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21,064 articles from ScienceNOW
Have scientists finally made sense of Hawking’s famous formula for disorder in a black hole?
Fifty years ago, famed physicist Stephen Hawking wrote down an equation that predicts that a black hole has entropy, an attribute typically associated with the disordered jumbling of atoms and molecules in material. The arguments for black hole entropy were indirect, however, and no one had derived the famous equation from the fundamental definition of entropy—at least not for realistic...
A muon collider could revolutionize particle physics—if it can be built
The radical new machine might be built faster and cost less than an equivalent conventional atom smasher, boosters say
News at a glance: Domestic U.S. postdocs, edited pig organs, and the Milky Way’s central black hole
FUNDING
South Korea joins Horizon Europe
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol (center) and EU leaders announced a research funding deal.
KYODO VIA AP IMAGES
South Korea will participate in the €95.5 billion ($104 billion) Horizon Europe...
Bone marrow transplants spread Alzheimer’s-like disease in mice, controversial study reports
Bone marrow transplants between mice can transmit symptoms and pathology associated with Alzheimer’s disease, according to a controversial study published today in
Stem Cell Reports
. Its authors found that healthy mice injected with marrow from a mouse strain carrying an extremely rare, Alzheimer’s-linked genetic mutation later developed cognitive problems...
Early-career researchers lament potential loss of Europe’s largest transdisciplinary science conference
EuroScience Open Forum gave early-career researchers an opportunity to interact with policymakers and scientists from across Europe.
EuroScience
Over the past 2 decades, the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF) has brought together scientists, policymakers, businesspeople, journalists, and citizens to discuss European science and its broader...
WEDNESDAY 27. MARCH 2024
‘I need your urine!’ Unusual experiment tests whether human pee can help save forests
In the mountains of southeastern Spain, a tiny wood mouse (
Apodemus sylvaticus
) sniffs out its dinner. The shrubs and pine trees of the Sierra Nevada give off several intriguing smells, including the nutty aroma of acorns from the Holm oak (
Quercus ilex
). But these particular acorns have another, more pungent odor—as though they just emerged from an...
Black hole at center of Milky Way may be blasting out a jet
The supermassive black holes at the centers of many galaxies generate powerful jets, blasting particles thousands of light-years into space. This new image of the Milky Way’s black hole, known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), suggests it may have one, too, but perhaps of a more modest nature.
The image—taken with polarized light—was
released today by the Event Horizon...
Bird flu discovered in U.S. dairy cows is ‘disturbing’
The bird flu virus that has wreaked havoc around the world appears to have surfaced in U.S. dairy cows, the first time this viral subtype has been documented in any cattle. Three U.S. states—Texas, Kansas, and New Mexico—on 25 March reported cows sickened with what scientists are presuming is the same H5N1 strain of influenza that has killed hundreds of millions of poultry and wild...
TUESDAY 26. MARCH 2024
Startups aim to curb climate change by pulling carbon dioxide from the ocean—not the air
Every year, hundreds of container ships slide into the Port of Los Angeles, the busiest in the Western Hemisphere. Belching carbon dioxide (CO
2
), they deliver some $300 billion in goods to trucks and railcars that add their own pollution to our warming planet.
But one long gray barge docked at the port is doing its part to combat climate change. On the...
Scientists with East Asian and African names get short shrift in news coverage
Jenny On The Moon/istock.com adapted by C. Smith/
Science
Media attention can boost a scientist’s career, bringing them prestige and making it easier to attract collaborators and students. But there are disparities in who gets named in news stories about scientific research, according to a new study: Scientists with East Asian and...
Genetically engineered marmosets promise insight into early stages of Parkinson’s
By the time a person shows symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, neurons in a part of their brain key to movement have already quietly died. To learn how this process unfolds, identify warning signs, and test treatments, researchers have long wanted an animal model of the disease’s early stages. Now, they may have one: a cohort of transgenic marmosets, described at
a conference on...
Smallpox may be gone but U.S. should better prepare for its return, report says
Nearly 5 decades after the last documented case, smallpox remains the only human disease that has been officially eradicated. But a
new report
concludes that the United States can do much to strengthen its ability to respond if the dreaded disease resurfaces, whether naturally, through a lab “leak” of the responsible virus, or from an act of terrorism.
The...
MONDAY 25. MARCH 2024
Long-lasting, injectable HIV prevention drug set for “aggressive” roll-out in Africa
Tools to fight HIV tend to come late to sub-Saharan Africa, the region hardest hit by the epidemic. After powerful, lifesaving cocktails of HIV drugs came to market in 1996, it took 7 years before they began to reach large numbers of people living with the virus there. When pills to prevent, rather than treat, HIV infection were introduced in 2012—a strategy known as pre-exposure...
South Korea to join the European Union’s research funding program
The European Commission announced today that South Korea will join Horizon Europe, as the 7-year, €95.5 billion ($104 billion) research funding program continues to expand far beyond the continent.
South Korea will be the first East Asian country to “associate to” Horizon Europe, paying into the program so that the nation’s researchers can apply for and lead Horizon...
Fewer U.S. scientists are pursuing postdoc positions, new data show
Gorodenkoff/Getty Images
New data released by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) reveal a sharp drop in the number of U.S. citizens working as postdocs, especially in the biological and biomedical sciences. The trend underscores
concerns that the academic community is facing a postdoc shortage
and that early-career scientists are...