros de crónicas
Este es sólo uno de los muchos huevos de Pascua que encontrarás en “Inside Out 2”. Esté atento a la escena en la que todas las emociones duermen en el cuartel general y verá una pequeña estatua improvisada de Amado amigo imaginario Ping Pong Sentado en el estante de la alegría. además de, El aspecto tradicional del huevo de Pascua A113 Pixar Ella sale del búnker donde Riley guarda sus secretos. El dormitorio de Riley también contiene un póster de 4-Town, el chico malo de la película “Turning Red”. Probablemente haya muchos más esperando a ser descubiertos.
Si quieres saber más sobre Caroll Spainy, hay un perfil completo Un documental sobre él titulado “I Am the Big Bird” Ahora transmitiendo en Peacock, Kanopy, Hoopla y más. Pero si quieres saber más sobre “Inside Out 2”, asegúrate de escuchar nuestro episodio del podcast /Film Daily, donde profundizamos en la secuela de Pixar:
Puedes suscribirte a /Film Daily en Pódcast de Apple, nublado, Spotify, o dondequiera que obtenga sus podcasts, y envíenos sus comentarios, preguntas, inquietudes y temas a [email protected]. Deje su nombre y ubicación geográfica general en caso de que mencionemos su correo electrónico al aire.
New data show that the virus can hop back and forth between cows and birds, a trait that could allow it to spread across wide geographical regions. Although the virus kills many types of mammal, most infected cows don’t develop severe symptoms or die1, meaning that no one knows whether an animal is infected without testing it. Moreover, a single cow can host several types of flu virus, which could, over time, swap genetic material to generate a strain that can more readily infect humans.
“Eventually the wrong combination of gene segments and mutations inevitably comes along,” says Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “Whatever opportunity we may have had to nip it in the bud we lost by a really slow detection.”
US officials first announced on 25 March that H5N1 had been found in cattle, and cows from 36 herds in 9 states have tested positive as of 7 May. Tests of pasteurized milk have found no living virus. But the virus’s increasing ubiquity has made scientists uneasy.
“Every time it gets a new mammalian host species like cows, there’s more risk of human transmission and reduced human immunity,” says Jessica Leibler, an environmental epidemiologist at Boston University in Massachusetts.
Bovine breakthrough
Genomic data are starting to shed light on the origins of the cattle outbreak. In a 1 May preprint2 posted on bioRxiv, scientists at the US Department of Agriculture analysed more than 200 viral genomes taken from cows and found that the virus jumped from wild birds to cattle in late 2023. That result corroborates findings by Worobey and others in an analysis posted on the discussion forum virological.org on 3 May. (Neither article has yet been peer reviewed.)
Want to prevent pandemics? Stop spillovers
Because cows infected with H5N1 generally don’t die of the flu, they are “effective mixing vessels” in which viruses can swap genetic material with other viruses, says Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. Even worse, the current strain seems to infect several species equally well. “If you have a virus that’s hopscotching back and forth between cows, humans and birds, that virus is going to have selective pressures to grow efficiently in all those species,” she says.
The larger the number of infected animals, Rasmussen says, the more chances the virus has to acquire helpful mutations, such as the ability to grow in the upper respiratory tract, which could make it more transmissible between people.
Dangerous reservoir
From a human perspective, Worobey says, cows might be one of the worst possible animal reservoirs for influenza because of their sheer number and the degree to which humans interact with them. Culling poultry has curbed previous bird flu outbreaks, but Rasmussen says that isn’t a viable option for cattle. The animals are too valuable and, unlike birds, don’t seem to die from the infection.
H5N1 could even become endemic in cows, says Gregory Gray, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Other strains related to H5N1 are already endemic in chickens and pigs in some parts of the world.
Flu on the farm
Researchers aren’t sure how the virus is spreading between herds. Wild birds, which congregate around cattle feed and defecate in the cows’ water supply, are one probable source. “Cattle are just one big birdfeeder,” Gray says, adding that birds can spread infections much further than cows can and are much less controllable.
Some evidence has suggested that farm equipment, such as milking machines, could be to blame, but several scientists worry that it could be airborne. “I’m really thinking that’s occurring and we’ve not been able to study it,” Gray says, mainly because farmers have been reluctant to allow inspectors to test their cattle. Some related variants that infect horses have been found to spread through the air for kilometres, which could explain how the current strain has moved between dairy farms.
Until more is known about the virus’s transmission route, Worobey says, it’s hard to determine the best way to contain it. Since late April, the US Department of Agriculture has required that cows are tested before being transported across state lines. That won’t necessarily stop the virus’s spread, but it could at least help researchers to understand where it’s going.
Herd immunity
If the virus is airborne, Gray says, vaccinating cows might be an option. H5N1 vaccines have not yet been used in US cattle. But influenza vaccines have proved effective in pigs and poultry, and researchers are beginning to test them against the H5N1 strain infecting dairy herds.
Data on how well the virus spreads between people are scarce. A study3 published on 3 May in the New England Journal of Medicine confirmed that one dairy worker in Texas had been infected and that the worker experienced mild symptoms. But the people who worked and live with the infected person have not been tested.
Still, US officials have not reported a large number of deaths or severe cases in humans, suggesting that the virus hasn’t become highly transmissible or deadly, Worobey says.
Below the radar
But Gray says that there have been anecdotal reports of many more human cases. Leibler suspects that exposure of farm workers is widespread. “When you see symptomatic patients, that’s the tip of the iceberg,” she says. In the worst-case scenario, she says, the virus would spread undetected in several species for a long time, accumulating mutations that prime it for causing a pandemic in the future. “We have an awareness now from the COVID pandemic of how devastating that could be,” she says.
Leibler hopes that public-health efforts will begin testing workers and their families so that any transmission in humans will quickly be detected. “H5N1 is with us,” she says. “It’s not a virus that’s going to disappear by any means.”
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Jaime Guevara-Aguirre (back left) and Valter Longo (back right) pose with several of the Laron study participants.Credit: Courtesy Jaime Guevara-Aguirre & Valter Longo
People with Laron syndrome — a growth-hormone-receptor condition — seem to be at lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease than relatives who do not have the syndrome. Laron syndrome had already been linked to health benefits including protection against diabetes, cancer and cognitive decline. “They seem to be protected from all the major age-related diseases,” says biogerontologist Valter Longo, a co-author on the cardiovascular study. It’s unclear if people with Laron syndrome live longer on average than those without it, but mice with a similar condition live for about 40% longer than do control animals.
The H5N1 strain of avian influenza has been spreading undetected in US cattle for months, according to a preliminary analysis of genomic data released by the US Department of Agriculture. The outbreak is likely to have begun when the virus jumped from an infected bird into a cow, probably around late December or early January. But the publicly released data do not include critical information that would shed light on the outbreak’s origins and evolution. “In an outbreak response, the faster you get data, the sooner you can act,” says genomic epidemiologist Martha Nelson. “Whether we’re not too late, to me, that’s kind of the million dollar question.”
On the outskirts of Beijing, researchers from all over the world have come together at the Synergetic Extreme Condition User Facility to push matter to its limits with extreme magnetic fields, pressures and temperatures, and examine it in new ways with extremely precise resolution in time. One particularly tantalizing goal for many researchers using this US$220-million toolbox is to discover new superconductors, materials that conduct electricity without resistance. Naturereporter Gemma Conroy steps inside to take a look.
Climate change is completely reshaping the ecosystem in one of the best-studied Arctic fjords, on the northwest side of the Norwegian archipelago Svalbard. Since the inlet stopped freezing over during the winter, Arctic mammals such as beluga whales have left and more southerly animals including Atlantic puffins have moved in. New habitats have popped up along the shoreline where sea ice once suffocated plant growth. “It’s incredible that I — in my time — have been able to see such dramatic changes,” says ecotoxicologist Geir Wing Gabrielsen.
“Lots of our members call us ‘the magic money tree’,” says Alison Baxter, head of communications for the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS), a UK agency that compensates authors when their works are copied or shared after publication. Such societies also collect royalties on behalf of scientists, for example when their paper is printed out and distributed to students. Anyone with publications to their name (and to which they own the copyright) can join a collecting society — though many people don’t, because of the misconception that it might be a scam. For those who do join, the rewards can be welcome: for example, each ALCS member received an average of around £450 this year.
The debate between physicists Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein over what quantum mechanics ‘really means’ has evolved into a long-standing myth, writes science writer Jim Baggott. Einstein rejected the possibility of some of the quantum weirdness implied by the theory, such as ‘spooky action at a distance’. Bohr’s ‘Copenhagen interpretation’ has been interpreted by some as ‘shut up and calculate’. But the idea that Bohr and his followers heavy-handedly imposed his view as a dogmatic orthodoxy doesn’t hold water, argues Baggott. In reality, “by the 1950s, the physics community had become broadly indifferent…. Quantum mechanics worked. Why worry about what it meant?” Nevertheless, the myth had a role in motivating the singular personalities that challenged it, laying the foundations for quantum computing.
Working as a scientist at an environmental non-profit organization can be similar to academic research, but requires a change of mindset: studies must always address real-world challenges. Jobs are usually advertised on job boards or LinkedIn, and it’s important for applicants to emphasize soft skills alongside scientific achievement. “It’s the same educational background and the same research, but just the way that I describe things had to shift completely,” says ecologist Kenneth Davidson. For early-career scientists who make the leap, non-profits can provide more job security and flexibility than academia.
Matthew Nitschke is a senior research scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, and a research fellow at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.Credit: Giacomo d’Orlando for Nature
For ten years, Matthew Nitschke and his colleagues at the Australian Institute of Marine Science have been growing coral symbionts in the laboratory while gradually raising the heat. “Each time the symbionts adapt, we push the temperature up a bit,” says Nitschke. “They can now survive a constant 31 °C.” The goal is to develop corals able to survive waters warmed by climate change. “Studying marine conservation is hard,” says Nitschke. “Marine ecosystems are degrading. Coral reefs are bleaching: by 2060, without significant emissions reductions, mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef could be an annual event.” The next step is small-scale field trials out on the reef. (Nature | 3 min read)
Computational biologist Jitao David Zhang says his misconceptions about vocational training were demolished when he experienced first-hand the apprenticeship culture in Germany and Switzerland. (Nature | 7 min read)
With contributions by Katrina Krämer and Smriti Mallapaty
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A cow is milked in Washington State.Credit: USDA Photo/Alamy
A strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza has been silently spreading in US cattle for months, according to preliminary analysis of genomic data. The outbreak is likely to have begun when the virus jumped from an infected bird into a cow, probably around late December or early January. This implies a protracted, undetected spread of the virus — suggesting that more cattle across the United States, and even in neighbouring regions, could have been infected with avian influenza than currently reported.
These conclusions are based on swift and summary analyses by researchers, following a dump of genomic data by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) into a public repository earlier this week. But to scientists’ dismay, the publicly released data do not include critical information that would shed light on the outbreak’s origins and evolution. Researchers also express concern that the genomic data wasn’t released until almost four weeks after the outbreak was announced.
Speed is especially important for fast-spreading respiratory pathogens that have the potential to spark pandemics, says Tulio de Oliveira, a bioinformatician at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. The cattle outbreak is not expected to allow the virus to gain the ability to spread between people, but researchers say it is important to be vigilant.
“In an outbreak response, the faster you get data, the sooner you can act,” says Martha Nelson, a genomic epidemiologist at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) in Bethesda, Maryland. Nelson adds that with every week that goes by, the window for controlling the outbreak narrows. “Whether we’re not too late, to me, that’s kind of the million dollar question.”
Single spillover
Federal officials announced on 25 March that a highly pathogenic bird-flu strain had been detected in dairy cows. The USDA has since confirmed infections with the strain, named H5N1, in 34 dairy herds in nine states. In late March and early April, the USDA posted a handful of viral sequences from cows sampled in Texas and a sequence from a human case, on the widely used repository GISAID.
On 21 April, the USDA posted more sequencing data on the Sequence Read Archive (SRA), a repository maintained by the NCBI. The latest upload included some 10 gigabytes of sequencing information from 239 animals, includings cows, chickens and cats, says Karthik Gangavarapu, a computational biologist at Scripps Research in La Jolla, who processed the raw data.
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Analysis of the genomes suggests that the cattle outbreak probably began with a single introduction from wild birds in December or early January. “It’s good news that there’s only been one jump that we can discern so far. But bad news, in many ways that it has been spreading for probably several months already,” says Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who has analysed the genomes.
“This virus is clearly transmitting among cows in some way,” says Louise Moncla, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, who has studied the genomic data.
Nelson, who is analysing the data, says she was most surprised by the extent of the genetic diversity in the virus infecting cattle, which indicates that the virus has had months to evolve. Among the mutations are changes to a viral-protein section that scientists have linked to possible adaptation to spread in mammals, she says.
The data also show occasional jumps back from infected cows to birds and cats. “This is a multi-host outbreak,” says Nelson.
A single jump, many months ago, is “the most reliable conclusion you can make,” based on the available data, says Eric Bortz, a virologist at the University of Alaska Anchorage. But an important caveat is that it isn’t clear what percentage of infected cows the samples represent, he says.
Fill in the blank
That’s only one of many data gaps. Scientists lack information about each sample’s precise collection date and the state where it was collected. Such gaps are “very abnormal,” Nelson says.
The missing ‘metadata’ make it harder to answer many open questions, such as how the virus is transmitted between cows and herds, and make it tricky to pin down exactly when the virus jumped to cows. These insights could help to control further viral spread, and protect workers on cattle farms “who can least afford to be exposed,” says Worobey.
Worobey, Gangavarapu and their colleagues are now racing to analyse some metadata uncovered through online sleuthing by Florence Débarre, an evolutionary biologist at the French national research agency CNRS in Paris. Gangavarapu says dates and geographic information for 152 of the 239 samples have been extracted from a USDA presentation posted on YouTube on 26 April.
Real-time flu tracking
Researchers also want more swabbing of cattle and wild birds to gain more insights into the outbreak’s exact origin and to decipher another puzzle. The genomic data reveal that the viral genome sequenced from the infected person does not include some of the signature mutations observed in the cattle. “That is a mystery to everyone,” says Nelson.
One possibility is that the person was infected by a separate viral lineage, which infected cattle that have not been swabbed. Another less likely scenario, which can’t be ruled out, says Nelson, is that the person was infected directly from a wild bird. “It raises just a whole slew of questions about what black box of samples we are missing.”
Shilo Weir, a public affairs specialist at the USDA, says the agency decided to post the unanalysed sequence data on the SRA to make it public as soon as possible. Weir says the agency will “work as quickly as possible” to publish curated files on GISAID with relevant epidemiological information, and will continue to make raw data available on the SRA on a rolling basis.
A dairy worker in Texas has become infected with a strain of avian influenza similar to that infecting dairy cattle in several US states.Credit: Adam Davis/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Researchers are closely monitoring the spread of a worrisome strain of avian influenza to cattle — and one person — at farms in six US states.
These infections represent the first widespread outbreak of bird flu in cows. The outbreak is concerning because humans frequently come into contact with cattle on farms, giving the virus ample opportunity to spread to people, says Daniel Goldhill, an evolutionary virologist at the Royal Veterinary College in Hatfield, UK.
Health officials have said that the overall threat to people remains low, for now, but they are watching the situation unfold closely. “There’s always a worry that viruses will surprise us,” Goldhill says. “We don’t know what they’ll do next.”
Scientists are scrambling to assess how well candidate vaccines and antiviral drugs will work against the circulating strain and to update diagnostic kits for identifying infections in people quickly. They are also trying to understand whether the cows were infected by birds or another source, and are on alert for any changes in the situation that could raise the risk for people.
“There are a lot of questions and, so far, not a lot of answers,” says Florian Krammer, a virologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Where was the virus found previously, and what’s happening now?
In 1996, the influenza strain called H5N1 was first detected in birds in China. It has been spreading ferociously in birds since 2021, killing hundreds of millions of domestic and wild birds around the world. It has also occasionally infected mammals, including seals and bears, which have become “accidental hosts” of what is mostly an avian virus, says Kanta Subbarao, director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza in Melbourne, Australia.
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In the past two weeks, health officials have detected H5N1 in cows from 16 herds across six states — a number that is likely to increase as US surveillance is stepped up. Researchers have previously documented1 sporadic infections of cows with flu viruses closely related to H5N1, but no widespread outbreaks had been detected until now.
The more mammalian species the virus infects, the more opportunities it has to evolve a strain that is dangerous to humans, Goldhill says. One dairy worker in Texas has been infected, but the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the person is recovering. The worker’s only symptom was eye inflammation, and viral levels in their nose were low, suggesting that they don’t have a respiratory infection, according to the CDC.
The virus infecting the worker is closely related to the strains found in dairy cattle in Texas, with one notable distinction: the worker’s variant has a mutation that is linked to more-efficient spread in mammals. Goldhill says the presence of the mutation in the human sample was not surprising; it has appeared many times, including in foxes2 and cats3 infected with H5N1.
Is the virus spreading between cows, and why does that matter?
A key question for researchers is how the cows are getting infected. The answer will be important for controlling H5N1’s spread to other farms and people. “This is a controllable situation, we just have to understand how this virus is getting around,” says Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
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Of particular interest is whether the virus is passing from infected cows to uninfected ones, because that would suggest the virus has become more adept at transmission in mammals. Given that the virus has been detected at several farms across the United States, epidemiological data make it “pretty clear now we’re seeing cow-to-cow spread”, and that wild birds are not necessarily involved in viral spread in the farms, says Webby. But there aren’t enough viral sequences of animals infected later in the outbreak for genomic data to confirm cow-to-cow spread, he says.
If the virus is spreading between cows, it will be important to work out precisely how, Webby says. Evidence so far suggest that virus levels are highest in the animals’ milk, according to a report in Science. That suggests that H5N1 might not be spreading between cows through the air, a transmission pathway that would be difficult to control and could allow for relatively quick spread, Webby says. If cows are becoming infected by touching contaminated surfaces, such as milking machines, the virus would be transmitted more slowly than if it is airborne.
Gathering evidence to address these questions could help to answer why infections have only recently cropped up in cattle, and only in the United States, despite the virus’s global spread in the past few years. Marion Koopmans, a virologist at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, wonders whether there is something unique about how cattle are kept in the region, for example, or whether the virus has gained new abilities to persist in the environment. Addressing these questions will offer insights into how widespread bird-flu infections could be in cattle globally, she says. It will be important for health officials outside the United States to start looking for evidence of overlooked outbreaks, Krammer says.
What would increase concern among researchers?
Scientists say that, although bird flu is unlikely to spread widely in people, they are closely monitoring samples of H5N1 globally for mutations known to signal that it is becoming better at spreading in mammals. The virus has not spread widely in humans in part because it can’t readily enter the cells that line the nose and mouth. But it would be problematic if the virus developed mutations that would help it to gain entry to these cells, Goldhill says.
Krammer says he would look specifically for changes to the section of the viral genome that encodes a type of enzyme known as a polymerase. A portion of this enzyme is known to be “a hotspot for adaptation to mammals”. Researchers are also looking out for mutations that would make the strain less susceptible to antiviral drugs, says Webby.
The animal that no virologist wants to see a flu outbreak in, is the pig. Pigs host many influenza A viruses, making them a ‘mixing vessel’ in which strains of avian and mammalian viruses can mix and match and become more efficient at transmitting to people, says Krammer.
What do we know about how well existing vaccines and drugs will work against this strain?
The WHO maintains a list of candidate vaccines that provide protection against H5N1 and that could be mass-produced. And some countries, including the United States, maintain a small stockpile of vaccine doses should they need to vaccinate at-risk populations, such as front-line workers.
The CDC has reported that the viral strain isolated from the infected person is closely related to two strains targeted by a candidate vaccine. Webby says that his team has confirmed in laboratory studies that the WHO vaccines can protect against viral samples collected from cows early in the outbreak, and they will continue to test new samples as the outbreak progresses. Specifically, the vaccine includes antibodies produced against a human H5N8 virus isolated in Russia and an avian H5N1 virus isolated in the United States. They can “recognize this cow virus very, very well”, says Webby.
It would be useful to get more information on how much immunity these candidate vaccines produce against the circulating strain, especially because people don’t have pre-existing protection against H5N1 and closely related viruses, says Subbarao.
