Daily briefing: Largest trial shows psilocybin is effective to treat depression
3 years ago 5 min read
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Researchers who helped to draft parts of the first United Nations environmental agreements nearly 30 years ago have told Nature that low- and middle-income countries are being massively let down in the present climate talks. “I was so hopeful,” says ecologist Zakri Abdul Hamid, who was scientific adviser to Malaysia’s delegation to the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. But Zakri now thinks he was “naive” in expecting that richer nations would abide by their promises to protect the interests of poorer countries. At the same time, there’s a consensus that hope must not die.
Stephanie Sodero researches how medical supply chains, such as those for donated blood, saline solution and medical oxygen, are affected by climate change. She is attending COP26 as an observer, looking to share findings from a collaborative research project into how humanitarian aid needs to adapt to the climate emergency. She is also the latest in a series of scientists who spoke to Nature about their hopes and fears for the momentous climate summit — and what they want to achieve by attending. Her COP highlight so far is the 8-minute speech by the prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley. “It was very refreshing to hear this clarion call from a country that’s on the front lines,” says Sodero.
The influential sixth report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in August, was the most alarming yet. It also, pivotally, confirmed that the current level of warming — just over 1 ℃ — has crossed the threshold of ‘dangerous anthropogenic interference’ (DAI). That means it’s time for the IPCC working group that examines the physical-science basis of climate change “to declare their job done”, argues historian of science Naomi Oreskes. “Now that we know that DAI is fully underway, it’s time to focus on preventing the problem from getting even worse and figuring out how to adapt to the changes we can no longer prevent.”
Here at the conference, there is a feeling of “two or three different COPs” running side by side, says Nature journalist Ehsan Masood. There are the official negotiations, which are somewhat hidden away. There’s the world of the countries, corporations, and research organizations with their own stalls, events and activities. “Everyone has set up their own little podium,” says Masood. “Then there’s the world of the activists, who are outside.”
The arts are an essential partner to the sciences in envisioning a healthy climate future, argues cultural economist Mark Banks. (The Herald | 3 min read, porous paywall)
Some people can’t get current COVID-19 vaccines for health reasons, but protein-based vaccines offer hope that they might soon be immunized. To elicit a protective immune response, these shots deliver proteins, along with immunity-stimulating adjuvants, directly to a person’s cells, rather than sending in a fragment of genetic code that the cells must read to synthesize the proteins themselves. After months of quality-control setbacks and manufacturing delays, the protein-based jab from US biotechnology firm Novavax has just received its first emergency-use authorization, in Indonesia. Meanwhile, Clover Biopharmaceuticals, based in China, and Biological E in India are on track to file for authorization in various countries in the coming weeks and months.
Hopeful news from the largest gold-standard trial yet of psilocybin, the psychedelic compound in magic mushrooms, to treat serious depression. US health-care company COMPASS Pathways made the announcement in a press release, and the results have not yet been peer reviewed. The randomized, controlled, double-blind study looked at 233 people with treatment-resistant depression, who were given psilocybin along with psychological support from specially trained therapists. Almost 30% of people who received the highest dose in the study, 25 milligrams, were in remission 3 weeks after treatment, compared with around 8% of those who received 1 milligram, which is such a low dose it functions as a placebo. More than one-quarter of the people in the 25-milligram arm were still in remission 3 months after treatment.
NASA will delay people’s return to the Moon by one year. The original 2024 deadline for the Artemis III mission, set by the administration of former US president Donald Trump, “was not grounded in technical feasibility”, says NASA administrator Bill Nelson. NASA will now aim to land the next man and first woman on the Moon no earlier than 2025.
Earth’s first continents emerged from the ocean between 3.3 billion and 3.2 billion years ago, before the existence of plate tectonics. An analysis of rock sediments from India places the rise of the first stable continents some 700 million years earlier than previously thought. The rocks might have been formed by lava piling up from continuous volcanic activity on Earth’s crust, and floating above the water like an iceberg, says geologist Priyadarshi Chowdhury.
Moderna and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) are at odds over who should get credit for inventing a crucial component of the biotechnology company’s COVID-19 vaccine. The government agency says three of its scientists should be named in the patent, but the company’s application names its own employees as the sole inventors. The vaccine came out of a four-year partnership between Moderna and the NIH.
Former Nature biology editor Peter Newmark remembers biophysicist Walter Gratzer, who was also a writer for and adviser to Nature. Gratzer has died at the age of 89. (Nature | 3 min read)
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