feed info
7 articles from ScienceNOW
Hidden carbon layer may have sparked ancient bout of global warming
There is no perfect parallel in Earth’s past for present-day climate change—human-driven warming is simply happening too fast and furiously. The closest analog came 56 million years ago, when over the course of 3000 to 5000 years, greenhouse gases soared in the atmosphere, causing at least 5°C of warming and pushing tropical species to the poles.
The cause of the...
Gravitational wave radar could probe deep space for tiny stellar objects
Theoretical physicists have hit on a new way to test Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity, or general relativity, and—just maybe—probe the distant universe for tiny, hard to detect objects.
Gravitational waves
—ripples in space set off when massive objects such as black holes whirl together and collide—should bounce off other massive objects to produce echoes of...
U.S. science agencies would see budgets rise under draft budget bills
Spending panels for the U.S. House of Representatives kicked off the 2023 federal budget cycle this week by recommending healthy increases for several research agencies. In some cases, however, those increases fall below the much larger boosts President Joe Biden has requested. At the same time, lawmakers bucked that trend by adding to Biden’s meager request for the National Institutes...
News at a glance: An apology for ‘conversion therapies,’ Long Covid, and a narrowing racial gap in NIH grants
DIVERSITY
Groups regret ‘homosexuality’ views
Two scientific societies this month disavowed their past involvement in practices and public statements that deemed “homosexuality” a treatable disorder—a mistaken notion that has harmed LGBTQI+ people. Decades ago, some members and former presidents of the Association for Behavioral and...
U.S. universities fight Senate innovation bill targeting foreign gifts to faculty
The shape of U.S. research is at stake as Congress tries to reconcile competing versions of a massive bill, 2 years in the making, aimed at bolstering U.S. competitiveness with China in research and high-tech manufacturing.
The bills would not only authorize spending hundreds of billions of additional dollars on research, but also set out new policies on...
Can farm and food waste power tomorrow’s airplanes?
Industry and government are trying—again—to make biofuels a reality, this time for the airline industry
Fusion power may run out of fuel before it even gets started
Experts fear giant ITER reactor will worsen looming shortage of tritium