Dolly Parton: celebrating her contributions to science

Hello Nature readers,
Today we explore Dolly Parton's impact on science and scientists, learn about causes and treatments for depression and discover how AI-detection tools are winning the arms race to flag bot-written words.

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The scientific legacy of Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton has died at the age of 80, leaving a legacy of music, philanthropy and science. She helped to fund Moderna’s early-stage vaccine research and filmed herself being vaccinated to help dispel hesitancy. And her Imagination Library programme sends more than three million books per month to children around the world. “Today is a sad day as we mourn an exceptional artist, a true champion of kindness, and ambassador of science and public health,” says Tedros Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization.

Chang’e-7 Moon mission postponed

The next in China’s series of lunar probes, Chang’e-7, has been rescheduled at the last minute until 2027. The mission aims to arrive near the south pole — a rock- and crater-strewn region known for being challenging to land on — to hunt for water ice and study moonquakes. The China Manned Space Agency did not give a reason for the delay in its single-sentence announcement on Sunday.

The arms race to detect AI writing

AI-detecting tools such as Pangram and GPTZero claim that they can identify text generated by large language models, almost every time. And platforms that integrate the tools — such as alphaXiv, a mirror of the arXiv preprint server — are bringing them to a wide audience. But although software can spot whether AI was involved in a piece, it can’t prove how AI was used or judge what’s ethically acceptable. That, researchers say, could be an inescapable limitation of AI detection, however good it gets.

Who’s watching you sleep?

Poor sleep harms health, reduces productivity and puts workplace safety at risk — all of which could incentivize employers to start tracking our shut-eye, write bioethicists Brian Earp, Sebastian Porsdam Mann and Effy Vayena. And, as more products promise to actually improve sleep, “when does institutional support for better sleep turn into an expectation?” they ask. “Researchers, ethicists and policymakers must explore such concerns before the technology matures and is used more widely.”

How to land an early-career fellowship

Stefan Howorka and Christoph Salzmann, who run a successful research fellowship system in the chemistry department at University College London, offer practical advice to help you strengthen your application at every stage of securing your first fellowship.