• Email Bluesky Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Whatsapp X You have full access to this article via your institution. • HelloNaturereaders, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day?Sign up here. • The NIAID funds high-containment biosafety level-4 laboratories, in which research on highly infectious and deadly viruses is performed.Credit: Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty US pandemic research to take a hit Staff members at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have been instructed to remove the words “biodefense” and “pandemic preparedness” from the institute’s web pages, according to e-mails seen byNature. • The agency - one of 27 institutes and centres at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) - isexpected to deprioritize the two topics in an overhaul of its funded research projects. • The restructure will shift the NIAID’s priorities toward basic immunology and other infectious diseases currently affecting people in the United States, said NIH director Jay Bhattacharya at an event on 30 January. • Nature | 6 min read Intermittent fasting has little impact On-and-off fasting - in which people alternate between periods of restricted and normal eating - is no more effective a weight-loss plan than conventional diets, and is only slightly more effective than not dieting at all.

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