Science - USA (2022-02-25)

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PHOTO: POVILAS ŠIMONIS

NEWS | IN BRIEF

which publishes Science, offer the longest

follow-up yet for a randomized study of

psilocybin’s antidepressant effect. They

extend findings from the same trial, pub-

lished in November 2020, that revealed

improvements for 17 of the 24 participants

after 1 month. Other factors may have

contributed to the persistent benefit, the

researchers note: One-third of participants

began treatment with an antidepressant

sometime over the course of follow-up

study, and nearly half received some form

of psychotherapy outside of the study.

Health equity fight loses pioneer

GLOBAL HEALTH | Paul Farmer, an infec-

tious disease physician, anthropologist,

and champion of global public health,

died suddenly this week at age 62. At

the time of his death, he was visiting the

University of Global Health Equity in

Butaro, Rwanda, that he helped found.

Farmer, who was also a professor at

Harvard Medical School, dedicated his

career to bringing health care to poor and

marginalized communities, in particular

in Haiti and Rwanda. In 1987, he founded

the nonprofit Partners in Health, focused

on providing high-quality health care in

resource-poor settings and advocating for

human rights and social justice. Farmer’s

work also helped inspire global efforts to

expand access to lifesaving treatments for

HIV and other diseases.

Antarctic pollution melting snow

ENVIRONMENT | Burning of fossil fuels in

Antarctica is hastening snow melt there,

researchers have found. When soot, a

byproduct of combustion, settles out of

the air, the dark particles absorb sun-

light and heat the snow. To estimate the

impact, researchers measured soot in snow

taken from 28 places across the northern

Antarctic Peninsula, including sites near

research bases and stops for ships that

carry an average of 53,000 tourists per year

to the continent. Melting from the ship

soot amounts to hundreds of tons of snow

loss per person, the group reports this

week in Nature Communications. Per per-

son losses are estimated to be an order of

magnitude higher near research stations,

because of generators, helicopters, and

vehicles. In the most polluted areas, the

snowpack has declined by 2.3 centimeters

each summer. The researchers recommend

limits on research infrastructure and surg-

ing tourism, as well as improvements in

energy efficiency and renewable power.

SCIENCE AND ART

Yeasty dance video rises to top of Ph.D. contest

L

ithuanian scientist Povilas Šimonis’s colorful and catchy interpretation of the

electrical stimulation of yeast cells is the winner of this year’s “Dance Your Ph.D.”

contest. The annual competition, which is hosted by Science and sponsored by the

artificial intelligence company Primer, invites researchers to interpret their theses

through movement and to commit the act to video for cash prizes and nerd fame.

Šimonis’s doctoral work at Lithuania’s Center for Physical Sciences and Technology

and Vilnius University explores how the single-celled fungus that powers bread baking

behaves when pulsed with electricity. The performance, which included original music

and several sets, casts people as yeast cells prancing amid mouthwatering baked

goods. The result beat out 29 other submissions to win both the overall award and

the biology category. A judging panel of dancers, scientists, and artists also selected

winners in chemistry, physics, and social sciences. See videos from all the winners at

SCIENCE.ORG/NEWS https://scim.ag/DancePhD.

Read more news from Science online.

THREE QS

European Commission pushes

for gender equality

E
ective this year, higher education and
research organizations must have a gender
equality plan to qualify for European
Commission research grants. Among other
commitments, grantees will be required
to train sta
about unconscious bias and
collect data on sta
and students for
accountability. Anne Pépin, a physicist at
the French national research agency, CNRS,
and senior policy o cer at the Commission,
spoke with Science about the changes and
structural barriers for female scientists.
(A longer version of this interview is at
https://scim.ag/GenderEqEurope.)

Q: What motivated you to get involved?
A: When I became a researcher, I was
clearly a minority in physics. I didn’t su
er
from explicit discrimination. But it was
more a cumulative e
ect—like sometimes
people taking you for the postdoc when
you’re the permanent researcher. I’ve
been involved in pioneering a gender
equality plan at CNRS, and I think it can
have long-lasting and multiplier e
ects.
We were able to implement a range of
actions—for example, sensitizing the
recruitment and promotion committees
to gender issues and allowing women
to have 6 months o
teaching duties to
concentrate on their research after a
maternity leave.

Q: Why make this a mandatory
requirement?
A: To some extent, the voluntary
implementation of gender equality
plans over the last decade by European
organizations was a success—we’ve
accumulated a wealth of good practices
and established practical tools. Still,
changes are fragmented and very
slow. We’re roughly at gender parity
among doctoral graduates, but women
only represent 26% of full professors.
The institutions will be responsible for
identifying the most pressing areas to
address based on their data.

Q: Are you optimistic for change?
A: There is still a lot of work ahead, and
it’s not all on the side of the European
Commission. It also has to be a collective
e
ort with everyone—women, men, gender-
diverse individuals—getting onboard to
further improve working conditions for all.

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