Smriti Mallapaty

Australia

Asia-Pacific Reporter at Nature

Asia-Pacific reporter for Nature News (smriti-dot-mallapaty-at-nature-dot-com)

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Articles

First Chinese mission to sample an asteroid starts its journey

1 week ago | nature.com | Smriti Mallapaty

China has sent a probe on an ambitious mission to grab rocks from a near-Earth asteroid and return them to Earth before making a final visit to a distant comet. Tianwen-2 blasted off from Xichang launch centre in southern China at 1:31AM Beijing time today. The spacecraft is now on its way to Kamo‘oalewa, an asteroid between 40 and 100 metres wide. The asteroid’s small size and fast spin — a full rotation takes only 28 minutes — will make gathering samples challenging.
Hong Kong universities woo Harvard international students targeted by Trump

1 week ago | nature.com | Smriti Mallapaty

At least three universities in Hong Kong are inviting international students at Harvard University to join their institutions, following the United States administration’s shock decision last week to ban the prestigious American institution from enrolling foreign students.
‘Landmark’ evolution study shows how rice inherits tolerance to cold without DNA changes

2 weeks ago | nature.com | Smriti Mallapaty

Rice plants can inherit tolerance to cold without changes to their genomes, according to a decade-long study1 carried out by researchers in China. The work, published in Cell today, strengthens the evidence for a form of evolution in which environmental pressures induce heritable changes that do not alter an organism’s DNA.
How Much Ultraprocessed Food Do You Eat? Blood and Urine Record It

2 weeks ago | scientificamerican.com | Smriti Mallapaty

Molecules in urine and blood can reveal how much of a person’s diet comes from ultra-processed foods, according to a study published in PLOS Medicine today. The paper suggests that these measurements provide an objective way to track consumption of ultra-processed food — and would be useful for investigating links to diseases such as diabetes and cancer.
How Much Ultraprocessed Food Do You Eat? Blood and Urine Record It

2 weeks ago | yahoo.com | Smriti Mallapaty

Molecules in urine and blood can reveal how much of a person’s diet comes from ultra-processed foods, according to a study published in PLOS Medicine today. The paper suggests that these measurements provide an objective way to track consumption of ultra-processed food — and would be useful for investigating links to diseases such as diabetes and cancer.
How much ultra-processed food do you eat? Blood and urine record it

2 weeks ago | nature.com | Smriti Mallapaty

Molecules in urine and blood can reveal how much of a person’s diet comes from ultra-processed foods, according to a study published in PLOS Medicine today1. The paper suggests that these measurements provide an objective way to track consumption of ultra-processed food — and would be useful for investigating links to diseases such as diabetes and cancer.
Exclusive: NIH grant rejections have more than doubled amid Trump chaos

2 weeks ago | nature.com | Smriti Mallapaty

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has drastically increased the number of grant applications it has rejected without funding, adding to a long list of setbacks for medical research that have occurred under the administration of US President Donald Trump. So far this year, at least 2,500 applications for research funding have been withdrawn — a term the agency uses to denote refusal for administrative reasons.
Can NIH-funded research on racism and health survive Trump’s cuts?

3 weeks ago | nature.com | Smriti Mallapaty

Dinushika Mohottige had anticipated the termination of her research grant, but it still stung — and left her with questions.
Stem cells coaxed into most advanced amniotic sacs ever grown in the lab

3 weeks ago | nature.com | Smriti Mallapaty

Researchers have coaxed stem cells to grow into amniotic sacs filled with fluid1. The model sacs, which grew to roughly the same size as a four-week-old sac surrounding a developing embryo, could be used to study the protective structure. The amnion is a thin, transparent film that forms a fluid-filled sac that shields and cushions an embryo, potentially supporting its development. But researchers can’t easily access and study the tissue at early stages of pregnancy.
Trump freezes ‘gain of function’ pathogen research ― threatening all US virology, critics say

1 month ago | nature.com | Smriti Mallapaty

US President Donald Trump has issued an executive order suspending all federal funding for a type of virology research that his administration considers dangerous. But some scientists say the order is so broad that low-risk research will also be affected.