This week, the criminal underground behind email scams.

There may be as many as seven or eight different independent organizations all working together

to complete that sale.

And the Brazilian scientist who dropped everything to study Zika virus and birth defects.

All the projects that were not involved in Zika virus, they are on standby right now.

And we just focused on Zika virus and correlation with the microcephaly.

Plus particles that are sort of particles colliding with other sort of particles, maybe.

This is the nature podcast for May

the 12th, 2016. I'm Adam Levy. And I'm Kerry Smith.

A new paper uses a series of experiments to test a controversial link between the Zika virus

and an increase in birth defects in Brazil.

Here's Kerry.

When your country is at the centre of an outbreak of disease and you work in science,

it's only natural to think, can I help?

At least that's the question Patricia Beltran Brager asked herself

when the Zika virus arrived in Brazil in early 2015.

Patricia is at the University of San Paulo.

We stopped all of our research just to work with Zika virus. All of my students are just

working with Zika virus at this time. Patricia usually works with brain cells in dishes,

studying the characteristics of autism and muscular dystrophy. Her colleague Jean-Pierre Perron is an immunologist.

The same for me. All the projects that were not involved in Zika virus, they are on standby

right now. And we just focused on Zika virus and and correlation with the microcephaly.

...