U.S. health officials should expand oversight of federally funded research that tweaks deadly viruses to include some less risky types of pathogens, an expert panel has concluded. Its draft report , released today, also recommends funding agencies share more information about decisions to approve such work. The recommendations are welcome news for scientists,...

Universities routinely use student teaching evaluations to help make decisions about which faculty members get tenure and promotions. But factors unrelated to teaching performance, such as gender, race, and even attractiveness, can skew these evaluations, potentially exacerbating existing inequities in academia. Now, a new study suggests an additional source of bias:...

A sentencing hearing is a forum to mete out justice for someone convicted of a crime. But this week, U.S. District Court Senior Judge Julie Robinson used the sentencing of Franklin Tao , a chemical engineer formerly at the University of Kansas (KU), Lawrence, to also talk at length about what motivates academic researchers—and how the U.S. government appeared to...