The Another Crab's Treasure developer created the title in collaboration with Landfall to bounce back after burnout.

A coiled giant anaconda. They are the largest snake species in Brazil and play a major role in legends including the ‘Boiuna’ and the ‘Cobra Grande.’ CREDIT: Beatriz Cosendey. Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. South America’s lush Amazon region is a biodiversity hotspot, which means that every living thing must find a way to co-exist. Even some of the most feared snakes on the planet–anacondas. In a paper published June 16 in the journal Frontiers in Amphibian and Reptile Science, conservation biologists Beatriz Cosendey and Juarez Carlos Brito Pezzuti from the Federal University of Pará’s Center for Amazonian Studies in Brazil, analyze the key points behind the interactions between humans and the local anaconda populations. Ahead of the paper’s publication, the team at Frontiers conducted this wide-ranging Q&A with Conesday. It has not been altered. Frontiers: What inspired you to become a researcher? Beatriz Cosendey: As a child, I was fascinated by reports and documentaries about field research and often wondered what it took to be there and what kind of knowledge was being produced. Later, as an ecologist, I felt the need for approaches that better connected scientific research with real-world contexts. I became especially interested in perspectives that viewed humans not as separate from nature, but as part of ecological systems. This led me to explore integrative methods that incorporate local and traditional knowledge, aiming to make research more relevant and accessible to the communities involved. F: Can you tell us about the research you’re currently working on? BC: My research focuses on ethnobiology, an interdisciplinary field intersecting ecology, conservation, and traditional knowledge. We investigate not only the biodiversity of an area but also the relationship local communities have with surrounding species, providing a better understanding of local dynamics and areas needing special attention for conservation. After all, no one knows a place better than those who have lived there for generations. This deep familiarity allows for early detection of changes or environmental shifts. Additionally, developing a collaborative project with residents generates greater engagement, as they recognize themselves as active contributors; and collective participation is essential for effective conservation. Local boating the Amazon River. CREDIT: Beatriz Cosendey. F: Could you tell us about one of the legends surrounding anacondas? BC: One of the greatest myths is about the Great Snake—a huge snake that is said to inhabit the Amazon River and sleep beneath the town. According to the dwellers, the Great Snake is an anaconda that has grown too large; its movements can shake the river’s waters, and its eyes look like fire in the darkness of night. People say anacondas can grow so big that they can swallow large animals—including humans or cattle—without difficulty. F: What could be the reasons why the traditional role of anacondas as a spiritual and mythological entity has changed? Do you think the fact that fewer anacondas have been seen in recent years contributes to their diminished importance as an mythological entity? BC: Not exactly. I believe the two are related, but not in a direct way. The mythology still exists, but among Aritapera dwellers, there’s a more practical, everyday concern—mainly the fear of losing their chickens. As a result, anacondas have come to be seen as stealthy thieves. These traits are mostly associated with smaller individuals (up to around 2–2.5 meters), while the larger ones—which may still carry the symbolic weight of the ‘Great Snake’—tend to retreat to more sheltered areas; because of the presence of houses, motorized boats, and general noise, they are now seen much less frequently. A giant anaconda is being measured. Credit: Pedro Calazans. F: Can you share some of the quotes you’ve collected in interviews that show the attitude of community members towards anacondas? How do chickens come into play? BC: When talking about anacondas, one thing always comes up: chickens. “Chicken is her [the anaconda’s] favorite dish. If one clucks, she comes,” said one dweller. This kind of remark helps explain why the conflict is often framed in economic terms. During the interviews and conversations with local dwellers, many emphasized the financial impact of losing their animals: “The biggest loss is that they keep taking chicks and chickens…” or “You raise the chicken—you can’t just let it be eaten for free, right?” For them, it’s a loss of investment, especially since corn, which is used as chicken feed, is expensive. As one person put it: “We spend time feeding and raising the birds, and then the snake comes and takes them.” One dweller shared that, in an attempt to prevent another loss, he killed the anaconda and removed the last chicken it had swallowed from its belly—”it was still fresh,” he said—and used it for his meal, cooking the chicken for lunch so it wouldn’t go to waste. One of the Amazonas communities where the researchers conducted their research. CREDIT: Beatriz Cosendey. Some interviewees reported that they had to rebuild their chicken coops and pigsties because too many anacondas were getting in. Participants would point out where the anaconda had entered and explained that they came in through gaps or cracks but couldn’t get out afterwards because they ‘tufavam’ — a local term referring to the snake’s body swelling after ingesting prey. We saw chicken coops made with mesh, with nylon, some that worked and some that didn’t. Guided by the locals’ insights, we concluded that the best solution to compensate for the gaps between the wooden slats is to line the coop with a fine nylon mesh (to block smaller animals), and on the outside, a layer of wire mesh, which protects the inner mesh and prevents the entry of larger animals. F: Are there any common misconceptions about this area of research? How would you address them? BC: Yes, very much. Although ethnobiology is an old science, it’s still underexplored and often misunderstood. In some fields, there are ongoing debates about the robustness and scientific validity of the field and related areas. This is largely because the findings don’t always rely only on hard statistical data. However, like any other scientific field, it follows standardized methodologies, and no result is accepted without proper grounding. What happens is that ethnobiology leans more toward the human sciences, placing human beings and traditional knowledge as key variables within its framework. To address these misconceptions, I believe it’s important to emphasize that ethnobiology produces solid and relevant knowledge—especially in the context of conservation and sustainable development. It offers insights that purely biological approaches might overlook and helps build bridges between science and society. The study focused on the várzea regions of the Lower Amazon River. CREDIT: Beatriz Cosendey. F: What are some of the areas of research you’d like to see tackled in the years ahead? BC: I’d like to see more conservation projects that include local communities as active participants rather than as passive observers. Incorporating their voices, perspectives, and needs not only makes initiatives more effective, but also more just. There is also great potential in recognizing and valuing traditional knowledge. Beyond its cultural significance, certain practices—such as the use of natural compounds—could become practical assets for other vulnerable regions. Once properly documented and understood, many of these approaches offer adaptable forms of environmental management and could help inform broader conservation strategies elsewhere. F: How has open science benefited the reach and impact of your research? BC: Open science is crucial for making research more accessible. By eliminating access barriers, it facilitates a broader exchange of knowledge—important especially for interdisciplinary research like mine which draws on multiple knowledge systems and gains value when shared widely. For scientific work, it ensures that knowledge reaches a wider audience, including practitioners and policymakers. This openness fosters dialogue across different sectors, making research more inclusive and encouraging greater collaboration among diverse groups. The Q&A can also be read here.

Spoilers for “Wish World.” Even the most daring artists, those that actively seek reinvention on a regular basis, will eventually wind up repeating themselves. If they’re lucky and self-aware, the artist may even get the chance to rehabilitate some of the lesser works in their canon. Sadly, it’s at this last hurdle that Russell T. Davies has fallen, with “Wish World” not quite able to do more than become a bizarro remake of “The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords.” James Pardon/BBC Studios/Disney/Bad Wolf We open in Bavaria, 1865, where a cloak-wearing woman on horseback rides through a forest to a remote cabin. It’s classic series villain the Rani, resurrected at the end of last week’s episode, who is greeted by Otto Zufall (German for “coincidence”), a storybook villager-type who expected to greet a midwife to help his ailing wife, Violett. Otto is the seventh son of a seventh son, who has just welcomed his seventh son into the world. Violet lays in bed cradling the newborn, which the Rani says is — as the third-generation seventh son — gifted with unbelievable power. She plucks the newborn from her arms, killing Violet by blowing on her, turning her into a pile of violet petals. She then blows on the other six children and turns them into ducks, and Otto into a wise owl. Then, we’re on Earth on May 23, 2025, where the happily married couple John Smith — the Doctor — and Belinda wake up side by side in bed. Their daughter, Poppy (from “Space Babies” and “The Story and the Engine”) pads in from her bedroom. The trio live as a picture of domestic bliss, with a distinctly fake-looking ‘60s style kitchen filled with bright colors. It may be the present day, but there’s little-to-no tech on show except that every room has a 14-inch CRT TV that only plays a broadcast of Conrad (from “Lucky Day”) who tells them the whole world is going to have great weather that day. At breakfast, the Doctor’s mind wanders for a moment, and suddenly his mug (which was in the middle of the table) inexplicably smashes to the floor. Never mind, as there’s a whole cupboard of matching mugs to replace the ones that fall during a “slip.” Each house even has a large, bright orange trash can just to get rid of the mugs that fall during a “slip”, including their next door neighbor, Mel. When the Doctor greets Mel, he asks what her plans are for May Day, and she says as an unmarried woman with no children, she’ll just sit inside in quiet contemplation. Looming over the heart of the city, taller than any skyscraper, is a structure made out of bone that stands tall on spindly spider legs. Similarly incongruous is a series of massive, dinosaur skeletons that stomp around the landscape. We’ll see later that the dinosaur skeletons don’t actually interact with the world around them, phasing through the space below. The only person (for now) that doesn’t seem to be affected is Ruby, who turns up at the Doctor’s house. She thinks she knows the Doctor, and Belinda, but can’t quite work anything out, and then blurts out that they don’t have a child when she sees Poppy. That prompts Belinda to call the police, as having doubt or sowing confusion is a crime here. The Doctor heads to work in UNIT HQ, suitably redecorated as a 1950s office despite the sci-fi trappings in the periphery. Kate Stewart is an officious boss, Colonel Ibrahim is the Doctor’s colleague and Susan Triad has been turned into the ‘60s tea-lady from “The Devil’s Chord.” Colonel Ibrahim still has the hots for Kate, but thinks that she’s so far out of his league that she’d never go out with him. The Doctor disagrees, saying that Ibrahim is a “beautiful” man, which prompts Ibrahim to get very angry. After all, it would be wrong, impossible or deviant for a man to find another man beautiful, even intellectually. But the Doctor manages to avoid having him call the secret police as the staff of the office all stop to spot the Rani flying by on her hover scooter, which they believe is a sign of good luck for May Day the following day (another deliberate incongruity given May Day takes place on May 1). The Rani lands on the spider skeleton / looming tower of doom, handing Mrs. Flood some Italian meat and tells her to make Conrad a sandwich. He’s up in the tower, as it’s his imagination that is shaping the world, with his regular broadcasts informing the people of his choices. But he’s also nervous — saying that the effort of maintaining a world is difficult since he has to run so many complex systems or else let whole nations be destroyed. It may be his imagination, but it’s being powered by the nameless baby from 1865, who never cries, just smiles. Conrad, being the show’s avatar of so many alt-right figures, has built a reality to reflect his worldview. Heterosexuality is compulsory and loudly and rigidly enforced, there is a secret police ready to seize anyone off the street at a moment’s notice and everyone is constantly asked to inform on their family members. The culture of paranoia is rife. It also explains why Mel, as an unmarried and child-free woman, is expected to sit away and quietly contemplate her implicitly-poor choices, because naturally Conrad only values women for their utility, birthing and taking care of men, rather than as people with their own agency. Even Mrs. Flood, a Time Lady in her own right and the architect of this whole scheme, is relegated to the thankless role of “mother.” James Pardon/BBC Studios/Disney/Bad Wolf His regular broadcasts are even used to taunt the Doctor, reading a story about the Doctor from a book that apes the original British Harry Potter covers. It is, without a doubt, intentional that Davies’ would make his alt-right villain a fan of the series in 2025. Meanwhile, Belinda remains at home looking after Poppy, and gets a visit from her mum and grandmother. They are talking about motherhood, and the fact Poppy is expected to grow up and become an obedient wife to her husband. But when Belinda’s grandmother asks how long Belinda’s labor took, she can’t remember — prompting a small crisis of her own. There’s one UNIT regular who isn’t up in the office, Shirley Bingham, who is in a wheelchair begging out on the street. Conrad’s worldview has no room for people with disabilities (or queer and gender non-conforming people) and so she’s homeless. Ruby initially brushes her pleas for money away before stopping and realizing that she’s met them before. Ruby is taken to a hidden homeless encampment where the ignored have gathered to create some sort of community. Ruby explains to them what they already know — something about all of this is wrong, and that she’s lived through 2025 already (during “73 Yards”) and it didn’t play out like this. Shirley has a plan to bring down Conrad, and Ruby wants in, saying that if she can get face to face with him, she’ll be able to remember what’s locked in the back of her mind. That night, the Doctor is at home, furrowing his brow, and in the background Susan appears on his TV in a brief flash. But she quickly disappears, only to be replaced by Rogue (Jonathan Groff, from last season’s “Rogue”) who only has time to tell the Doctor two things. First, “tables don’t do that,” and that he loves him. Belinda wakes up to the sound of mugs smashing, as the Doctor experiments — every time he feels doubt, a mug falls through the solid wood onto the floor. Belinda can see what’s going on, but is horrified enough to call the police and get them to arrest the Doctor for having doubts. But Mrs. Flood doesn't just arrest the Doctor, she hauls Belinda’s mom there to look after Poppy so Belinda can be arrested too. Shirley and Ruby are camped out below the stone tower, and Shirley pulls out a UNIT tablet that’s a relic from the old world. Up in the tower, the Doctor and Belinda are pushed over a threshold and into the safety of the Rani’s lair. But the pair still don’t have their memories, and so are confused when the Rani starts expositing at them, at length. She points out the seal of Rassilon, and asks if that jogs his memory to no avail, similarly her robot assistants that are looking for signs of doubt among the population. The Rani even dances under a disco ball to a dumbfounded Doctor, who just pleads for mercy. The Rani explains, in a way that made no sense to me at least, that all of the villains the Doctor ever faced wanted death, but her, who wants life. She somehow survived all the various destructions of Gallifrey and is now looking for a lost soul in the heretofore unknown “underverse.” She achieved this by, uh, blocking the Doctor’s route back to Earth and instead, forcing him to criss-cross around the universe with the Vindicator. Each reading the machine took was, in fact, creating a universe-wide network of power all feeding back to the Earth. As the Doctor’s memory returns, the Rani explains that being trapped in Conrad’s reality was to create and foster doubt. Much in the same way a human being’s doubt can damage their world, a Time Lord’s doubt should be enough to crack open the universe. As the clock ticks closer to midnight, she sends Belinda back outside the bone tower to her doom. Then, the Rani locks the Doctor on the bone tower’s balcony to witness as London is swallowed by a series of enormous black voids with only remnants emerging from the other side (such as the burned Black Cab at the end of “The Robot Revolution”). Why? Because the lost soul, trapped in the “underverse” she’s desperate to reach, is Omega. The Doctor, trapped on the balcony, tries to break back into the tower and stop the Rani but it’s too late. She has laid explosive charges and when they blow, the balcony tumbles down toward the void beneath. But the Doctor screams, “Poppy is real! Don’t you know what that means?” as he tumbles into the darkness. To. Be. Continued. “Tables don’t do that.” James Pardon/BBC Studios/Disney/Bad Wolf If there’s one thing Russell T. Davies doesn’t do well, it’s narrative coherence in the run-up to his big finales. Problems and solutions are equally contrived, pulled out of left field and generally don’t stand up to much scrutiny. In his mind that’s okay because what interests him is the emotional resonance and character moments created by that drama. Given he’s one of the few name brand writers in the UK, it’s not as if this approach hasn’t been enormously successful. But it does make “Wish World” a frustrating beast since it is, as usual, playing with so many good ideas it squanders most of them. That wouldn’t be so bad, but for the episode’s conclusion being handed over to incoherent technobabble. It doesn’t help this is the second series in a row that hinges on the audience recognizing the significance of a villain not properly* seen on screen for more than four decades. It’s worth looking at the first two thirds separate from the last, since there’s so much good stuff early on. One of Davies’ usual fixations is on the rise of middle-class British fascism, and the moments when we’re just inhabiting Conrad’s world are wonderful. This time, it’s centered on the stultifying environment for the so-called “respectable types,” whose position and status are perpetually tenuous. The paranoia that manifests out of that means everyone is looking for signs of deviance in their own communities. Those deemed unfit, especially people with disabilities and queer folks, are rendered as un-persons, invisible, shunned and isolated. “Wish World” picks up on another recurring theme in the show, which is to ask what happens after the war has ended. Conrad’s utopia may have lovely weather, but everyone is dressed in uncomfortable clothes and at perpetual risk of being kidnapped off the street by police. If I have a nitpick (and I do) it’s that I wish we hadn’t needed to see the Rani’s baby kidnapping in the opener. Starting with the Doctor and Belinda waking up as a married couple would have been a bigger shock. And it’s a shame the episode can’t commit hard enough to the “we’re trapped in a bizarro world” bit as Ruby turns up so quickly to let the audience know Things Are Awry. Imagine if the first twenty minutes had played out just from John Smith, or Belinda, or Ruby’s perspective and the creeping horror as they realized what was wrong. Sadly, it’s the usual problem of having maybe 30 minutes at most to gesture to those ideas rather than explore them. Because we then have to stop the episode to get Ncuti Gatwa to look perplexed while the Rani spouts nonsense at him. Her evil plan doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny even as we're being told it. After all, why does she need the Doctor to leap between planets when she has her own TARDIS? And if all it takes is a Time Lord’s doubt to rip open the universe, she could have easily done that herself. It’s not as if the Doctor is affected by the doubt since he’s able to carry on until the Rani explodes the balcony and casts him into the void. Oh, there’s one thing that’s good in those last moments — the scene of the Doctor realizing something about Poppy is a nice hook into the finale. James Pardon/BBC Studios/Disney/Bad Wolf I don’t get why the Rani would be motivated to go looking for Omega, the scientist who helped co-found Time Lord society. If Rassilon was the political mind, Omega was the engineer who created the power to make it all happen. He created the stellar manipulator that put a stable black hole at the heart of Gallifrey — the Eye of Harmony — to power its TARDISes. Omega’s backstory was flimsy in his two televised appearances, essentially being an overpowered villain for the Doctor(s) to battle in two different anniversary specials, “The Three Doctors” and “Arc of Infinity.” The rest of his backstory was filled out in the spin-off material, but he’s essentially just a big name baddie trotted out when, say, the Master wouldn’t cut it. There are thematic parallels between Omega and Conrad, however, since Omega’s antimatter universe was sustained entirely by his will and imagination. Is that a comment on something, or just a nice way of dovetailing toward Omega. Who knows? I’m not sure I do. It’s hard not to notice the extreme similarities between “Wish World” and “The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords,” including the fact both stories got started in the previous episode. For a start, there’s the whole Britain-under fascism angle, with the Doctor incapacitated by the villain. Not to mention both feature a sequence in which a Gallifreyan foe taunts our hero with a high camp dancing sequence in a room hovering above the sky. If there’s a shame, it’s that while the runtime has been cut in half, the actual quality of the denouement seems to have gotten worse. Oh, it was nice to see the seal of the Prydonian Chapter of the Time Lords of Gallifrey Seal of Rassilon on the wall of the Rani’s HQ. The bronze and red stylings looked gorgeous and while I’m never going to bang on about fan service in production design, it was lovely to see. And wasn’t it nice to get a bone structure hovering over London which is an unintentional callback to “The Ancestor Cell.” Just a shame that you’re then reminded that the book was designed to burn all the great ideas created by Lawrence Miles out of Doctor Who. After all, Miles has been at times the most interesting writer the series’ leadership refused to engage with. * Yes, I know Omega and Rassilon are standing beside Tecteun in “The Timeless Children.” This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/doctor-who-wish-world-review-the-last-of-the-time-lords-redux-183004744.html?src=rss

NASA Engineers Revive Long-Dormant Thrusters on Voyager 1, the Farthest Spacecraft From Earth, in a ‘Miracle Save’ In the nick of time, NASA teams addressed clogging issues in the probe’s backup roll thrusters, before the only antenna capable of sending commands to it went offline An artistic rendering of one of the Voyager probes. NASA/JPL-Caltech In a nail-biting mission to secure Voyager 1 before the only antenna that can send commands to the spacecraft goes offline for upgrades, NASA engineers revived thrusters aboard the probe that have been considered dead for more than two decades. “It was such a glorious moment,” Todd Barber, the mission’s propulsion lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), says in a statement. “Team morale was very high that day.” Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 launched in 1977 to study Jupiter and Saturn as well as examine some of the planets’ moons. Since then, however, their mission has been repeatedly extended. The pair of probes also investigated Uranus and Neptune, 48 moons in the solar system and achieved what no human-made object had ever done before: They entered interstellar space. Voyager 1 first left our solar system in 2012, and Voyager 2 followed in 2018. Needless to say, the probes have transcended their mission, which was originally intended to last just five years, per Mashable’s Elisha Sauers. The aging Voyagers have hit several hiccups in recent years, and the latest involved Voyager 1’s roll thrusters. Among various propulsion devices, the roll thrusters rotate the probes, keeping the antennas facing toward Earth for communication and the spacecraft pointed at a guide star, which is used for orientation. Each has a primary and backup set of roll thrusters, which NASA engineers toggle between using to avoid clogging their fuel tubes from overuse. In 2004, however, Voyager 1’s primary roll thrusters stopped working after two internal heaters lost power, according to NASA’s statement. The team concluded that the heaters were as good as dead and continued the mission with only the backup roll thrusters. “I think at that time, the team was OK with accepting that the primary roll thrusters didn’t work, because they had a perfectly good backup,” Kareem Badaruddin, Voyager mission manager at JPL, explains in the statement. “And frankly, they probably didn’t think the Voyagers were going to keep going for another 20 years.” After all, “it’s amazing that the two spacecraft are still working,” as former Voyager project scientist Ed Stone toldSpace.com’s Mike Wall in 2017, four decades after the mission’s launch.Now, the backup roll thrusters’ fuel tubes have accumulated enough buildup residue to likely cause serious problems later this year, so the team decided to re-evaluate the situation. Their work was even more time-sensitive given that Australia’s Deep Space Station 43—the only antenna in NASA’s Deep Space Network powerful enough to send commands to Voyager 1 and 2—was about to go offline. Planned upgrades between May 4, 2025, and February of next year are making it unusable, with only brief windows of operation in August and December. Without the antenna, the team can’t send instructions to either probe. And if the backup roll thruster were to become totally clogged while the antenna is offline, it might be impossible for engineers to fix the issue. The team suggested the thrusters’ heaters had stopped working because their circuits had unexpectedly flipped a switch back in 2004. If engineers could get the probe to flip the switch back, that might fix the problem. Testing out this solution, however, was risky, because it first required turning the primary thrusters on, then flipping the switch and restarting the heaters. With the long-dormant thrusters operating, they were at risk of automatically firing if Voyager 1 moved too far from its guiding star. If this happened while the heaters were still off, it could result in an explosion. In other words, the engineers needed to keep the star tracker pointed as closely as possible to the guiding star while working. As if that wasn’t dramatic enough, it currently takes around 23 hours for scientists’ command to reach Voyager 1, and then another 23 hours for the probe’s response to return to Earth. The team thus had to wait around two days to see if their approach had worked. If it hadn’t, they wouldn’t receive that message until 23 hours after their command might have already caused serious damage. Fortunately, after the team sent their command in March, Voyager 1 reported a strong rise in the thruster heaters’ temperatures—a sign of success. “These thrusters were considered dead. And that was a legitimate conclusion. It’s just that one of our engineers had this insight that maybe there was this other possible cause, and it was fixable,” Barber says in the statement. “It was yet another miracle save for Voyager.” This isn’t the first time a team has had to scramble to keep a Voyager spacecraft alive. Given the mission’s unexpected longevity, NASA scientists and engineers must continuously mitigate age-related maintenance problems on the probes, per Space.com’s Samantha Mathewson. Last fall, for instance, engineers briefly lost touch with Voyager 1 when it turned off its primary radio transmitter to save power. Instead, the probe reconnected with NASA using a backup transmitter that hadn’t been used in more than four decades. Voyager 1 also spent months sending incomprehensible data back to Earth, until NASA teams figured out a fix. Voyager 2 is not immune from these issues—it also dropped communication with NASA for some time in 2023. Teams have begun shutting off certain instruments on the probes to preserve power. By doing so, NASA suggests the two spacecraft will be able to operate with at least one instrument into the next decade. Even once they lose power and the ability to communicate with scientists back on Earth, however, the probes will continue to silently travel away from our planet. “In the absence of sun or wind or anything that’s going to wear them down, they could easily outlast us—our entire civilization, outlast our planet,” Jim Bell, an Arizona State University planetary scientist and author of the book, The Interstellar Age: Inside the Forty-Year Voyager Mission, told Scientific American’s Clara Moskowitz in 2015. “The Earth will eventually be swallowed by the sun and the Voyagers could still be out there.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Illustration of norovirus particlesJ Marshall/Tribaleye Images/Alamy A norovirus vaccine pill that cuts the risk of infection could be available in a few years, after it showed promise in a trial where people were intentionally exposed to the virus. The highly contagious virus infects the stomach and intestines, causing vomiting and diarrhoea that typically resolve within a few days. “Billions are lost from the economy globally every year because of the lost days of work and hospitalisation,” says Sarah Caddy at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Advertisement Sean Tucker at biotech company Vaxart in San Francisco and his colleagues previously developed an oral vaccine that boosted levels of IgA antibodies that can block norovirus from entering cells, suggesting it could prevent infections. Now, the researchers have tested this on 141 people aged between 18 and 49, about half of whom took the pill, while the others took a placebo. A month later, all the participants intentionally swallowed a high dose of the GI.1 strain of norovirus in liquid form, while in quarantine. “In the real-world setting, you need 10 to 100 viral particles to be infected, and we use 1 million particles,” says Tucker. This helped to ensure enough people got infected, he says. In the following week, 82 per cent of those in the placebo group became infected, but only 57 per cent of vaccinated participants did. Get the most essential health and fitness news in your inbox every Saturday. Sign up to newsletter “I think most individuals would be interested in taking [the vaccine] if you can reduce your risk by around [25 percentage points] and avoid getting really debilitating symptoms,” says Caddy, who wasn’t involved in the study. The team also found that vaccinated participants shed substantially less virus in their stool and vomit than those who took the placebo. This suggests the vaccine could slow the spread of the virus, although that needs to be directly tested, says Caddy. In another analysis, the scientists confirmed that the vaccine probably works by boosting levels of protective IgA antibodies in saliva and in the gut, blood and nose. However, it is unclear how long this protection would last. Further work is also needed to verify the findings in young children and older adults, who are especially at risk of being hospitalised, says Caddy. Most noroviruses that infect humans belong to two groups, known as GI and GII. Based on unpublished work by his team, the GI.1 vaccine would probably protect against other closely related GI variants, says Tucker. The team is also developing a vaccine that can protect against GI and GII viruses. If all goes well, Tucker hopes the GI.1 vaccine could be rolled out in two to three years. Journal reference:Science Translational Medicine DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.adh9906 Topics:

Looking back, there are a few mistakes I made while traveling internationally with my grandma. Emily Schlorf 2025-05-13T14:12:01Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? In summer 2024, I traveled with my grandma, mom, and sister to Montreal. I wish I'd thought more about my grandma's physical needs when planning the itinerary. It would've been nice to have more downtime in our schedule, too. Despite living 1,800 miles apart, my 81-year-old grandma and I have always been close. We share a love for "Downton Abbey," cross-stitch, and strong coffee, and I couldn't imagine spending weeks in the summer anywhere but her sunny kitchen table in central Minnesota.Of course, I'd be naive to assume my time with her is unlimited. That's one reason my grandma, mom, sister, and I decided to embark on a trip to Montreal together last summer.Although I'm grateful we were able to take this trip, it could have gone a lot smoother had I known these three things about traveling with an older relative. The itinerary should have reflected everyone's physical needs, not just my own I should've considered how long it would take my grandma to get to excursions like our afternoon tea. Emily Schlorf I'm the most frequent traveler in my family, so I took on all the planning myself and approached the task the same way I do for solo travel: leaving no stone unturned.I thought my grandma would be well-prepared for the long days, given that she walks 3 miles a day and eats a far more balanced diet than I do.What I failed to consider, though, was how difficult it would be for her to walk on the uneven cobblestone streets. On our first day in the city, we nearly missed an afternoon tea reservation since I didn't factor in the slower pace we'd have to take to accommodate my grandma's careful steps.I also didn't realize just how exhausting a full-day Three Pines tour would be. Although fantastic — with stops at a monastery, local museum, and five-star resort for lunch — our visit to the villages that inspired the fictional location of my grandma's favorite mystery series was nine hours long. My family and I went on a nine-hour tour of Three Pines. Emily Schlorf As the day progressed, we took turns snoozing in the back seat of our tour guide's van. Upon arriving back at the bed and breakfast, my grandma exclaimed how long of a day it was; and I didn't disagree.Similarly, I didn't consider my grandma's physical limitations when choosing restaurants. Although they weren't lacking in ambiance — picture patios swallowed in bougainvillea and cool, brutalist interiors overlooking Lake Saint Louis — the dim lighting and small font sizes made it challenging for her to read the menu.My mom, sister, and I mitigated my grandma's vision issues by taking turns reading the menu aloud, line by line, but that got old fast.In retrospect, I wish I'd shown up equipped with solutions, such as finding the menu online so she could zoom in on my phone or reminding her to bring her readers, to improve everyone's dining experience. A long trip means extended time away from routinesEveryone gets to a point on vacation when they're ready to return home, but I would argue that the feeling is stronger for older adults like my grandma, who travel once or twice a year and may be used to a strict daily routine.Although my grandma never expressed this feeling to me outright, I noticed as the days went on, she became less game for her granddaughters' plans.For example, on our last evening, my sister and I wanted to check out the shops lining Saint-Laurent Boulevard, but my grandma preferred to have takeout in the hotel.We compromised, and my sister and I walked to the boulevard to pick up dinner, but we ditched our shopping plan since we felt bad keeping my mom and grandma waiting.I wish we'd had more downtime together One of my favorite memories from the trip was when we spontaneously visited a speakeasy. Emily Schlorf Instead of jam-packing every day with new experiences, I wish I'd taken my foot off the gas as the trip progressed — for my grandma's sake as well as my own.As we reached days five and six of the trip, my excitement for the activities I planned dwindled, and I found myself wishing I hadn't planned them at all.Besides, the memories I cherish most from the trip weren't the museums or guided tours, they were the unplanned ones: a shared bottle of wine with our bed and breakfast hosts, a visit to an outdoor antique market, and a nightcap at a speakeasy.Despite the challenges, I'd love to travel with my grandma again I would love to go on another trip with my grandma. Emily Schlorf To anyone contemplating a multigenerational trip, I say do it, but be more considerate than I was. Take time to plan the trip together, think of everyone's needs, and be content with slowing down.Strolling through the city hand-in-hand with my grandma, I learned that it's OK to leave some stones unturned, because the real joy comes from who you're turning them with. Recommended video