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From assisting in healthcare to lecturing at universities, AI avatars are increasingly filling roles across China, so much so that the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s cyberspace regulator, has published new rules for virtual digital humans. They require people to consent to the use of their personal information, appearance or voice. And companies are prohibited from providing children and young people with virtual relatives or virtual intimate relationships, and from creating services that could lead children to become addicted to virtual human services. In response, some tech companies have begun disabling features that allow users to create their own custom AI avatars.

Nature | 7 minutes of reading

Reference: Administrative measures for virtual digital human information services (draft for public comment) (in Chinese)

About 550 million years ago, a flat, segmented, worm-like creature called Sprigina flounder It made its way through the seafloor mud of the Ediacara period. And when it moved, it tended to move to the right, the researchers say. A study of more than 100 sprigina Specimens from South Australia, where it is the state fossil, found that they were about twice as likely to lean in the right-turning direction when they died, compared to the opposite direction. “The presence of laterality in any type of functional asymmetry, very deep in the fossil record, gives us important and interesting information,” says evolutionary biologist Russell Bicknell.

Smithsonian Magazine | 5 minutes of reading

Reference: Scientific Reports paper

Infographic of the week

Many countries cannot maintain their own regulatory drug approval processes and therefore rely on reviews from others, especially the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “Since the 1980s, this model has been a win-win proposition for countries, their citizens, and pharmaceutical companies,” writes pharmacy practice researcher C. Michael White. However, changes under US President Donald Trump’s administration, such as staff cuts and a new program that offers accelerated approval of some drugs, “could damage international confidence in [the FDA’s] objectivity and rigor,” White argues. (The Conversation | 8 min read) (The Conversation (CC-BY-ND))

Features and opinion

Sodium-ion batteries promise to be cheaper, safer and more environmentally friendly than the lithium-ion cells that currently dominate technologies such as electric cars. And the sea change could finally be here: CATL, the world’s largest battery producer, has announced that it will begin mass producing sodium-ion batteries by the end of the year. Strong interest from battery manufacturers and researchers has helped solve long-standing challenges such as lack of durability.

Nature | 10 minutes of reading

Advanced technologies are poised to reveal the mysteries of the deep ocean floor…and deeper. Hydrophone data can detect tsunamis faster than destructive megawaves can travel, and a system that relies on the optical cables that carry our data can detect seismic events over thousands of kilometers. Meanwhile, scientists plan to drill into the lower boundary of the crust (called the Mohorovičić discontinuity) and take the first pristine samples of the underlying mantle.

Nature | 7 minutes of reading

Can I borrow 1.2 million dollars? That’s the highest estimate for a very special pen that helped bring Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin back from the Moon. As I write, it is being auctioned, along with the broken switch it served to replace long enough to restore a circuit they needed to take off.

This firmly justifies my dedication to always carrying a pen, even though I rarely write by hand anymore. I’d love to know what item you’ll never leave home without (I’ll allow you the watch, wallet and keys as a gift), plus any other comments about this newsletter, at briefing@nature.com.

Thanks for reading,

Flora Graham, Editor-in-Chief, Nature Briefing

With contributions from Jacob Smith

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