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19,499 articles from ScienceNOW
Humans tamed the microbes behind cheese, soy, and more
The burst of flavor from summer’s first sweet corn and the proud stance of a show dog both testify to the power of domestication. But so does the microbial alchemy that turns milk into cheese, grain into bread, and soy into miso. Like the ancestors of the corn and the dog, the fungi and bacteria that drive these transformations were modified for human use. And their genomes have...
Ancient wolves give clues to origins of dogs
Where and when dogs arose is one of the
biggest mysteries of domestication
. To solve it, researchers have tried everything from analyzing ancient dog bones to sequencing modern dog DNA—all with inconclusive results. Now, researchers have tried a new tack: figuring out where the ancient wolves that gave rise to dogs lived. The new study doesn’t close the case, but it...
Scientists pinpoint new brain target for antinausea drugs
Whether we’ve got the flu or have had too much to drink, most of us have experienced nausea. Unlike other universal sensations such as hunger and thirst, however, scientists still don’t understand the biology behind the feeling—or how to stop it. A new study in mice identifies a possible key player: specialized brain cells that communicate with the gut to turn off the feeling of...
TUESDAY 28. JUNE 2022
Is the pediatric hepatitis outbreak real? A top WHO physician weighs in
It has been 3 months since the United Kingdom reported severe, unexplained hepatitis was sending young children to hospitals in unusual numbers. The initial handful of cases reported in Scotland on 31 March were soon joined by dozens and then hundreds, primarily from Europe, the United States, and the United Kingdom. As of 22 June, the global total, from 33 countries, has swollen to...
Does warfare make societies more complex? Controversial study says yes
War is hell. It breaks apart families, destroys natural resources, and drives humans to commit unspeakable acts of violence. Yet according to a new analysis of human history, war may also prod the evolution of certain kinds of complex societies. The twin developments of agriculture and military technology—especially cavalries and iron weapons—have predicted the rise of empires....
Extreme temperatures in major Latin American cities could be linked to nearly 1 million deaths
In mid-January, the southern tip of South America suffered its
worst heat wave
in years. In Argentina, temperatures in more than 50 cities rose above 40°C, more than 10°C warmer than the typical average temperature in cities such as Buenos Aires. The scorching heat sparked wildfires, worsened a drought, hurt agriculture, and temporarily collapsed Buenos Aires’s...
U.K. set to abandon Europe’s top science funding program, go it alone
A few months ago, Teresa Thurston, a cellular microbiologist at Imperial College London, could not have imagined losing her €1.5 million European research grant. But the United Kingdom’s role in the European Union’s €95 billion Horizon Europe funding program is now crumbling thanks to lingering Brexit disputes, forcing many U.K. grant winners like Thurston to give up grants they...
Artificial intelligence could spot baby chickens in distress
Chickens make more sounds than most of us realize. They cluck when content, squawk when frightened, and sing “buk, buk, ba-gawk” when laying an egg. Their chicks vocalize too, and they can vary that simple sound to signal pleasure or distress. Now, scientists have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) program that automatically identifies these SOS calls, an advance that could...
MONDAY 27. JUNE 2022
Warmer winters could wipe out Antarctica’s only native insect
The Antarctic midge might be smaller than a pea, but it’s the continent’s largest land animal–and only native insect. The midge has clearly evolved to survive in extreme conditions, yet a warming climate could threaten its existence, a new study finds.
Unlike temperate-zone midges that swarm around water, the Antarctic midge (
Belgica antarctica
) is...
NIH’s vaunted program for solving puzzling medical cases is running out of money
Ten years ago, an athletic 12-year-old from Affton, Missouri, named Mitchell Herndon began to experience muscle weakness that eventually led to him using a wheelchair. After years of visits to specialists failed to diagnose his neurological symptoms, he enrolled in a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded program that studies patients with debilitating mystery diseases. Researchers...
‘Zombie papers’ just won’t die. Retracted papers by notorious fraudster still cited years later
Alison Avenell spent years collecting evidence that Yoshihiro Sato, a now-deceased nutritional researcher in Japan, was among the most prolific fraudsters known to science. After journals investigated the findings by Avenell, a clinical nutritionist at the University of Aberdeen, and her colleagues,
they retracted more than two dozen papers Sato had co-authored
. Many had...
SUNDAY 26. JUNE 2022
WHO declines to label monkeypox a global emergency
After 2 days of deliberation, an advisory panel convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) has concluded the monkeypox outbreak that has spread to more than 50 countries does not yet warrant the declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), its highest alert level. WHO currently has PHEIC declarations for polio and COVID-19, and many infectious disease...
WHO declines to label monkeypox a global threat
After two days of deliberation, an advisory panel convened by the World Health Organization has concluded the monkeypox outbreak that has spread to more than 50 countries does not yet warrant the declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), its highest alert level. WHO currently has PHEIC declarations for polio and COVID-19, and many infectious disease...
FRIDAY 24. JUNE 2022
In the Balkans, researchers mobilize to protect a wild river
Five years ago, researchers from across Europe converged on a cold, fast-moving river in the highlands of Albania for a week of intensive fieldwork. Their mission: to kick off a multiyear effort to assemble a detailed ecological portrait of the Vyosa River, one of Eastern Europe’s last free-flowing waterways. They hoped to draw public attention to the river’s rich wildlife and...
Poliovirus in London sewage sparks alarm
Yesterday, declaring a “national incident” after poliovirus was detected in London sewage, public health officials in the United Kingdom asked physicians to be on alert for polio cases and urged residents to check whether they are up to date with their vaccinations for the now-rare disease. The source of the virus is still a mystery, but was likely someone from outside of the United...
THURSDAY 23. JUNE 2022
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
WEDNESDAY 22. JUNE 2022
Electrical stimulation of the brain may help people who stutter
When Guillermo Mejias was 7 years old, his parents sent him out to buy bread during a family holiday in southern Spain. Mejias still remembers his growing anxiety as he walked to the bakery, repeating what he would say over and over in his head. But when the moment arrived, he was unable to produce a single word. He recalls returning empty-handed, ashamed, and wondering what to tell his...
Democrats lobby for high-tech immigration reforms in innovation bill before Congress
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...
‘The complexities are staggering.’ U.S. plans huge trial of blood tests for multiple cancers
Tests that screen seemingly healthy people for many kinds of cancer by analyzing a blood sample are starting to enter the clinic—worrying some physicians and scientists that they could do more harm than good. Now, as part of President Joe Biden’s reignited Cancer Moonshot, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is laying plans to evaluate the promise of such tests.
Last week,...
Modern city dwellers have lost about half their gut microbes
Deep in the human gut, myriad “good” bacteria and other microbes help us digest our food, as well as keep us healthy by affecting our immune, metabolic, and nervous systems. Some of these humble microbial assistants have been in our guts since before humans became human—certain gut microbes are found in almost all primates, suggesting they first colonized a common ancestor. But...
Women scientists don’t get authorship they should, new study suggests
Poba/iStock
Science is increasingly conducted by teams. But within those teams, credit isn’t always allocated equitably:
Women are less likely to be authors than men in their research group at the same career stage
, even accounting for the hours each individual worked on the project, according to a study published today in...
TUESDAY 21. JUNE 2022
Long-lasting HIV prevention drug too slow to reach Africa, activists say
KAMPALA, UGANDA—
Melb Simiyu, an HIV prevention officer at a support organization for sex workers here, says most of her clients have asked when a drug called CAB-LA will become available. Approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in December 2021, the HIV prevention drug could drastically reduce infections among marginalized groups like the one she works...
Why the monkeypox outbreak is mostly affecting men who have sex with men
Ever since monkeypox started sickening thousands of people worldwide this spring, two big questions have loomed: Why is a virus that has never managed to spread beyond a few cases outside Africa suddenly causing such a big, global outbreak? And why are the overwhelming majority of those affected men who have sex with men (MSM)?
A long history of work on sexually...
MONDAY 20. JUNE 2022
Why the monkeypox outbreak is mostly affecting men who have sex with men
Ever since monkeypox started to sicken thousands of people worldwide this spring, two big questions have loomed: Why is a virus that has never managed to spread beyond a few cases outside Africa suddenly causing such a big, global outbreak? And why are the overwhelming majority of those affected men who have sex with men (MSM)?
A long history of work on sexually transmitted...
In Cambodia, researchers document the world's largest freshwater fish
Thanks to local fishers, a team of scientists on an expedition in Cambodia to tag Mekong River fish has discovered the largest freshwater fish ever documented--a 300-kilogram giant stingray that stretches nearly 4 meters from nose to tail.
"It's almost inconceivable that a fish this large still occurs in a river as heavily fished and developed as the Mekong," says Zeb Hogan, a...
FRIDAY 17. JUNE 2022
Electrocuted birds are sparking wildfires
In 2014, a wildfire ripped through central Chile, destroying 2500 homes and
killing at least 13 people
. A year later, a blaze in Idaho burned more than 4000 hectares, an area nearly 12 times the size of New York City’s Central Park. Both conflagrations had one thing in common: Experts believe they were started by birds.
Our feathered friends love to perch on...
Softening tough tissue in aging ovaries may help fight infertility
Would-be parents hoping to get pregnant face a ticking clock: The older potential mothers get, the more their fertility drops. A new study in mice may help explain why. Ovaries accumulate “stiff” tissue as they age, and researchers have found that reducing the amount of this tissue—“softening” the ovaries, as it were—restored fertility in the animals, raising the possibility...
NIH launches grant program aimed at closing the funding rate gap between Black and white investigators
After having one idea batted down last year, some National Institutes of Health (NIH) institutes are taking a new tack to bolster the success rate of Black scientists and researchers from other underrepresented groups seeking research grants. A program aiming to diversify the NIH workforce could award up to $20 million a year to neuroscience, drug abuse, and mental health investigators...
THURSDAY 16. JUNE 2022
Disgraced Italian surgeon convicted of criminal harm to stem cell patient
A surgeon who just a decade ago was celebrated around the globe as a pioneer in stem cell transplants has been convicted of one count of “causing bodily harm,” a felony, in a Swedish court. The district court in Solna today found Paolo Macchiarini not guilty on other charges, including aggravated assault, that could have carried prison sentences of up to 4 years, relating to three...
Arkansas scientist gets 1-year sentence in case stemming from China Initiative
U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Brooks today sentenced Simon Ang to 1 year and 1 day in prison for lying to FBI about his status as an inventor. He was also fined $5500. Ang, a former engineering professor at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, was ordered to report to federal prison on 20 July to begin serving his sentence, after which he will be on supervised release for 1...
Murders of women worldwide remain vastly undercounted. Activists are now filling in the gaps
An unknown number of women and girls are killed every year primarily because of their gender, murders known as “femicides” or “feminicides.” Although gender-related violence is a serious problem worldwide, official government data on the issue are often inaccurate, incomplete, or nonexistent. These “missing data” have real consequences, says Helena Suárez Val, a researcher at...
Newly identified population of polar bears survives on glacier slush, not sea ice
Polar bears typically depend on solid sea ice to hunt and keep their bellies full. To breathe, seals pop up in holes in the frozen seawater, and there the bears ambush and eat them. Now, however, scientists have discovered a group of polar bears in southeastern Greenland that does things differently, using a slushy mix of freshwater snow and ice as a platform to ambush seals. This new...
News at a glance: Webb telescope dinged, U.S.-Russia research paused, and NASA’s UFO study
The latest in science and policy
Record-shattering events spur advances in tying climate change to extreme weather
Table of contents
A version of this story appeared in Science, Vol 376, Issue 6599.
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In June 2021, a jet stream
charged with heat
and chaotic energy
from a nearby cyclone
stalled over the Pacific Northwest. The mass...
What causes Long Covid? Here are the three leading theories
Abnormal immune response, lingering virus, and blood clots all under investigation
WEDNESDAY 15. JUNE 2022
To capture racism’s impact on health, one epidemiologist suggests going beyond conventional methods
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed many vulnerabilities in health care, including how structural racism created the pandemic’s outsize impact on marginalized groups. Age-adjusted infection, hospitalization, and death rates for people of color in the United States
were higher
than those of white Americans, for example.
One big question for health researchers is how...
Some countries still struggle to win EU funding despite programs to give them a leg up
The European Union has had some success leveling the playing field for countries that struggle to attract research funding, but certain countries still lag behind, according to an EU auditing body’s assessment. The “widening measures” aimed at giving stragglers a leg up can only go so far without matching efforts from those countries, says the report from the European Court of...
A $100 genome? New DNA sequencers could be a ‘game changer’ for biology, medicine
For DNA sequencing, this “is the year of the big shake-up,” says Michael Snyder, a systems biologist at Stanford University. Sequencing is crucial to fields from basic biology to virology to human evolution, and its importance keeps growing. Clinicians are clamoring to harness it for
early detection of cancer
and other diseases, and biologists are finding ever more ways...
800-year-old graves pinpoint where the Black Death began
The Syriac engraving on the medieval tombstone was tantalizing: “This is the tomb of the believer Sanmaq. [He] died of pestilence.” Sanmaq, who was buried in 1338 near Lake Issyk Kul in what is now northern Kyrgyzstan, was one of many victims of the unnamed plague. By scrutinizing field notes and more photos from the Russian team that had excavated the graves in the 1880s, historian...
Beleaguered beagle facility closes under government pressure. Fate of 3000 dogs unclear
Facing growing financial and legal hurdles, a company that owns a troubled research beagle breeding facility in Cumberland, Virginia, said last night it will shutter the establishment, which until recently supplied dogs to universities, major drugmakers, and the National Institutes of Health.
Because of the growing cost of bringing the complex of several large buildings into...
MONDAY 13. JUNE 2022
Arati Prabhakar set to become Biden’s science adviser and his pick to lead science office
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In 1993, then-President Bill Clinton picked a 34-year-old applied physicist named Arati Prabhakar to lead the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Two decades later, former President Barack Obama chose her to lead the Defense Advanced Research Projects...
Artificial intelligence may have unearthed one of the world’s oldest campfires
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It’s not always easy to find clues to ancient campfires. Bits of charcoal, cracked bones, and discolored rocks often give a prehistoric blaze away. But not every blaze leaves such obvious traces, especially after hundreds of thousands of years.
Now, using...
Mice of the sea: Watch elephant seals use whiskers to find food
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Female elephant seals
spend most of their lives fishing
in complete darkness. Now, by strapping infrared cameras to their heads, scientists have figured out how these sleek swimmers locate their prey: They move their whiskers like satellite...
Ten years after the Higgs, physicists face the nightmare of finding nothing else
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A decade ago, particle physicists thrilled the world. On 4 July 2012, 6000 researchers working with the world’s biggest atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European particle physics laboratory, CERN, announced they had discovered the Higgs boson, a...