Science in 2025: what to expect this year
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Hi listeners, Benjamin here. Welcome to the first episode of The Nature Podcast for 2025. It's January the 1st and my goodness, we've got a lot to talk about today. As we so often do on The Nature Podcast, we begin with a little look-see the year ahead. And joining me to talk about what's in store for science over the next 12 months is Miriam Nadav. Miriam, how are you doing today? I'm doing well, Benjamin. How are you? Yeah, doing A-OK. Now, this is the third time

time you've done this, I think. Certainly third time you've done it on the podcast. It must be quite a fun job kind of getting the crystal ball out and having a look, see what might be in store. Yeah, it's super exciting and I'm also super excited to be on the podcast for the third year in a row. Hopefully third time a charm. Well, it's good to have you here. And every year you write an article and you spread your net quite wide then in the kind of nature family and ask what might be coming up, right? Yes, and I get plenty of emails and I get everything from an

anniversaries to space missions, particle physics. Yeah, plenty of clinical trials, drug approvals and sometimes some politics. Well, we'll go through a few that made the list this year. And let's start with space. Everyone loves talking about space. Now, 2024 was a big year.

year for space and it seems that the same is going to happen again in 2025. Yes, that's right. So it's another busy year. Let's start with some moon missions. The private firm iSpace in Tokyo is making another attempt to land on the moon this year.

Its first mission in 2023 came really close to landing successfully and they are ready to give it another shot now. This year's mission is called Venture Moon and it will launch sometime this month and it will carry a lander and a micro rover.

Yes, they were really in the final stages before touchdown when they lost contact with their ship last time out. So hopefully better luck for them this time around. But they're not the only ones heading there. No. So not far behind Venture Moon, there is another private firm called Intuitive Machines in the US that will be sending a Falcon 9 rocket with a lander that carries NASA's ice trail and a mass spectrometer to the south pole of the moon.

And sharing the right is NASA's Lunar Trailblazer.

which is a box-shaped spacecraft that will orbit the Moon and map water on its surface to later study the abundance and distribution of water on the Moon. But of course, there are a bunch of missions that are looking further than the Moon. Yes, Benjamin. So this year is definitely an exciting year for astronomers and astrophysicists. There are a couple of solar wind missions launching this year. One of them is NASA's Punch mission.

It's an acronym for Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere. Of course. So this mission consists of four satellites that will capture 3D images of the sun atmosphere to study how energy and mass become the solar wind and flow into the solar system.

Something that has puzzled astronomers for 60 years. Yeah, we covered it on the podcast not so long ago with some researchers. And I remember one saying, it's kind of like a waterfall coming out of the sun. We can see the bottom of the waterfall, but what's happening at the top is a bit of a mystery. And there's lots of competing theories there. So hopefully this might help tidy things up a little bit. Well, let's see what they find out.

The other solar wind mission is called SMILE, a shortcut for Solar Wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer. OK. Bit of a mouthful. But this mission is a collaboration between the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. And the SMILE satellite will study how solar wind interacts with the Earth's magnetic field. Right. Fantastic. And it's not just looking out. It's looking out.

into the heavens then that these missions are doing. There are some that are going up into orbit and looking back down at Earth, looking at the state of the planet. And there's a few, I think. So there are a couple of satellite missions. One of them is a collaboration between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization, ISRO, and

And the mission is called NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar. It will map nearly all of Earth's land and ice-covered surfaces twice every 12 days. And as we've covered on the show before, this kind of data and importantly, this kind of up-to-date data is really important for researchers who are looking at the state of the planet. And there will be more data from the European Space Agency, which is preparing to launch a mission called Biomass Space.

and Biomass Mission will use a radar to measure forest biomass and its role in the carbon cycle. So plenty of data for climate scientists wanting to study forest and deforestation. Well, let's stick with climate if we can, Miriam. And

It's 30 years of the United Nations COP climate talks this year. Yes, that's right. COP 30 will be in Belem in Brazil in November this year. And we will see delegates finalising some big decisions left unresolved at last year's conference. So last year in COP 29, the delegates pledged $300 billion a year as a target of climate finance for developing countries.

And this year's meeting should really address questions like how much will be delivered as grants versus loans and how much will come from private or public sectors. And obviously with COP, the devil is in the details. And I suppose only time will tell whether things get agreed or whether everything's kicked down the road further until 2026.

One figure we have to talk about, of course, is Donald Trump, whose inauguration is a few weeks away. And in his last term, he pulled the US out of the 2015 Paris climate summit.

agreement, of course, which came about at ACOP and is sure to have a big role to play in science in 2025. For sure, Ben. So a lot of researchers are worried that Donald Trump would once again pull out of the Paris Agreement, which commits countries to limit global warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. He did this back in 2019, as you said, during his previous term.

And now we just have to wait and see what decisions he come up this time. There are also other things that scientists are worried about. For example, Trump's nomination of Robert Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Service Secretary. Kennedy Jr. is known for being a vaccine sceptic and many are concerned about how his appointment would impact

public health policies and research. And there are things that were brought about by President Joe Biden as well that folk are keeping an eye on, things like AI and what have you. Yeah, for sure. So President Biden put into place an executive order on AI, but Trump promised to repeal it once he's back in the office. And this could result in changes in how AI technologies are developed and regulated. An AI...

was kind of front and centre in your look ahead for 2024. But another area that received kind of blanket coverage last year were these so-called weight loss wonder drugs, these GLP-1 agonists. They've made the list this year. Presumably it's going to be potentially then a big year for these drugs. Yes, so many people might have heard of the miracle drug Ozempic and the scientific name is semaglutide.

Ozempic is licensed to treat diabetes, but the drug has also shown great potential in treating obesity. And now we know it as the name Wegovi. So we are in for a new wave of these GLP-1 agonists. So there will be more clinical trials and possibly some results for new drugs. For example, the pharma firm Eli Lilly will be wrapping up a phase three trial for Orfogliprone. It's an oral pill.

which means no injections. Plus, it's a non-peptide GLP-1 agonist, so it's easier to produce and package, and many think it will be cheaper than currently available drugs. Another firm, Emgen, is preparing a phase 3 trial for a new double-action drug called...

called Maritide. Maritide targets two pathways involved in blood sugar control and metabolism, and it's also supposed to be injected once a month or even less frequently. And we talk about these drugs as being used as treatments for diabetes or in some cases obesity, but it seemed like last year there were a lot of suggestions that they could work as effective treatments for a

potentially quite wide range of other conditions as well. Now, these were kind of early ideas at the time, but presumably this is something that's really being looked at under more of a microscope this year. For sure. So weight loss seems to be not the only benefit that these drugs might offer. There are ongoing trials and studies exploring the potential of GLP-1 agonist for treating other conditions like

Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, addiction and even smoking. Well, let's change tack completely and let's talk about another perennial favourite in the look-ahead list and that is big physics. Now, there is one experiment that you've described as colossal and that's the European spallation source. Tell me about that and what it's due to do. So in Sweden, the European spallation source should finally start partially operating and

This is a massive neutron beam machine and its construction began in 2014. So it's been over a decade in the making. Now, this year, it will perform the first beam on target. So it will fire a beam of protons accelerated to nearly the speed of light at a heavy metal target generating neutron beams.

Then scientists can use these neutron beams to study things like condensed matter and magnetic materials or the structure of materials in general. And of course, when you think about big physics, you think about CERN, I suppose. What's going on in Switzerland? So over at CERN, the European Particle Physics Lab near Geneva, they are finishing up a feasibility study for the future circular collider. So this is a 91-kilometre ring-shaped particle accelerator system

It's huge, it's massive, but it hasn't started yet. So the feasibility study finishing up this year will evaluate the financial viability, the technical aspects and environmental impacts of building the supercollider. And that study will help CERN to make a final decision on the project in 2028. Well, Miriam, that is a race through some of the things that we may see happening.

in 2025. When you were pulling together this list, was there anything else that stood out to you? Well, something happening this month, actually. The FDA in the US is reviewing suzitrogen, which is a non-opioid painkiller. The drug was developed by Vertix Pharmaceuticals. And then so by the end of this month, the FDA will make a decision whether or not to approve it.

And if it does get approved, it's going to be the first new class of drugs to treat acute pain in over 20 years. Well, certainly one to keep an eye out for. And I'm sure we'll be covering it over at nature.com.

slash news along with all the other things that you brought to today's podcast and of course the nature podcast will be keeping abreast of all of this stuff too but all that remains to be said for this week's podcast is miriam thank you so much for joining me and laying out what we might expect in 2025 thank you benjamin it's been a pleasure and happy new year happy new year to you too

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