Prêmio CBMM

Editorial

Letter from the editor | 298

Encouraging prospects

In February of this year, when we were putting together the March issue, the first official record of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Brazil was confirmed. We had no idea what the future might bring. Our first article on the topic, “The Novel Coronavirus in Brazil,” reported on the disease’s arrival and described the other types of... View Article

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Letter from the editor | 297

The Pantanal’s turn

The Pantanal is one of the best-preserved biomes in Brazil. As of 2019, 84% of its native vegetation had been maintained. It’s landscape is shaped by heavy rainfall and river floods, which leave much of the land flooded for months, as well as droughts that result in sporadic fires. The fires that devastated 27% of... View Article

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Letter from the editor | 296

Legal subjects

The idea that children are individuals who deserve the same rights as adults, as well as other specific rights based on their inherent vulnerability, is a recent one. Previously seen as belonging to the family or the State, the notion that they deserve particular attention grew in popularity as we learned more about childhood development,... View Article

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Editorial

An all-inclusive illness

When the first reports emerged of a new disease in China at the turn of the year, it was described as a “pneumonia of unknown cause.” A few months later, with 25 million cases and 900,000 deaths worldwide, COVID-19 is known to be a more complex and widespread disease than previously thought. Immunologist Anthony Fauci,... View Article

Letter from the Editor | 294

The plague and the pain

It is no surprise that pandemics have a significant impact on the population’s mental health. The fear of contagion and death, the immediate impact of an economic downturn, the stress of confinement, the burden of having to take on  tasks that used to be shared by multiple people, and worrying about the future have all... View Article

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Letter from the Editor | 293

The challenge of immunization

Less than four months after China notified the WHO that it had identified a cluster of pneumonia cases “of unknown cause,” potential vaccines for the novel coronavirus had already begun human testing. One of the first companies to start phase 1 clinical trials (in humans) was Chinese biopharmaceutical firm Sinovac Biotech, with which the Butantan... View Article

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Letter from the Editor | 292

Crucial numbers

Little is known about viruses. Existing on the boundary between the living and the nonliving, they are found in all environments where there is life. Their effects on living beings can be beneficial, harmless, or capable of triggering devastating epidemics, such as Ebola, Zika, and now, SARS-CoV-2. Although the number of species is estimated in... View Article

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Letter from the editor

Journalism during a pandemic

On March 20, the Pesquisa FAPESP offices closed and the team began working remotely. The April issue was completed in the midst of a rush to establish new working processes involving videoconferences, content-sharing platforms, and cloud storage. The May edition, meanwhile, was planned and executed from a distance, with only the journal’s photographer, Léo Ramos... View Article

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Letter from the editor

A challenge for science

In May 1919, when the H1N1 pandemic known as the Spanish flu was slowing down, the journal Science published an article titled “The Lessons of the Pandemic.” In the article, American sanitation engineer and epidemiologist George A. Soper wrote: “The most astonishing thing about the pandemic was the complete mystery which surrounded it. Nobody seemed... View Article

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Editorial

Women and Science

Modern science and its remarkable advances are closely associated with the ideas and research of men. Although this perception is not entirely accurate, it is also not incorrect. Like all human activity, science is a part of our current social structure, which is undoubtedly based on a male perspective. Londa Schiebinger, a professor of the... View Article

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Letter from the editor

DNA tampering

The idea of manipulating DNA to modify the human body is slowly becoming a reality. Researchers from all over the world, including Brazil, are working on methods that could effectively eliminate or alleviate certain diseases. What these scientists want is to silence, alter, or replace the genes that cause problems. Last year, Chinese scientists announced... View Article

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Pesquisa Fapesp, 20 years

n 1963, a report by the Royal Society on the emigration of scientists sparked a public debate over so-called brain drain. Half a century later, international mobility among scientists is still an object of debate fueled by reports and studies. Initially restricted to people with a background in science and technology, the term currently covers... View Article

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Letter from the editor | 287

Calcium for tomatoes

Agriculture’s advance in Brazil is directly linked to scientific and technological research in the sector. The Agronomic Institute of Campinas was created in 1887, and the country’s first master’s thesis defended in 1961 at what is now the Federal University of Viçosa, was in the field of agronomic engineering, on the effects of irrigation and... View Article

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Letter from the editor | 286

Evangelicalism and politics

In 1872, the year of the first Brazilian census, almost the entire population of the country defined themselves as Catholic (99.7%). One hundred years later, the proportion had changed, but only slightly, to 91.8% in 1970. Since then, official statistics show, the decline has accelerated: in 1991, the total was 83.3%, and in 2010 it... View Article

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Letter from the editor | 285

Challenges in the Amazon

The debate on the Amazon’s future depends largely on how exactly we define development. Since the 1970s, several governmental initiatives—as well as many private, often illegal ones—have focused on occupying the territory for farming and mining activities, as well as using its rivers to generate electricity, even if uncontrolled logging is involved. Northern Brazil is... View Article

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Letter from the editor | 284

Journalism for science

In October 1999, the Notícias FAPESP newsletter became the Pesquisa FAPESP journal, expanding the mission for scientific dissemination begun four years earlier by the foundation from which the publication gets its name. Two decades later, the need and desire to inform the public about science produced in Brazil and in the state of São Paulo... View Article

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Letter from the editor

Fortune and chance

Science evolves in a nonlinear manner. Subject to mishaps and chance, its path is much more lively and interesting than one might presume. Frequently, there is a good story behind important discoveries. One of these stories happened one hundred years ago and had Brazil as its stage. In 1919, Albert Einstein was not yet the... View Article

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Letter from the editor | 283

Brains on the move

In 1963, a report on the emigration of scientists by the British scientific academy The Royal Society triggered what would come to be known as the brain drain debate. The origin of the term is attributed to then Minister of Science Lord Hailsham, who accused the USA of “parasitizing British brains.” Half a century later,... View Article

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Letter from the editor | 282

Technology Purchase

Five years ago, the Brazilian government signed a purchasing contract for a batch of military jets from Swedish company Saab. This month, the first model of the new generation Gripen E fighter is scheduled to take off from the city of Linköping, Sweden, to begin its flight test campaign, the last stage before delivery in... View Article

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Letter from the editor | 281

Too much plastic

Versatility is one of the many useful characteristics of plastic, which can be used in a range of applications in place of glass, wood, paper, metal, and natural fabrics, making it ubiquitous in modern society. Global plastic production was 2 million tons in 1950, and reached around 400 million tons in 2016. It is the... View Article

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Letter from the editor | 280

The horizons of science

Man’s arrival on the Moon captured the public imagination better than any other scientific or technological achievement in the modern era. The feat seemed so unattainable that, to this day, conspiracy theories abound that the entire event was faked by the US government in the midst of a space race against the Soviet Union. Believe... View Article

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Letter from the editor | 279

Brazilian paleontology on the rise

Argentina and Brazil are home to some of the oldest dinosaur fossils ever discovered. With a long history in paleontology, Argentina has thoroughly explored a geological layer in the provinces of San Juan and La Rioja that dates to the first stage of the Upper Triassic period (between 237 million and 227 million years ago),... View Article

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Letter from the editor

Brains and births

The Biobank brain collection is a direct beneficiary of the University of São Paulo’s link with the city’s postmortem investigation service. The collection, which includes over 3,000 specimens donated by relatives of people subject to an autopsy, is a valuable contribution to research on aging, enabling advances in fields such as Alzheimer’s disease. Psychiatric disorders... View Article

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Letter from the editor | 278

A Dynamic Universe

The evolution of science is much less linear and predictable, as well as more susceptible to mistakes and chance, than it might first appear. There are often interesting stories behind important discoveries that despite now seeming irrefutable, may have been controversial at the time. One such case occurred 100 years ago, and a Brazilian scientist... View Article

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Letter from the editor | 277

Complex mechanisms

Publicly funded education in Brazil is a complex institutional system. The 1988 Constitution states that the process should be jointly funded and managed by all three levels of government: municipal, state, and federal. The federal government is responsible for organizing the flow of funds and has to direct at least 18% of tax revenue to... View Article

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Letter from the editor | 276

Knowledge for all

The journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, published by the British Academy of Sciences, is the oldest scientific journal in the world. It was founded in 1665 and sold at 1 shilling per copy with the aim of presenting an overview of new discoveries in natural philosophy. Started as a personal project by the... View Article

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Letter from the Editor | 275

From neural networks to artificial intelligence

In the early 1990s, researchers from São Paulo submitted research proposals to FAPESP on artificial neural networks, a relatively unknown field at the time, in which computer systems simulate the human central nervous system. The objective is to develop algorithms that recognize patterns, allowing the machine to “learn.” Artificial intelligence (AI) first emerged in the... View Article

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letter from the editor | 274

Constitution, 30

A constitution is the maximum applicable legal framework of a state; the set of its fundamental principles. It confers powers and establishes their limits. Constitutions vary in form and content depending on the history and traditions of the nation, and they are often replaced at times of significant political change. Brazil is no exception: the... View Article

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Letter from the editor | 273

Advances in Alzheimer’s research

One of the benefits of the University of São Paulo’s link with the city of São Paulo’s postmortem investigation service is the Biobank brain collection for studies into aging. The 3,000 specimens, donated by relatives of people who were subject to an autopsy after their death, are a highly valuable contribution to research, enabling advances... View Article

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Letter from the Editor | 272

The role of museums

Images of the Brazilian National Museum in flames shocked the world. The 200-year-old institution, based in a former imperial palace, was home to plants and animals collected during nineteenth-century expeditions throughout Brazil, mummies and minerals gathered by the Portuguese royal family, prehistoric fossils and meteorites, and artifacts of extinct indigenous peoples. A collection of inestimable... View Article

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