Researchers have created the most realistic reconstruction yet of how a vast ice sheet advanced across northwestern Europe starting about 31,000 years ago and then retreated into oblivion, exposing landmasses that today are Great Britain and Ireland. The detailed chronology could improve forecasts of melting ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, which could devastate coastal regions...

Republican members of Congress have failed to persuade the U.S. National  Academy of Medicine (NAM) to expel one of its members, conservation biologist Peter Daszak. In an email to its members, NAM concluded there “was no evidence” that Daszak had violated its code of conduct, as the representatives had alleged in a complaint to NAM. The complaint suggests Daszak  is...

Several U.S. government research programs require financial buy-in from institutions when applying for a grant or new instrument. The rationale for cost-sharing—which can amount to half of the size of the award—is to stretch federal dollars and guarantee that every grantee has a stake in the project. But many institutions, including those serving rural areas and students from groups...

The mysterious origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, like so many aspects of the response to it, has created deep divides along party lines in the United States. Today, the Republican minority staff of a bipartisan Senate committee set up to probe the origin of SARS-CoV-2 issued an “interim report” arguing for the narrative that the virus entered humans because of a lab-related incident...

About 30 million years ago, a virus infected our primate ancestors and one of its genes got trapped in their genomes. Over time, this viral gene became “domesticated”—and territorial. It helped primates fight off other viruses by preventing them from entering cells. The invader—known as Suppressyn (SUPYN)—is still around today, and it’s still helping us out: A new study...

All of life exists on just one side of a mirror. To put it more technically, the biomolecules that comprise living things—DNA, RNA, and proteins—are all “chiral.” Their building blocks have two possible mirror-image shapes, but in every case, life chooses just one. At least so far. Today in Science , researchers report they’ve made strides toward...

ASTRONOMY Iran’s world-class telescope sees first light In a major milestone for Iran’s scientific community, astronomers announced last week that the $25 million Iranian National Observatory (INO) is operational. They said the resolution of the first images—showing Arp 282, a pair of galaxies some 319 million light-years from Earth—was...

When President Joe Biden nominated Asmeret Asefaw Berhe as the seventh director of the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Science in April 2021, many scientists were surprised. Physicists have most often been tapped to lead the office, which is the United States’s single largest funder of the physical sciences and the premier builder of large scientific machines such as x-ray...

Playtime isn’t just for children. Lab-kept bumble bees roll small wooden balls around for no apparent purpose other than fun, a new study reveals. The finding supports evidence that bees experience pleasure, researchers say, highlighting the importance of protecting them in the wild and treating them well when they’re kept in hives. “It is super cool,” says Elizabeth...

After gaining the trust of “jackpot” shows and county and state fairs, a research team is assessing how big a risk infected show pigs pose to people

Leiden University in the Netherlands has “removed” prominent theoretical astronomer Tim de Zeeuw, a former head of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), for bullying subordinates and what it calls “extremely unacceptable” behavior toward women colleagues over a long period of time. De Zeeuw will not be allowed to return to the university and can no longer supervise Ph.D....

No wonder pachyderms have some of the most expressive trunks and ears on the planet. African elephants (pictured) and Asian elephants have about 63,000 and 54,000 nerve cells, respectively, in their facial nucleus —a grape-size brain region that transmits neural signals to and from the face, controlling its muscles, researchers report today in Science Advances...

A new form of sodium—the element that combines with chlorine to make salt—packs a whacking 28 neutrons in its atomic nucleus, along with the 11 protons that define its chemical identity. With more than double the 13 neutrons in natural sodium, the neutron-rich isotope of the element is so extreme that few theoretical models predicted its existence. “It’s a surprise that these...

When monkeypox cases in Europe began to decline this summer, researchers’ first question was: Is it real? Some worried that people might not be getting tested because of receding fears of the virus, coupled with strict isolation requirements for patients. “They might be reluctant to be confirmed and be told not to go out at all,” says Catherine Smallwood, monkeypox incident manager...

For students aiming to establish research careers, publications are crucial. Now, two new studies reveal racial and gender disparities in student publication rates, adding to the ways that inequities in academia manifest early in careers. Women medical students publish less than men , despite reporting a similar number of “research experiences” in their residency...

Can you top frolicking yeast cells ? That was the last winner of Science ’s Dance Your Ph.D. competition and we’re excited to announce the latest edition, our 15th, is open to entries. As always, we’re challenging scientists to explain their research obsession with fancy footwork but no PowerPoint slides or jargon. It doesn’t matter whether...

Think of the chattiest creatures in the animal kingdom and songbirds, dolphins, and—yes—humans probably come to mind. Turtles probably don’t register. But these charismatic reptiles also communicate using a large repertoire of clicks, snorts, and chortles. Now, by recording the “voices” of turtles and other supposedly quiet animals, scientists have concluded that all land...

It’s a tale of two ancient British caves: In Cheddar Gorge, just outside of Bristol, England, reindeer hunters etched designs onto human bones and drank out of carved human skulls about 15,000 years ago. A few hundred kilometers to the north, people living just a few hundred years later lived on freshwater fish and marine animals, laying their dead to rest in a cavern with decorated...

“Whooo’s a good boy?” “Whooo’s a pretty kitty?” When it comes to communicating with our pets, most of us can’t help but talk to them like babies. We pitch our voices high, extend our vowels, and ask short, repetitive questions. Dogs seem to like this. They’re far more likely to pay attention to us when we use this “caregiver speech,” research has shown. Now,...

In a revelation that may help Uganda combat its outbreak of Ebola, the pharmaceutical giant Merck has acknowledged to Science— after repeated inquiries — that it has up to 100,000 doses of an experimental vaccine for the deadly viral disease in its freezers in Pennsylvania and will donate them. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ugandan...

Luis Jaime Castillo Butters, a prominent Peruvian archaeologist who was among the first members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences to be removed after a 2019 bylaws update allowed expulsion for documented misconduct violations, filed a $5 million defamation lawsuit against the academy and NAS President Marcia McNutt this month. The suit alleges that “NAS and McNutt made false...

eLife , the upstart publisher that has campaigned to end what it calls scientific journals’ counterproductive gatekeeping of research, today announced a new approach to hasten that outcome: It will cease accepting or rejecting manuscripts for publication, instead offering only peer reviews of selected manuscripts. Until now, eLife , a nonprofit,...

Thousands of years ago, wolves bred with black dogs. The tryst didn’t just give some of today’s wolves a black coat—it has also helped them survive in parts of North America where a measleslike virus can run rampant, according to a new study. That’s because gray wolves are more likely to mate with black wolves when this virus is present—a rare demonstration in the wild of how...

Tuna are Olympic-caliber fish. They can swim hundreds to thousands of kilometers, some even cross the Pacific Ocean and back. That would seem to make it difficult—if not impossible—to establish a marine reserve large enough to protect them. But a new study shows two kinds of tuna have become much more abundant in a large marine reserve near Hawaii, suggesting they and other...