Nature Podcast
Nature journal research briefs; claims trace back to the papers
12:25Replacing the Missing Orexin: Narcolepsy Gets a Drug That Treats the Cause, and Maybe a GLP-1 for the Brain
The FDA has approved the first orexin agonist, which replaces the orexin that type 1 narcolepsy patients lack instead of merely managing symptoms; it could become a ‘GLP-1 for the brain’. Separately, brain organoids have survived past five years for the first time, opening up research into late-onset brain disease.
19:37A Diabetes Drug That Switches Itself On With Blood Sugar: Live Bacteria Secreting GLP1 on Demand
Scientists have engineered E. coli to secrete GLP1 automatically when blood sugar runs high, improving glucose control in mice and in macaques; human trials are still a long way off, but the work opens up the prospect of a living drug that doses on demand.
13:52DNA Repair Is the Key to Long Life: A Bowhead Whale Repair Protein Is Already in Human Trials
New work finds that nearly half of hospitalized COVID-19 patients had dormant viruses reactivate in their bodies, with higher inflammation and cell damage a year later; meanwhile what long-lived animals like the bowhead whale share is not tumor-suppressor genes but stronger DNA repair, and drugs built on that idea have reached human trials.
20:30Tens of Thousands of Earthworks Under the Amazon, and a Civilization of Perhaps Three Million
Using LiDAR to see through the rainforest canopy, archaeologists have found tens of thousands of earthworks in the southwestern Amazon, spread across more than 180,000 square kilometres, with a peak population that may have reached 3 million.
22:40The naked mole-rat queen rules with a $5 molecule: not urine, a skincare ingredient
The signal that suppresses reproduction in naked mole-rats has finally been found: only the queen produces isopropyl myristate. Add it to a colony that has lost its queen and the peace holds; stop, and the succession war breaks out. The same molecule turns up on breastfeeding women.