Xi'an's Og

With a beautiful cover and a wealth of papers following China’s mission on the hidden side of the Moon, this issue offers

• another “feel-good” editorial on the need for a highly ambitious UN treaty on plastics, or rather against plastic, at the August meeting in Geneva this month. Given the opposition of major producers like the USA (now more than ever!) and China, as well as all oil producers, the terrible impact of plastics  on life as a whole (also documented in this issue) is again likely to be ignored in favour of short-term commercial goals. (As illustrated by a feature article on metal-organic frameworks that capture CO² but are posing clear biosafety and environmental challenges, not mention in the article.)
• a second editorial on the rise of metascience, a term I had not X’ed previously, which appears to be the science of scientific practice and impact. Given the limited impact scientists have on governments and societies, now more than ever!,  it is hard to forecast that metascientists will do better…
• a rather tone-deaf tribune by the president of the Weizmann Institute on how they are reconstructing the institute after the Iranian attacks of 15 June (following the Israeli attacks of 13 June that hit several universities and assassinated several nuclear scientists). With empty words for “scientists in Gaza” when the very same Israeli government that funds Weizmann has flattened all academic and medical institutions in Gaza. (The asymmetry was later pointed out by a letter to the Nature editor from an Iranian scientist.) Followed a few pages later by the covarege an independent survey on a likely 80,000 death toll in Gaza.
• A news article on the US National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine failing to take a stand against Trump 2.0, and too readily engaging into collaboration and censorship. And another one on the growing number of foreign scientists arrested at the border for carrying biological material. While I have (in the long past!) carried a raw milk Camembert in my bag and into the US, mea culpa (Io), I am less sympathetic to these cases since some of the material was hazardous, beyond being undeclared. What has changed in the recent is Homeland Security jumping on these cases to increase their deportation figures…
• A long comment by Cantabrigians on the ambivalent role of AIs in writing and reviewing papers, with a proposed fix through the Conservative Evidence database, in Cambridge, England. A lot of coulds, woulds, and shoulds, imposing an international involvement, open access, and reliable procedures separating chaff from grain…