In 2017, marine biologist James Morin was snorkeling at night in the shallow Caribbean waters off the coast of Panama when he briefly switched on his flashlight. He was shocked to see a large wave of blue light cascading across the seagrass beds below him—“bigger and more impressive than anything I’ve seen before.” The glow was emanating from a group of marine...

The first proposed update in nearly 20 years to U.S. rules governing research misconduct by biomedical scientists is drawing mixed reviews. The revamped rules would give universities less time to decide whether to pursue an allegation against a faculty member, require more record-keeping, and bar institutions from quickly closing a case they believe reflects “honest error.” At the...

The orchid mantis ( Hymenopus coronatus ) looks so much like a flower that you might be tempted to take a sniff. Now there’s another reason it’s exceptional. Researchers will report tomorrow in Current Biology that the insect’s petal-shaped legs allow it to glide 50% to 200% farther than other invertebrates. The orchid mantis (pictured) looks...

Talk to any structural biologist, and they’ll tell you how a cool new method is taking over their field. By flash freezing proteins and bombarding them with electrons, cryo–electron microscopy (cryo-EM) can map protein shapes with near-atomic resolution, offering clues to their function and revealing bumps and valleys that drug developers can target. The technique can catch wriggly...

One of Earth’s largest rats is also among its most endangered . Researchers have discovered that four individuals of the Vangunu giant rat ( Uromys vika ) survive in the wild, but even they may soon disappear. The rodent lives in the tropical forests of its namesake island of Vangunu, part of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. Although...

The number of top researchers affiliated with universities in Saudi Arabia has dropped sharply, months after the institutions were revealed to be enticing eminent scientists abroad to declare a Saudi affiliation—often in exchange for cash—in a bid to boost their rankings. Saudi Arabian universities now boast affiliations with just 76 of the world’s most cited researchers,...

Science and commerce may be headed for a clash on remote terrain: the Moon. For the first time in half a century, NASA is sending a craft to the lunar surface, with the launch at the end of this year of Peregrine Mission 1, a lander built by the private company Astrobotic. Dozens of other craft will soon follow, many as part of NASA’s Artemis program to return astronauts to the...

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE), known for fighting to defend evolution’s place in school curricula, has a new leader who knows how hard that work can be. Amanda (Glaze) Townley, who next month becomes executive director of the Oakland, California–based nonprofit, grew up in rural northeastern Alabama, where she learned firsthand how religion and...

BIOMEDICINE U.K. approves CRISPR therapy for sickle cell In a world first, U.K. regulators last week approved a therapy that uses CRISPR, the Nobel Prize–winning gene-editing tool invented in 2012. The treatment has been shown to help people with beta thalassemia and sickle cell disease, both inherited blood disorders that involve defects in the...

Astronomy research is notoriously dominated by men. But in just 5 years, an Australian astrophysics center achieved gender parity, researchers report in a Nature Astronomy paper published last week. The results highlight the potential to make significant progress with thoughtful, multifaceted initiatives. “I’ve never seen a program like this,” says Ramón...

As millions in the United States settle down to Thanksgiving dinner this week, few will be pondering a major question in neuroscience: Why, when so much of life across the animal kingdom revolves around finding and consuming food, do we ever stop eating? Scientists have identified brain regions and even specific cells involved in terminating meals. But exactly how...

About 145 million years ago, volcanoes erupted all over Earth, darkening skies and snuffing out thousands of species. One group that vanished was the Mesturidae, deep-bodied fish with powerful teeth for crushing coral. But some fish that swam in the same waters, such as the pointy-snouted Acipenseriformes, survived the upheaval, and later evolved into today’s sturgeons....

Deadly, mosquito-borne Japanese encephalitis, which haunts the tropics, had never been seen in the country’s temperate southeast

When Iosif Gidiotis began his doctoral studies in educational technology this year, he was intrigued by reports that new tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI) could help him digest the literature in his discipline. With the number of papers burgeoning—across all of science, close to 3 million were published last year—an AI research assistant “sounds great,” says...

The election of libertarian Javier Milei as Argentina’s next president has many of the nation’s scientists fearing for the future. Milei has vowed to slash government spending, close or dramatically restructure Argentina’s main science funding agency, and consider eliminating ministries dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Milei has also called climate change a...

Paxlovid can prevent severe illness from COVID-19 , but it comes with a price: In many users, the antiviral drug leaves a weird, metallic aftertaste that can last for days—a condition nicknamed “Paxlovid mouth.” Now, researchers say they’ve figured out why. A component of Paxlovid activates one of the tongue’s bitter taste receptors even at low...

If you go out walking at dusk nearly anywhere in Europe or Asia, you’re likely to catch a glimpse of a serotine bat ( Eptesicus serotinus ) in flight. These furry creatures are a familiar sight, known to roost in chimneys and in the gables of old churches. But although serotine bats are quite common, scientists have yet to unravel all their mysteries. In fact, up until...

Soon after sunrise today, SpaceX’s Starship rocket—a steel colossus more than 120 meters tall that is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built—thundered its way up over the South Texas coast before exploding in space at approximately 148 kilometers altitude, somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico. The company nevertheless considers the flight a success,...

DENVER— To really understand how a material behaves, researchers need to simulate its whirling electrons, which govern most of its chemical and electronic properties. But they have traditionally faced a trade-off. They could simulate up to a couple of hundred electrons with near-perfect accuracy. Or they could simulate a much larger number—while accuracy fell off a cliff....

It took nearly 2 years for President Joe Biden to find and the Senate to approve the new director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), Monica Bertagnolli, who took her post last week. But Biden has moved to fill the newly vacant top job at NIH’s largest institute, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), in a tiny fraction of that time . Today, Biden...

The pretty ferns that adorn windowsills and gardens have some surprising powers. Biologists have long known that this ancient group of plants wards off hungry insects better than other flora, and now they’re homing in on why. They’ve discovered fern proteins that kill and deter pests, including, most recently, one that shows promise against bugs resistant to widely used natural...

African penguins, as well as members of two closely related species, sport individually unique patterns of black dots on their white chest feathers. In a study published last week in Animal Behaviour , researchers have discovered the birds use these dots like name tags to help identify their mates , perhaps to recognize them amid throngs of similar-looking...

On 13 April 2022, explosions wracked the Russian guided missile cruiser Moskva as it sailed the Black Sea more than 100 kilometers south of the Ukrainian city of Odesa. The vessel, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, sank hours later as it was being towed to port, and Ukraine claimed it had hit the cruiser with missiles. But, how did Ukrainian forces target a vessel...

ASTRONOMY Extraterrestrial intelligence hunt gets big financial boost The search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, received a huge gain last week: a gift of $200 million from the estate of Franklin Antonio, co-founder of Qualcomm, which makes semiconductors and software supporting wireless technology. Antonio, who died last year, was a...