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21,032 articles from ScienceNOW


MONDAY 18. MARCH 2024


NASA’s x-ray telescope faces a long goodbye

The end is nigh for NASA’s nearly 25-year-old Chandra X-ray Observatory. Funding for the space telescope was slashed last week in President Joe Biden’s budget request, which calls for winding the mission down over several years. Astronomers are up in arms over the announcement. They argue that the telescope is as productive as ever and remains a cornerstone of U.S....

West Virginia opens the door to teaching intelligent design

In 2005, then–U.S. District Court Judge John Jones ruled that intelligent design (ID)—the idea that life is too complex to have evolved without nudging from supernatural forces—cannot be taught in public school biology courses because it is not a scientific theory. This month, the West Virginia legislature found a workaround, and passed a bill that doesn’t name ID but will...

Mystery illness among U.S. diplomats did not cause permanent brain damage

For several years, dozens of U.S. diplomats and intelligence agents have fallen ill with a perplexing array of symptoms that some politicians, intelligence analysts, and physicians have speculated may have been triggered by a so-called directed-energy weapon. Whatever caused these anomalous health incidents (AHIs), as the cases have been labeled by the U.S. government, it did not leave...


FRIDAY 15. MARCH 2024


‘Lab-leak’ proponents at Rutgers accused of defaming and intimidating COVID-19 origin researchers

Fraudsters. Liars. Perjurers. Felons. Grifters. Stooges. Imbeciles. Murderers. When it comes to describing scientists whose peer-reviewed studies suggest the COVID-19 virus made a natural jump from animals to humans, molecular biologist Richard Ebright and microbiologist Bryce Nickels have used some very harsh language. On X (formerly Twitter), where the two scientists from Rutgers...

A treaty to prepare the world for the next pandemic hangs in the balance

“Me first”—that’s how Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization (WHO), described the wealthy world’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic when he kicked off negotiations for a global “pandemic treaty” in December 2021. Even before vaccines had proved safe and effective, rich countries had purchased enough doses to cover their entire population several...

Department of Energy’s science chief announces her unexpected departure

After 22 months on the job, Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, director of the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Science, is stepping down. Yesterday Berhe sent a letter to the office’s 815 employees saying her last day would be 28 March. With a budget of $8.2 billion, the office is the United States’s single largest funder of the physical sciences. Berhe, who was born in...

Honesty researcher committed research misconduct, according to newly unsealed Harvard report

Honesty researcher Francesca Gino “committed research misconduct intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly,” according to an investigation completed last year by the Harvard Business School(HBS) that was publicly released this week as part of Gino’s ongoing lawsuit against the university. On Tuesday, despite objections from Gino, a judge granted Harvard’s motion to unseal...

Watch out! This colorful bird raises a nest of cannibals

It might seem wasteful, but many birds lay more eggs than will successfully hatch. Scientists have long believed these extra eggs represent a form of insurance, ensuring that at least some offspring ultimately leave the nest. But for the Eurasian hoopoe—known for its showy orange crest and the whooping cry that gives the bird its name—a new study suggests these extra eggs exist for a...


THURSDAY 14. MARCH 2024


Analysis: How NSF’s budget got hammered

Two summers ago, officials at the National Science Foundation (NSF) had good reason to anticipate years of healthy budget increases for the basic research agency. In August 2022, President Joe Biden had signed the CHIPS and Science Act, landmark legislation to revive the U.S. semiconductor industry that included a promise to more than double NSF’s budget, to $18.9 billion, by...

‘Cold blob’ of Arctic meltwater may be causing European heat waves

Global warming disrupts weather in many ways, but Europe’s string of record-breaking hot and dry summers has defied an easy link to climate change. Climate models do show Europe warming faster than the rest of the planet , but the recent scorchers were triggered by peculiar weather conditions: masses of hot, dry air parked over the continent , blocking...

We ‘baby talk’ our dogs. So why don’t we ‘baby face’ them?

“Who’s so cute? Yes you are. You are so cute!” Baby talk sounds pretty similar, whether we’re cooing to our infants or our dogs. We pitch our voices high and use many of the same phrases. But a new study has spotted a crucial difference: When baby talking our tots, our faces tend to be overly expressive—wide-open eyes, high eyebrows, and exaggerated smiles. With...

On its third try, Starship rocket flies through space but fails during re-entry

An hour after sunrise this morning, a roaring steel titan more than 120 meters tall ascended from South Texas over the Gulf of Mexico: SpaceX’s Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. This launch, the rocket’s third full test flight, wasn’t perfect and ended with Starship’s upper stage breaking apart during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. However,...

Some of our key gut microbes likely came from cows—and we’re losing them

Even strict vegetarians need a little help digesting plants. Although enzymes within the human mouth, stomach, and intestines can break down the simple carbohydrates found in candy and potatoes, they cannot on their own dissolve cellulose, the key component of plant cell walls. Instead, people rely on cellulose-chomping bacteria in their guts to do the dirty work. Our species may have...

Sensor protein explains how mice—and maybe people—know it’s cold

People wear gloves when making a snowman for a reason: Handling cold stuff can hurt. A new mouse study reveals what may be a key player in this response: a protein already known to enable sensory neurons in worms to detect cold . New evidence published this week in Nature Neuroscience confirms that this protein has the same...


WEDNESDAY 13. MARCH 2024


NASA’s Mars rover probes ancient shorelines for signs of life

THE WOODLANDS, TEXAS— After a few years of hard labor on Mars, you could excuse the Perseverance rover for taking a trip to the beach. For the past few months, NASA’s rover, which is collecting rock samples to eventually send to Earth, has explored a ring of rocks just inside the rim of Jezero crater, which is thought to have been filled with water billions...

Should doctors screen all kids for type 1 diabetes?

Millions worldwide live with type 1 diabetes, and for most the diagnosis came as a shock, following mysterious symptoms such as thirst and weight loss. But diabetes specialists have long known that certain blood tests can foretell the disease years earlier. That has left the field wrestling with a difficult question: Should healthy children get these blood tests, and would knowing about...

‘Smart’ fiber-optic cables on the sea floor will detect earthquakes, tsunamis, and global warming

Everybody in Portugal knows the date: 1 November 1755. It was All Saints’ Day, with candles lit in homes to honor ancestors. Then the earthquake struck, cracking the streets of Lisbon open and sparking a firestorm. A tsunami engulfed the port, and tens of thousands died. Even now people are aware of the threat— from a nearby seafloor junction where the grinding tectonic plates of...


TUESDAY 12. MARCH 2024


Ladybug becomes powerful foe after ‘stealing’ toxins from invasive insect

In a thicket of prickly pear cacti near Valencia, Spain, a troop of predatory ants moves in for the kill. But their target—the white, shaggy-coated larva of a ladybug known as the mealybug ladybird ( Cryptolaemus montrouzieri )—is far from defenseless. As the ants mount their attack, the juvenile beetle tenses its muscles and expels a drop of bright red fluid. Called...

Jupiter’s ocean moon may be dead inside

THE WOODLANDS, TEXAS— With a saltwater ocean hiding under an icy shell, Jupiter’s moon Europa is one of the most promising places in the Solar System to look for life. Later this year, NASA will launch a $5 billion mission, Europa Clipper, to study the ocean and perhaps even sample it—assuming the moon ejects plumes of water through cracks in the ice, as some research...

Biden’s lean science budget could mean tough choices for agencies

President Joe Biden today sent the U.S. Congress a $7.3 trillion spending blueprint that includes his priorities for research . But in an era of flat budgets, being on the White House’s priority list—which ranges from promoting the ethical use of artificial intelligence to finding a cure for cancer—may not mean getting more money. That’s the hard reality...


MONDAY 11. MARCH 2024


‘Damning’ FDA inspection report undermines positive trial results of possible Alzheimer’s drug

In September 2022, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials arrived at an imposing, glass-dominated research complex at the City University of New York (CUNY). They planned to review records and practices in a lab run by pharmacologist Hoau-Yan Wang, who had been involved in clinical tests for an experimental Alzheimer’s drug. Two years earlier Wang and his colleagues had analyzed...

Amazing diversity of today’s ants tied to rise of flowering plants

As spring’s first buds emerge in the Northern Hemisphere, there’s fresh evidence of the evolutionary importance of angiosperms, better known as flowering plants. Their rise some 150 million years ago, a study concludes, powered the amazing diversification and spread of ants, helping more recent ant species survive, while changing conditions drove earlier forms to extinction. The...

Congress is using more science, but the two parties rarely cite the same studies

Researchers often criticize U.S. lawmakers for ignoring scientific evidence when it comes to writing legislation aimed at challenges such as climate change, gun violence, and access to health care. But members of Congress and their staffers are consuming plenty of research, judging by the number of citations to technical papers found in committee documents over the past few decades, a...

Flirting female frogs blink to beckon potential princes

The female concave-eared torrent frog ( Odorrana tormota ) may not have eyelashes, but that doesn’t stop her from batting her lubricous lids at potential mates. These beady-eyed amphibians can be found on the banks of noisy streams throughout China, where the rapids would drown out ordinary croaks and chirps. So, males and females of this species have both evolved to...


FRIDAY 8. MARCH 2024


‘I’m never going to be Tony’: Jeanne Marrazzo, Anthony Fauci’s successor, vows a new direction at NIAID

When Jeanne Marrazzo started her residency at the Yale New Haven Hospital in 1988, the world was a very different place. Marrazzo provided care for dying AIDS patients—mainly gay men and intravenous drug users and their sexual partners. “Stigma was alive and well and thriving, and in fact, really, really ugly at the time,” Marrazzo told an audience of young scientists on 3 March in...

Online marketplace for animal samples could cut waste and save lives

Every year, millions of tissue and organ samples from animal experiments go to waste, left forgotten in the back of lab freezers or destroyed to free up space. Scientists in Spain are hoping a new online tool could help. Called aRukon and set to launch globally this year, the virtual marketplace will allow researchers to sell unused animal samples to other labs, potentially cutting waste...

Can babies infected with HIV be cured? New study offers cautious optimism

More than a decade ago, a Mississippi baby who tested positive for HIV at birth almost immediately started to receive antiretroviral treatment (ART). When a pediatrician saw the girl shortly before her second birthday, she was off the drugs but oddly had no virus detected on standard tests. The so called “Mississippi baby” became an international news story about a potential strategy...


THURSDAY 7. MARCH 2024


This tiny swimming robot can think for itself

MINNEAPOLIS— Tiny robots that swim through our blood to deliver drugs or hunt down pathogens have been a staple of science fiction for decades. Although still distant, that vision is a step closer to reality now that electrical engineers have unveiled swimming microrobots smaller than grains of sand with enough computing power to perform a simple task on their own—rather...

Watch a snakelike creature feed ‘milk’ to its young

Mammals aren’t the only animals that nurse their young. Cockroaches, spiders, and some fish and birds feed their offspring a milklike liquid. Now, researchers have discovered the first amphibian that does so. Scientists studying the feeding behavior of caecilians—a group of limbless, egg-laying creatures—observed their offspring making a peculiar and rarely heard sound....


WEDNESDAY 6. MARCH 2024


Stone tools in Ukraine were left by Europe’s first known humans

Geologic ages ago in what is now Ukraine, a pack of human ancestors approached a crook in the Carpathian Mountains, which held hard but brittle glassy rocks—just right to break into tools with sharp edges. Bashing one rock against another, the humans shaped the stones into simple cutters and scrapers, as their own ancestors had done before them in Africa. More than 1 million...


TUESDAY 5. MARCH 2024


Science integrity sleuths welcome legal aid fund for whistleblowers

A Silicon Valley investor has pledged $1 million to help pay the legal costs of scientists being sued for flagging fraudulent research. Yun-Fang Juan, an engineer and data scientist by background, hopes the new Scientific Integrity Fund—the first of its kind—will make speaking up about wrongdoing less intimidating. The fund comes after a spate of cases in which high-profile scientists...

Dengue is raging in Brazil. A promising local vaccine is at least a year away

When dengue started to circulate in his small town in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, Fabio Vilella’s first thought was that he should get his 13-year-old son vaccinated. Children are especially vulnerable, and his son had dengue before, which increases the risk of severe disease. But Vilella, an environmental biologist, soon made a startling discovery: Not a single private...

The Anthropocene is dead. Long live the Anthropocene

For now, we're still in the Holocene. Science has confirmed that a panel of two dozen geologists has voted down a proposal to end the Holocene—our current span of geologic time, which began 11,700 years ago at the end of the last ice age—and inaugurate a new epoch, the Anthropocene. Starting in the 1950s, it would have marked a time when humanity’s influence on...


MONDAY 4. MARCH 2024


Final U.S. spending bills offer gloomy outlook for science

Scientists, prepare to tighten your belts. This week, the U.S. Congress is expected to approve six 2024 spending bills that call for sizable cuts or essentially flat budgets at a number of major federal research agencies. The National Science Foundation (NSF) is the biggest loser, with lawmakers imposing an 8.3% cut to $9.06 billion, some $820 million below 2023. NASA’s science...

Where did India’s people come from? Massive genetic study reveals surprises

South Asia is home to one of the most diverse assemblages of people in the world. A mélange of different ethnic identities, languages, religions, castes, and customs makes up the 1.5 billion humans who live here. Now, scientists have revealed the most detailed look yet of how this population took shape. In the largest ever modern whole-genome analysis from South Asia—published...

These gars are the ultimate ‘living fossils’

In 1859 Charles Darwin coined the term “living fossil” to describe lineages that have looked the same for tens of millions of years, such as the coelacanth, sturgeon, and horseshoe crab. The term captured the popular imagination, but scientists have struggled to understand whether such species just resemble their long-ago ancestors or have truly evolved little over the...


FRIDAY 1. MARCH 2024


Puzzling skin side effects stymie advance of promising HIV vaccine

One of the most promising attempts to reinvigorate the stalled quest for an HIV vaccine has hit a snag that might seem minor but has major consequences: delaying the larger trials needed to show whether the concept works. In small safety and immune tests of the innovative vaccine strategy, which relies on a series of messenger RNA (mRNA) shots, an unusually high percentage of...

After protests, U.S. agency drops plan to limit pesticide use report

After protests from hundreds of scientists , the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is dropping plans to scale back reporting to a widely used database that tracks the use of approximately 400 agricultural chemicals in the United States. Researchers are welcoming the agency’s decision, announced this week, to reverse moves to reduce the number of chemicals tracked by...