Children with measles receive care in a hospital in the Philippines.Credit: Ezra Acayan/Getty

Measles erases immune ‘memory’ for other diseases

Measles infections in children can wipe out the immune system’s memory of other illnesses. This can leave children vulnerable to other pathogens that they might have been protected from before their bout of measles.

The findings, published on 31 October in Science and Science Immunology, come at a time when measles cases are spiking. Globally, there were more measles infections in the first six months of 2019 than in any year since 2006, according to the World Health Organization.

The measles virus seems to destroy immune cells that ‘remember’ encounters with specific bacteria and viruses (V. N. Petrova et al. Sci. Immunol. 4, eaay6125; 2019). And results from a separate team indicate that measles can damage plasma cells in the bone marrow, cells that could otherwise produce pathogen-specific antibodies for decades (M. J. Mina et al. Science 366, 599–606; 2019).

The findings emphasize how the measles vaccine protects against more than just measles, says Velislava Petrova, an immunologist at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK, who led the Science Immunology study.

Climate fund attracts record sum for developing nations

Developed nations have together pledged US$9.8 billion to replenish a United Nations fund that helps low-income countries to reduce their carbon emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

At a conference on 24–25 October in Paris, 27 countries promised to contribute to the latest fund-raising round for the Green Climate Fund (GCF). The total value of these pledges exceeds the $9.3 billion promised in the last round in 2014, despite the absence this time of the United States and Australia. Thirteen nations, including the United Kingdom, Germany and France, pledged at least double what they did five years ago, in domestic-currency terms.

The fund was established in 2010 and has so far allocated $5.2 billion to climate-change mitigation and adaptation projects around the world.

The United States committed more money to the GCF than any other nation in 2014, but US President Donald Trump has since withdrawn $2 billion of the $3 billion that was promised, and has declined to contribute further to the fund. This left a substantial hole in the GCF’s coffers, although European nations have largely made up the shortfall.

The fund remains open, and it is likely that more countries will make pledges in the coming months. Countries that have been stymied by domestic political processes could also increase the amount they have said they will give. More funding is expected from Belgium, for instance, where a parliamentary resolution to double its $45-million contribution came too late to be reflected in its most recent pledge.

Source: Green Climate Fund

Interstellar comet contains alien water

Astronomers have for the first time spotted signs of water in our Solar System that originated somewhere else. The alien water seems to be spraying off comet 2I/Borisov, which is flying towards the Sun on a journey from interstellar space, reported a team led by Adam McKay at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, on 28 October (A. McKay et al. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.12785; 2019).

“There’s water — that’s cool, that’s great,” says Olivier Hainaut, an astronomer at the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany. Most comets contain a lot of water, he says — but confirming its presence in an interstellar comet is an important step towards understanding how water might travel between the stars.

Astronomers have been avidly tracking Borisov ever since its discovery on 30 August. It is only the second interstellar object ever spotted.

McKay and his colleagues used a 3.5-metre telescope at Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico, to probe the sunlight reflecting off Borisov. On 11 October, they spotted signs of oxygen in light coming from the comet. Although comets can produce oxygen in various ways, researchers say that the most likely source is water breaking apart into hydrogen and oxygen.

Astronomers discovered comet 2I/Borisov in late August.Credit: D. Jewitt (UCLA)/ESA/NASA

South Korea clamps down on ‘weak’ conferences

South Korea’s education ministry wants to stop academics from participating in conferences that have little academic value. The ministry announced on 17 October that it will require all universities to adopt measures to vet academics’ travel to overseas conferences so as to “prevent researchers from engaging in poor academic activities”.

The ministry’s order comes after a report that it released in May, which found that 574 professors from 90 universities around the country had participated in conferences that it called “weak”. It is thought that some researchers knowingly elect to pay the fees to attend such conferences, or to publish in low-quality journals — some of which are considered ‘predatory’ journals — because they are a quick and easy way to add a publication or presentation to their CVs, or to gain experience in presenting at international conferences.

Under the new policy, researchers will be required to fill out checklists before attending overseas conferences and then submit the lists to their universities, which will use them to screen the adequacy of the researchers’ academic and research activities, the ministry told Nature in a statement.

South Korea's researchers will be required to fill out checklists before attending overseas conferences.Credit: Newscom/Alamy

Major climate conference swaps venue amid protests

The United Nations’ annual climate summit will decamp to a new continent, as a result of massive protests against economic inequality (pictured) that have rocked Chile for nearly two weeks.

On 30 October, Chilean President Sebastián Piñera cancelled plans to host the climate meeting, known as the 25th annual Conference of the Parties (COP25), which was due to start in December in Santiago, citing safety concerns. A day later, Spanish President Pedro Sánchez offered to host the summit in Madrid, a proposal the UN has accepted. The summit will still take place on 2–13 December.

Countries attending COP25 plan to work out the details of implementing the Paris climate agreement ahead of 2020, when they will update their climate pledges under the international pact. As many as 25,000 people are expected to attend the talks.

The cancellation was the latest in a series of obstacles for the climate conference. Chile had agreed last year to host the talks after Brazil backed out of holding the meeting.