Scientists welcome the plan, but note that the agreement is only a temporary fix to a much thornier problem. The river, battered by overuse, drought and climate change, has been drying up. Seven US states this week finally agreed on a plan to cut their use of water from the iconic Colorado River, which supplies water to more than 40 million people in the United States and Mexico. Nature | 6 min read New plan not enough to save Colorado River “This authorization opens the opportunity to add another tool for how we address this threat,” says Ashleigh Blackford, the California-condor coordinator at the US Fish and Wildlife Service. But there are only around 540 condors left, after a heroic effort to save them from extinction in the 1980s and 90s. There is no promise that it will work - the vaccine was developed for chickens, and still needs testing in condors. It is the first time that the country has approved the inoculation of any bird against the virus. US officials have authorized the vaccination of the critically endangered California condor ( Gymnogyps californianus) against a type of avian flu that has killed hundreds of millions of birds around the world. Nature | 5 min read US moves to protect condors from avian flu

“The problem I have with this paper is that it lumps together studies that are effectively different interventions,” says neurologist Alvaro Pascual-Leone.

A meta-analysis of more than 100 studies examining one type of TES found that the technique brings about moderate improvements in attention, memory and problem solving. Transcranial electrical stimulation (TES) involves sending a painless, weak electrical current to the brain through electrodes on the scalp. Eddin/Military Collection/Alamy Brain zapping probably does boost focusĪfter years of debate over whether non-invasively zapping the brain with electrical current can improve a person’s mental functioning, a massive analysis of past studies offers an answer: probably. Researchers have been exploring whether zapping a person’s brain with electrical current through electrodes on their scalp can improve cognition. Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here.

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