Polio should be eradicated by now — how do we get it done?

Hello Nature readers,
Today we learn that goats might hurt their brains when they butt heads, explore ways to finally get to the endgame for polio and hear from scientists about what tasks they’ll never hand over to AI.

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Goats’ head bonks damage their brains

Goats’ predilection for headbutting might cause them brain damage. Researchers allowed three young goats (Capra hircus) to headbutt freely over the course of six months, scanning their brains at the beginning and end of that period. The trio didn’t appear to have suffered serious brain damage in that time, but there were signs of mild injury, which the team suggests could worsen as the animals’ lives progressed. The findings raise the possibility of using goats as a model in which to study the link between head trauma and neurodegeneration in people.

NIH virologists face smuggling charges

Two virologists at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), Vincent Munster and Claude Kwe, are facing charges related to the alleged smuggling of non-infectious monkeypox virus and other biological samples into the United States. The DNA samples the two were carrying don’t require an import permit, but must be declared to federal officials — a step that the complaint alleges Munster and Kwe failed to complete. Both scientists have pleaded not guilty. The case is the latest in a string of prosecutions of researchers for smuggling biological samples since early 2025, for which some US lawmakers are trying to introduce severe sentences.

Catfish catch cancer from one another

The mystery disease that’s been plaguing the brown bullhead catfish (Ameiurus nebulosus) in a lake straddling the Canada–US border has been identified as a type of transmissible cancer — only the fourth example of tumour cells that can be passed from animal to animal. Surveys have suggested that the disease, a type of melanoma that manifests as inky black skin lesions, affects around one-third of the lake’s catfish population. But it appears in both young and old individuals, suggesting that it might not cause a rapid death.

How to reach the polio end game

The campaign to eradicate polio is, on the face of it, a huge success story: it has reduced cases of the disease by 99.98% since it began almost 40 years ago. But the virus is stubborn, and in the last decade, total-eradication targets have been repeatedly missed. Some researchers are doubtful that polio can be eradicated in Pakistan and Afghanistan — the disease’s two remaining strongholds — without a change in strategy, particularly amid unprecedented funding shortfalls. Some think that a focus on ending conflicts in these countries could allow vaccinators to reach currently inaccessible areas. Others suggest a move away from the goal of eradication, and toward one of global control of the disease.

What scientists won’t give up to chatbots

Recently, we asked you what scientific tasks you’d never give up to artificial-intelligence tools, and Briefing readers responded. From the pleasure of cleaning up messy data to thinking-through-writing, they share some of the tasks that they would rather keep for themselves.

Policing in the age of self-surveillance

In his new book Your Data Will Be Used Against You, jurist Andrew Guthrie Ferguson explores how our casual interactions with technology can turn against us in a courtroom. “What makes the book particularly effective is that it avoids the lazy good-bad binaries that often plague discussions about technology and privacy,” writes reviewer J. B. Branch of the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen. “Yet many readers will likely finish the book asking, ‘What can I do to protect myself now?’”