MUTARE, ZIMBABWE— Normally, the Murahwa Green Market here in this small city near the border with Mozambique bustles with welders, carpenters, and mechanics selling their services. But the market has been deathly quiet in recent weeks, as a prolonged drought has plunged Zimbabwe into a severe energy crisis. Water levels behind Zimbabwe’s main hydropower dam, which produces...

Brent Nakashook, an Inuit who lives in Cambridge Bay in the Canadian Arctic, doesn’t particularly trust the local weather reports. Several times, he has called off weekend trips to fish for char or hunt musk ox after seeing storms predicted—only to find the Sun shining. “You’ve just shot your whole weekend based on the forecast,” he says. The Arctic is warming faster...

When you come down with the flu, your body lets you know. You lose your appetite, you feel sluggish, and your mood takes a hit. The infection itself doesn’t cause these symptoms—your brain does. Now, scientists may have figured out a key part of how this happens. Studying mice with influenza, they found a cluster of nerve cells in the back of the throat that detects a...

Has the quest for room temperature superconductivity finally succeeded? Researchers at the University of Rochester (U of R), who previously were forced to retract a controversial claim of room temperature superconductivity at high pressures, are back with an even more spectacular claim. This week in Nature they report a new material that superconducts at room...

After 2 weeks of intense negotiations, countries agreed this week on a historic treaty to protect biodiversity in international waters. The agreement, announced on 4 March at the United Nations, sets up a legal process for establishing marine protected areas (MPAs), a key tool for protecting at least 30% of the ocean, which an intergovernmental convention recently set as a target for...

Nearly 5 years after a Chinese scientist sparked worldwide outrage by announcing he had helped create genetically edited babies, China has unveiled new rules aimed at preventing a repeat of such ethically problematic research on humans. Many researchers welcome the new regulations, which set requirements for ethics reviews of research involving humans and human materials such as...

On 6 February, the University of Lausanne (UNIL) told staff by email that prominent evolutionary biologist Laurent Keller was no longer employed there. The Swiss university and Keller both declined to explain why, and there is still no official word on the reason. But Science has learned that in the past 2 months, at least three former researchers in Keller’s department...

As neuroscientists struggle to demystify how the human brain converts what our eyes see into mental images, artificial intelligence (AI) has been getting better at mimicking that feat. A recent study , scheduled to be presented at an upcoming computer vision conference, demonstrates that AI can read brain scans and re-create largely realistic versions of images...

NARAYANGAON, INDIA— For nearly 30 years, the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) here 200 kilometers east of Mumbai has listened for faint low-frequency radio signals emanating from the distant reaches of the cosmos. Its Y-shaped network of 30 antennas, each 45 meters wide, spreads over 25 square kilometers. The dishes have helped astronomers from dozens of nations study...

Habitat destruction, pesticide use, and other human impacts are often blamed for the well-documented decline of insects in recent decades. But even in forests where few humans tread, some bees and butterflies are declining, researchers have found. Over the past 15 years, populations of bees shrank 62.5% and those of butterflies dropped 57.6% in a forest in the U.S....

Habitat destruction, pesticide use, and other human impacts are often blamed for the well-documented decline of insects in recent decades. But even in forests where few humans tread, some bees and butterflies are declining, researchers have found. Over the past 15 years, populations of bees shrank 62.5% and those of butterflies dropped 57.6% in a forest in the U.S....

Among the predatory ants known as clonal raiders, worker ants called scouts track down the nests of other ant species, then recruit more workers to help steal that species’ young to be meals for their own colony (first video, below). But in at least one colony, those other workers have sprouted wings like queen ants and don’t budge from the comforts of their nest (second video,...

Among the predatory ants known as clonal raiders, worker ants called scouts track down the nests of other ant species, then recruit more workers to help steal that species’ young to be meals for their own colony (first video, below). But in at least one colony, those other workers have sprouted wings like queen ants and don’t budge from the comforts of their nest (second video,...

About 5300 years ago, people from the steppes of modern-day Russia and Ukraine expanded rapidly across Eurasia. Within a few centuries these “Yamnaya” left a lasting genetic mark on populations from central Europe to the Caspian Sea. Today, archaeologists call them “eastern cowboys” for their livestock herding and highly mobile lifestyle. But one part of...

The 7-year-old nonprofit organization 500 Women Scientists, which works to improve inclusion and diversity in STEM and medicine, is scaling back operations and eliminating its five paid staff positions after failing to secure stable funding. The organization, which detailed the changes in an email to supporters and journalists on Tuesday, will keep running its online...

Is investing in research the best way for the United States to compete with China, or would imposing additional sanctions to prevent the rival superpower from stealing U.S. technology be a better strategy? This week, two committees of the U.S. House of Representatives debated those two approaches to dealing with the increasingly tense U.S.-Chinese relationship. Speaking hours...

COVID-19 has tragically given many people a crash course in the importance of antibodies, pathogen-targeting proteins produced by the sophisticated immune systems of humans and other animals. Now, researchers from a U.K. plant research institute have found a way to endow plants with an antibody-based defense for a specific threat, potentially speeding the creation of crops resistant...

ANIMAL RESEARCH Lab pauses monkey imports Charles River Laboratories, one of the largest U.S. importers and suppliers of research monkeys, announced last week it is suspending shipments from Cambodia after receiving a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice. In November 2022, the agency indicted members of a smuggling ring that was...

Researchers, health care providers, and patients are exploring ways to mitigate implicit bias

Many of us are familiar with the anxiety and dread that can consume us ahead of speaking or performing in public. Throats run dry, sweat drips profusely, and it can feel like everyone hears your quickly thumping heart. But scientists wondered: Is the anxiety driving the heart to beat faster or could an increased heart rate cause anxiety? A new study published today...

Thirty thousand years ago, Europe was a land of open steppes with herds of grazing mammoth and other megafauna—and a strikingly uniform human culture. Its inhabitants, whom archaeologists call the Gravettians, dwelled in caves or in shelters built of mammoth bones. They carved palm-size sculptures from mammoth tusk, depicting mammoths, cave lions, and stylized female figurines with...

Researchers in Japan have demonstrated, for the first time in a fusion reactor, a type of fuel that is plentiful and doesn’t produce damaging particles. Although the reactions were nowhere close to achieving net energy and required even higher temperatures than standard fusion fuel, the result is a proof of principle for private fusion startup TAE Technologies, which argues that its...

Researchers in the United Kingdom breathed a cautious sigh of relief yesterday after the government struck a deal with the European Union to fix post-Brexit disputes over issues including trade across Northern Ireland’s border. The political agreement , called the Windsor Framework, is not related to science, but it effectively breaks a 2-year diplomatic...

TUDMEAK/ISTOCK.COM Researchers who hold at least three grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) make up a growing portion of its grantees, according to a new study. White men predominate among these “super” principal investigators (PIs), with women and Black researchers much less likely to be part of this elite group. The trends...