Pipeline cyberattack, Roblox earnings, Italian Neanderthals

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Here’s what you need to know

A cyberattack shut down the largest oil pipeline in the US. Emergency legislation now allows fuel to be transported by road, after the Colonial Pipeline—which carries nearly half the east coast supply—was knocked offline.

Covid-19 infections are not slowing down in India. The health ministry reported more than 366,161 new cases and 3,754 deaths in the last 24 hours, almost certainly an undercount.

Violence in Jerusalem continues. There have been further clashes by the Al-Aqsa mosque before today’s annual march by Jewish nationalists, against a backdrop of anger over Palestinian evictions; the US expressed “serious concerns.”

Families in Afghanistan are burying dozens of murdered children. More than 60 people, mainly young girls, died in a bomb attack outside a school in Kabul on Saturday.

Sadiq Khan won a second term as London mayor. The Labour Party politician retains control of key policy areas like transportation, housing, and policing as the city emerges from a third lockdown.

Melinda Gates reportedly initiated divorce proceedings two years ago. According to the Wall Street Journal, her consultations with lawyers followed revelations about Bill Gates’ relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

What to watch for

Roblox, the popular online children’s game, will report its first quarter earnings after markets close today, its first report since its March IPO. Free to play, Roblox’s continued success relies heavily on its ability to monetize its users (with a parent or supervisor’s permission, of course.)

Users purchased $12.4 billion worth of Robux, the game’s currency, over the first three months of 2020, more than in the last two years combined. Still, that leaves the company making considerably less per user than Farmville creator Zynga.

With 37 million daily active users of its own through September and millions of developers at work to expand its universe, Roblox’s easiest path to increased monetization might be making its game more palatable to players unburdened by parental supervision: Just 15% of core users are over age 25.

Charting Malaria, with hope

Though Covid-19 has resulted in an estimated 122,600 deaths in Africa since the onset of the pandemic, malaria, a disease that is particularly prevalent and deadly in the continent, took more than 400,000 lives in 2019 alone, according to the World Health Organization, with 94% of cases and deaths in sub-Saharan Africa.

A global group of researchers recently released a preliminary study reporting that their malaria vaccine, heralded as a breakthrough due to its safety profile and low production costs, showed up to 77% efficacy in a one-year preliminary clinical trial involving 450 children in Burkina Faso.

If a peer review confirms the results, it would exceed the 75% effectiveness target for vaccines set by the WHO.

The future of RNA-based medicine

Decades of work have led us to a golden age of precision genetic medicine, writes Katherine Foley. There are three fields for which genetic medicine offers particularly promising innovations:

🚫Immunizations: RNA-based vaccines work by instructing our cells to make the spike protein found on the SARS-CoV-2 virus, spooking the immune system into action. The biggest challenge in immunizing against HIV, tuberculosis, and the flu is that these pathogens have multiple proteins to code for, not just the one in SARS-CoV-2. With mRNA, however, it’s easy to include the code for several kinds of proteins in a single injection.

👀 Cancer therapies: Cancer is caused by genetic code that’s gone haywire. The most sinister aspect of the disease is how it evades our immune systems. Personalized cancer vaccines would effectively lift cancer’s camouflage. These vaccines would introduce mRNA that codes for one of the unique proteins the cancer produces, called a neo-antigen, that the body could then recognize and attack. Instead of flooding the body with toxic chemicals that kill cells with abandon, cancer vaccines could target only the cancer itself.

☝️ Cures or treatments for genetic diseases: For more common rare diseases, a single treatment may work for multiple people. Nucleic acid therapies like ASOs and RNAs that can correct or silence errors in genetic code are a beacon of hope. mRNA won’t be just for rare orphan diseases, either; Ionis Pharmaceuticals has drugs in the pipeline for Alzheimer’s disease, cystic fibrosis, and Hepatitis B—all of which are relatively common—as well as a therapy that could treat high cholesterol and cardiovascular disease.

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Surprising discoveries

Archaeologists unearthed nine Neanderthals in an Italian cave. The ancient humans, who died about 40,000 years ago, may have been killed by hyenas.

AI outscored human crossword savants. The bot, named “Dr. Fill,” beat 1,000 participants at the American Crossword Puzzle tournament.

A local news station caught a dog thief. A man was charged with larceny after a Boston news crew filmed him with a stolen German shorthaired pointer named Titus.

The Kentucky Derby winner failed a drug test. Medina Spirit’s trainer Bob Baffert has been banned from Churchill Downs after seeing five of his horses fail tests in little over a year.

The FBI released case files on Kurt Cobain’s 1994 suicide. They contain letters written to the agency from fans who believed the Nirvana frontman was murdered.

Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, horse drug tests, and rocket debris to hi@qz.com. Get the most out of Quartz by downloading our iOS app and becoming a member. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Hasit Shah, Mary Hui, Tripti Lahiri, Ana Campoy, Adam Epstein, and Jordan Lebeau.