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How to get the right balance of omega-3s and omega-6s in your diet

The balance of omega fatty acids in the food we eat affects our health. But what does the evidence say about claims you should be seeking to reduce omega-6 intake as well as boosting omega-3s?

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Environment

The incredible new tech that can recycle all plastics, forever

These photos show how a warmer climate is damaging Earth's waters

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How the US is preparing for a potential bird flu pandemic

Bowhead whales still harmed from whaling that ended a century ago, rare mutation that causes short stature may shed light on ageing, 5 extraordinary ideas about the mind and what it means to be conscious, alpacas are the only mammals known to directly inseminate the uterus, global warming could make tides higher as well as raising sea levels, science-inspired experiences, we live in a cosmic void so empty that it breaks the laws of cosmology.

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The man reinventing economics with chaos theory and complexity science

Early humans spread as far north as siberia 400,000 years ago, why you may have a stealth liver disease and what to do about it, are you languishing in life here’s how to find your purpose again, how ai mathematicians might finally deliver human-level reasoning, five scientific ways to help reduce feelings of anxiety, this week's magazine.

27 April 2024

A radical new book sets out to hunt for 'pure consciousness'

A new kind of experiment at the LHC could unravel quantum reality

How solar eclipses have been revealing cosmic secrets for centuries

Astronomers have found what may be the smallest galaxy ever, there are hints that dark energy may be getting weaker, why we're finally on the cusp of finding exomoons around other planets, popular articles.

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A new understanding of tinnitus and deafness could help reverse both, what are the mysterious continent-sized lumps deep inside earth, how bad is vaping for your health we’re finally getting answers, we may finally know how cognitive reserve protects against alzheimer's, instant expert, uncover everything we know about the nature of matter.

Particle accelerators have also given us evidence to answer other questions, such as what gives objects mass. They’ve also allowed us to explore mysterious particles like quarks and neutrinos. Join six leading experts to find out everything we know about what stuff is made of. 

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The shocking extent of latest Great Barrier Reef mass bleaching event

Eclipse chasers: Why NASA jets will pursue solar totality

ESA’s Proba-3 mission will create an eclipse on demand to study sun

Why we study the sun’s corona during a total solar eclipse

Claudia de Rham: In search of the true nature of gravity

Turtle tagging project is helping protect leatherback migratory routes

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• April 27, 2024 | AI Falls Short: Large Language Models Struggle With Medical Coding, Study Shows
• April 27, 2024 | Meteorites, Minerals, and Mysteries: Analyzing India’s Luna Impact Crater
• April 27, 2024 | Challenging Old Theories: Innovative Microscopy Exposes New Alzheimer’s Treatment Pathways
• April 27, 2024 | Unlocking Brain Secrets: Scientists Discover Link Between Pupil Size and Working Memory
• April 27, 2024 | Martian Methane Baffles Scientists: Curiosity Rover’s Surprising Discovery

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Our expertly curated content dives deep into the complexities of scientific research, unveiling the incredible discoveries and cutting-edge advancements that continue to reshape our understanding of the universe and our place within it. Stay informed, curious, and inspired as we explore the boundless wonders of the scientific realm together.

Learn more about topics such as Climate Change , Computer Science , Geology , Archaeology , Antimatter , Evolution , Neuroscience , Nanoscience , Fluid Dynamics and Energy originating at prestigious institutions like UCLA , Yale , MIT , UC Berkeley , King’s College , Max Planck Institute , Kyoto University , and Oak Ridge National Laboratory .

Science April 27, 2024

Unlocking Brain Secrets: Scientists Discover Link Between Pupil Size and Working Memory

Research from UT Arlington indicates a link between eye sensitivity and enhanced working memory. Working memory is a cognitive skill that functions as part of…

Scientists Discover Simple Trick To Improve Basketball Players’ Performance

Cacao Crisis: Devastating Virus Threatens Global Chocolate Supply

Scientists Discover Giant, Prehistoric Salmon With Tusk-Like Teeth

Boost Your Brain: Scientists Develop New Method To Improve Your Reading Efficiency

Predator in Paradise: Lionfish’s Rapid Invasion of the Mediterranean Sea

Expert-Defying Anomaly – Scientists Discover 2D Nanomaterial With Counter-Intuitive Expanding Properties

Ancient DNA Decoded: Tracing Neurodegenerative Diseases to Prehistoric Herders

From Ancient Roots to Future Brews: Unveiling Coffee’s Prehistoric Genome

Science April 24, 2024

More Than 80 Feet Long – Newly Discovered Ichthyosaur May Be the Largest Marine Reptile Ever

The enormous ichthyosaur could have reached lengths exceeding 80 feet (25 meters) and existed during the Late Triassic period. A recently identified ichthyosaur species may…

30 Times Clearer – Scientists Develop Improved Mid-Infrared Microscope

The chemical images taken of the insides of bacteria were 30 times clearer than those from conventional mid-infrared microscopes. Researchers at the University of Tokyo…

Science April 23, 2024

Rewiring Reality: Stanford Unveils the Brain’s Fault Lines in Psychosis

When the brain has trouble filtering incoming information and predicting what’s likely to happen, psychosis can result, Stanford Medicine-led research shows. Inside the brains of…

This Unusual Superfood Is Good for the Climate and Incredibly High in Protein

New research has revealed that pythons are an efficient, low-emission, and climate-resilient source of food, demonstrating superior feed-to-protein conversion rates compared to chickens or cattle….

Old Science, New Twists: Ancient Frog Fossils Disrupt 100-Year-Old Beliefs

Paleontologists discovered that the exceptional preservation of 45-million-year-old frog fossils can be attributed to the mineralization of their skin, offering new insights into their adaptation…

Science April 22, 2024

Unveiling the Hidden World of Granular Materials: MIT Engineers Probe the Mechanisms of Landslides and Earthquakes

A new technique allows for the visualization of internal forces within granular materials in three-dimensional detail, overcoming previous challenges in observing their behavior. Granular materials,…

Challenging Historical Interpretations: Scientists Shed New Light on the Mysterious Cerne Giant

For hundreds of years, the Cerne Giant—a monumental hillside engraving in Dorset of a naked man wielding a club and spanning 180 feet—has captivated both…

The Science of Aging: New Insights Into When “Old Age” Begins

Increases in life expectancy and later retirement could explain the shift in public perception of when old age begins. Middle-aged and older adults believe that…

Scientists Solve Decades-Old Microscopy Problem

Studying tissues, cells, and proteins under a microscope is essential for disease prevention and treatment. This research requires accurately measuring the dimensions of these biological…

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Cancer ‘Real hope’ for cure as personal mRNA vaccine for melanoma trialled

Spiders Exotic spiders flourishing in Britain as new jumping species found in Cornwall

Europe New nature law will fail without farmers, scientists warn

Birds Noise from traffic stunts growth of baby birds, study finds

‘An enigma’ Scientists finally learn what giant prehistoric shark looked like

Science Weekly From birds, to cattle, to … us? Could bird flu be the next pandemic? – podcast

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Women should give up vaping if they want to get pregnant, study suggests

Secret to eternal youth? John Cleese extols virtues of stem cell treatment

Trump will dismantle key US weather and science agency, climate experts fear

About 2m people have long Covid in England and Scotland, figures show

Coronavirus.

Covid boosters are a gamechanger – if they are free for everyone

Cheaper private Covid jabs may end up as costly as pricier ones, say experts

Boots to offer Covid vaccines in England for nearly £100 a jab

I helped advise the US government on the next likely pandemic. What I learned is alarming

The media industry is dying – but I can still get paid to train AI to replace me

Dead satellites are filling space with trash. That could affect Earth’s magnetic field

Yes, total eclipses are very nice. But have you ever smelled bacon?

The Guardian view on endangered languages: spoken by a few but of value to many

Science weekly podcast.

Who really wins if the Enhanced Games go ahead? – podcast

Soundscape ecology: a window into a disappearing world – podcast

The senior Swiss women who went to court over climate change, and won – podcast

Physics Brian Haywood obituary

Biology Hardwired to eat: what can our dogs teach us about obesity? – podcast

Space ‘is it aliens’: how a mysterious star could help the search for extraterrestrial life, genetics hardwired to eat: what can our dogs teach us about obesity – podcast, medical research women should give up vaping if they want to get pregnant, study suggests, psychology meet regularly, invest time – and don’t hold grudges: 10 ways to revitalise flagging friendships, alex bellos's monday puzzle, alex bellos's monday puzzle did you solve it art thou smarter than shakespeare.

Alex Bellos's Monday puzzle Can you solve it? Art thou smarter than Shakespeare?

Alex Bellos's Monday puzzle Did you solve it? Best pub quiz questions ever

Alex bellos's monday puzzle can you solve it best pub quiz questions ever.

Millions watch as total solar eclipse sweeps across Mexico, US and Canada – video

Total solar eclipse over Mexico, US and Canada – in pictures

Rare total eclipse of the sun darkens Mexico's skies – video

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Plants & Animals

Global study shows a third more insects come out after dark

A groundbreaking study, led by Dr. Mark Wong of The University of Western Australia, has provided the first global picture of insect activity patterns across the fundamental day–night cycle.

7 minutes ago

Cicada-palooza! Billions of bugs to blanket America

They're loud. They're sexually aroused. And for one special, cacophonous month up to a trillion of them will engulf suburbs and woodlands across America.

2 hours ago

Getting dynamic information from static snapshots

Imagine predicting the exact finishing order of the Kentucky Derby from a still photograph taken 10 seconds into the race.

Molecular & Computational biology

Ancient Maya blessed their ballcourts: Researchers find evidence of ceremonial offerings in Mexico

For sports fans, places like Fenway Park, Wembley Stadium or Wimbledon's Centre Court are practically hallowed ground.

Archaeology

High-precision blood glucose level prediction achieved by few-molecule reservoir computing

A collaborative research team from NIMS and Tokyo University of Science has successfully developed an artificial intelligence (AI) device that executes brain-like information processing ...

A collaborative research team from NIMS and Tokyo University of Science has successfully developed an artificial intelligence (AI) device that executes ...

Bio & Medicine

22 hours ago

Researchers reconstruct landscapes that greeted the first humans in Australia around 65,000 years ago

Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time—approximately 65,000 years ago—the first ...

21 hours ago

Optical barcodes expand range of high-resolution sensor

The same geometric quirk that lets visitors murmur messages around the circular dome of the whispering gallery at St. Paul's Cathedral in London or across St. Louis Union Station's whispering arch also enables the construction ...

Optics & Photonics

20 hours ago

Florida dolphin found with highly pathogenic avian flu: Report

The case of a Florida bottlenose dolphin found with highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, or HPAIV—a discovery made by University of Florida researchers in collaboration with multiple other agencies and one of the first ...

Large Hadron Collider experiment zeroes in on magnetic monopoles

The late physicist Joseph Polchinski once said the existence of magnetic monopoles is "one of the safest bets that one can make about physics not yet seen." In its quest for these particles, which have a magnetic charge and ...

General Physics

23 hours ago

Did Vesuvius bury the home of the first Roman emperor?

A group of archaeologists, led by researchers from the University of Tokyo, announce the discovery of a part of a Roman villa built before the middle of the first century. This villa, near the town of Nola in southwestern ...

Ridesourcing platforms thrive on socio-economic inequality, say researchers

Platforms that offer rides to passengers, such as Uber and DiDi, thrive on socio-economic inequality. By modeling the behavior of passengers and self-employed drivers, researchers of TU Delft simulated the market for ridesourcing ...

Social Sciences

Computer scientists unveil novel attacks on cybersecurity

Researchers have found two novel types of attacks that target the conditional branch predictor found in high-end Intel processors, which could be exploited to compromise billions of processors currently in use.

New circuit boards can be repeatedly recycled

A recent United Nations report found that the world generated 137 billion pounds of electronic waste in 2022, an 82% increase from 2010. Yet less than a quarter of 2022's e-waste was recycled. While many things impede a sustainable ...

The Future is Interdisciplinary

Find out how ACS can accelerate your research to keep up with the discoveries that are pushing us into science’s next frontier

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Study suggests host response needs to be studied along with other bacteriophage research

Apr 26, 2024

Scientists create new atomic clock that is both ultra-precise and sturdy

Research investigates radio emission of the rotating radio transient rrat j1854+0306, a framework to compare lithium battery testing data and results during operation, adobe's videogigagan uses ai to make blurry videos sharp and clear.

Apr 25, 2024

Medical Xpress

Component of keto diet plus immunotherapy may reduce prostate cancer

Study finds big jump in addiction treatment at community health clinics

Positive childhood experiences can boost mental health and reduce depression and anxiety in teens

Pasteurized milk 'safe' from bird flu: US officials

Location, location, location: How geography acts as a structural determinant of health

Blood test might someday diagnose early MS

Olympic deal shows bubbling market for zero-alcohol beers

Blood test finds knee osteoarthritis up to eight years before it appears on X-rays

Scientists report that new gene therapy slows down amyotrophic lateral sclerosis disease progression

Undocumented Latinx patients got COVID-19 vaccine at same rate as US citizens, study finds

How buildings influence the microbiome and human health

Illusion demystifies the way vision works: Experiments imply brightness perception occurs deeper in brain than thought

Using stem cell-derived heart muscle cells to advance heart regenerative therapy

Clinical trial evaluates azithromycin for preventing chronic lung disease in premature babies

People with rare longevity mutation may also be protected from cardiovascular disease

Study identifies driver of liver cancer that could be target for treatment

Neuroscientists investigate how the target of an arm movement is spatially encoded in the primate brain

Analysis identifies 50 new genomic regions associated with kidney cancer risk

Biomarkers identified for successful treatment of bone marrow tumors

Experimental malaria monoclonal antibody protective in Malian children

International study fills data gap on adolescent mental health

Gene linked to epilepsy and autism decoded in new study

Researchers find pregnancy cytokine levels impact fetal brain development and offspring behavior

Study finds biomarkers for psychiatric symptoms in patients with rare genetic condition 22q

Homelessness found to be a major issue for many patients in the emergency department

Personalized 'cocktails' of antibiotics, probiotics and prebiotics hold promise in treating IBS, pilot study finds

Experts develop immune-enhancing therapies to target tuberculosis

Making transfusion-transmitted malaria in Europe a thing of the past

Patients prescribed gabapentinoids at increased risk of drug misuse or overdose, researchers find

Study supports gene-directed management of BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene carriers in Singapore

Tech xplore.

Google plans to invest $2 billion to build data center in northeast Indiana, officials say

Scientists are shaking up lithium extraction with a different kind of chemistry

Daimler Truck braces for possible strike in 3 southern US states

Custom-made catalyst leads to longer-lasting and more sustainable green hydrogen production

Built-in bionic computing: Researchers develop method to control pneumatic artificial muscles

Proof of concept study shows path to easier recycling of solar modules

Researchers develop an automated benchmark for language-based task planners

US probes whether Tesla Autopilot recall did enough to make sure drivers pay attention

A high-fidelity model for designing efficient thermal management surfaces

Researchers propose framework for future network systems

Reducing operation emissions and improving work efficiency using a pure electric wheel drive tractor

Researchers outline path forward for tandem solar cells

Cat hides in Amazon return package—then ends up in California 700 miles from home

Cybersecurity firm Darktrace accepts $5 bn takeover

Researcher develop high-performance amorphous p-type oxide semiconductor

Japan to levy big fines with new app rules

New approach could make reusing captured carbon far cheaper, less energy-intensive

Team develops new testing system for carbon capture in fight against global warming

California battery storage increasing rapidly, but not enough to end blackouts, Gov. Newsom says

Google parent Alphabet's Q1 profits beat estimates: company

Microsoft expands its AI empire abroad

ByteDance says 'no plans' to sell TikTok after US ban law

Study explores why human-inspired machines can be perceived as eerie

Engineers uncover key to efficient and stable organic solar cells

Researchers increase storage, efficiency and durability of capacitors

New algorithm cuts through 'noisy' data to better predict tipping points

Whether you're trying to predict a climate catastrophe or mental health crisis, mathematics tells us to look for fluctuations.

Mathematics

Unveiling a new quantum frontier: Frequency-domain entanglement

Scientists have introduced a form of quantum entanglement known as frequency-domain photon number-path entanglement. This advance in quantum physics involves an innovative tool called a frequency beam splitter, which has ...

A blood test successfully predicted knee osteoarthritis at least eight years before tell-tale signs of the disease appeared on X-rays, Duke Health researchers report.

Researchers advance detection of gravitational waves to study collisions of neutron stars and black holes

Researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities College of Science and Engineering co-led a new study by an international team that will improve the detection of gravitational waves—ripples in space and time.

A new way to study and help prevent landslides

Landslides are one of the most destructive natural disasters on the planet, causing billions of dollars of damage and devastating loss of life every year. By introducing a new paradigm for studying landslide shapes and failure ...

Earth Sciences

Automated machine learning robot unlocks new potential for genetics research

University of Minnesota Twin Cities researchers have constructed a robot that uses machine learning to fully automate a complicated microinjection process used in genetic research.

Biotechnology

Enhancing memory technology: Multiferroic nanodots for low-power magnetic storage

Traditional memory devices are volatile and the current non-volatile ones rely on either ferromagnetic or ferroelectric materials for data storage. In ferromagnetic devices, data is written or stored by aligning magnetic ...

Nanophysics

Researchers led by Ryuhei Nakamura at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan have improved on their green and sustainable method of extracting hydrogen from water by using a custom-made catalyst ...

Study details a common bacterial defense against viral infection

One of the many secrets to bacteria's success is their ability to defend themselves from viruses, called phages, that infect bacteria and use their cellular machinery to make copies of themselves.

Cell & Microbiology

There has been a breakthrough in the research on the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Scientists at Umeå University report that the disease progression in a patient with a particularly aggressive form of ALS ...

'Everyone sits out': Yangon parks offer heat wave relief

As the sun sets on another scorching Yangon day, the hot and bothered descend on the Myanmar city's parks, the coolest place to spend an evening during yet another power blackout.

NASA hears from Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, after months of quiet

NASA has finally heard back from Voyager 1 again in a way that makes sense.

Astronauts arrive at Kennedy Space Center as first crew for Boeing's Starliner spacecraft

It's not just another ride for a pair of veteran NASA astronauts who arrived to the Space Coast ahead of their flight onboard Boeing's CST-100 Starliner.

Experts develop way to harness CRISPR technology to deal with antimicrobial resistance

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is continuing to increase globally, with rates of AMR in most pathogens increasing and threatening a future in which every day medical procedures may no longer be possible and infections thought ...

CRISPR is promising to tackle antimicrobial resistance, but bacteria can fight back

In his presentation "How to use CRISPR-Cas to combat AMR" at the ESCMID Global Congress, Assistant Prof. Ibrahim Bitar, Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital in Plzen, Charles University ...

New quarantine scheme could reduce risk of rabies reintroduction in the EU following Russian invasion, study finds

Rabies is a major concern to both human and animal health, with rabies in dogs and cats widespread in Eastern Europe, and there are concerns the war in Ukraine could pose a greater risk of rabies being reintroduced to the ...

Up in smoke: New study suggests it's time to ditch long-held stereotypes about stoners

Stoners are not as lazy and unmotivated as stereotypes suggest, according to new U of T Scarborough research.

Research finds pronoun use not only shaped by language but also beliefs

Pronouns like "he" and "she" are at the center of much debate as society tries to shift to using more gender-inclusive pronouns like "they"—especially when referring to those with identities that do not fit with traditional ...

New process quickly transforms livestock manure into biochar

A technology has been developed to quickly convert livestock manure, a significant issue in animal farming, into valuable "black gold" rich in carbon within a day.

Study shows climate change impact on China's dry–wet transition zones

Climate change is significantly altering bioclimatic environments in China's dry–wet transition zones, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Hydrology.

How bad are invasive plants for birds? Research suggests large-scale removal may not have intended benefits

A prevailing opinion in land management is that non-native invasive plants are of no ecological value and they significantly diminish habitat quality for wildlife. Conservation practitioners allocate significant resources ...

The end of the quantum tunnel: Exact instanton transseries for quantum mechanics

In the quantum world, processes can be separated into two distinct classes. One class, that of the so-called "perturbative" phenomena, is relatively easy to detect, both in an experiment and in a mathematical computation. ...

Umami-rich scrap fish and invasive species can liven up vegetables, says gastrophysicist

Greening the way we eat needn't mean going vegetarian. A healthy, more realistic solution is to adopt a flexitarian diet where seafoods add umami to "boring" vegetables. University of Copenhagen gastrophysicist Ole G. Mouritsen ...

Enhanced superconductivity in monolayer FeSe films on SrTiO₃(001) via metallic δ-doping

Interface engineering has been proven to be effective in discovering new quantum states, such as topological states, superconductivity, charge density waves, magnetism, etc., which require atomic-scale heterostructure fabrication. ...

Imaging the microstructural landscape of amorphous carbons

Prof. Wu HengAn's team from the University of Science and Technology of China has presented six representative phases of amorphous carbons based on large-scale molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, achieving a comprehensive ...

Avian ambassadors and tribal perspectives: A bird's eye view of prescribed fire

PSW ecologist and tribal liaison Frank Lake wondered how the birds he grew up with in northeastern California were faring. As a Karuk tribal descendant with Yurok family, Lake has a deep connection to the land and the birds ...

Study finds affordability, not infrastructure, is major barrier to high-speed internet connectivity

With a federal subsidy that has provided less expensive or free broadband internet to more than 23 million American households due to run out of money by the end of May, a new University of Massachusetts Amherst study reveals ...

Will checking character references really help you find the best candidate for a job?

Finding the best person to fill a position can be tough, from drafting a job ad to producing a shortlist of top interview candidates.

Dark matter: A new experiment aims to turn the ghostly substance into actual light

A ghost is haunting our universe. This has been known in astronomy and cosmology for decades. Observations suggest that about 85% of all the matter in the universe is mysterious and invisible. These two qualities are reflected ...

Herds of endangered hippos trapped in mud in drought-hit Botswana

Herds of endangered hippos stuck in the mud of dried-up ponds are in danger of dying in drought-struck Botswana, conservation authorities told AFP Friday.

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Science News

Eclipse from space: Paths of 2024 and 2017 eclipses collide over US in new satellite image

By Samantha Mathewson published 27 April 24

Satellite images capture striking differences between the 2017 and 2024 total solar eclipses that swept across North America, including variations in the moon's shadow along the path of totality.

Pigbutt worm: The deep-sea 'mystery blob' with the rump of a pig and a ballooned belly

By Melissa Hobson published 27 April 24

Bizarre worm that looks "like the rump of a pig from one side and Mick Jagger's lips from the other" may be in the middle of an evolutionary leap, scientists say.

Why does striking flint against steel start a fire?

By Laurel Hamers published 27 April 24

What's the science behind starting a fire with flint and steel?

Traces of hallucinogenic plants and chile peppers found at Maya ball court suggest rituals took place there

By Jennifer Nalewicki published 26 April 24

An environmental DNA analysis of soil collected at an ancient Maya ball court reveals that the site was once part of a ritual.

PTSD tied to 95 'risk hotspots' in the genome

By Jennifer Zieba published 26 April 24

In a group effort, scientists from all over the world came together to create a detailed map of the genetic causes behind PTSD.

New UTI vaccine wards off infection for years, early studies suggest

By Sahana Sitaraman published 26 April 24

More than 50% of the patients who used a new mouth-spray-based vaccine didn't have a UTI for up to nine years.

Blood test powered by AI could catch osteoarthritis 8 years earlier than X-ray, early data show

By Emily Cooke published 26 April 24

A new blood test could determine whether someone will develop knee osteoarthritis up to eight years before structural damage is picked up by an X-ray.

We've never seen the Fitbit Versa at this rock bottom price before, surely it won't be around long

By Lloyd Coombes published 26 April 24

Deal Amazon is offering 48% off the versatile fitness tracker-come-smartwatch, so long as you like pink or black.

1,430 ancient Roman graves scattered with funerary festival leftovers unearthed in southern France

By Sascha Pare published 26 April 24

Archaeologists in southern France have excavated an ancient Roman cemetery containing 1,430 graves and traces of a funerary festival, during which families feasted by the graves of relatives.

Lavish 2,200-year-old tomb unearthed in China may be that of ancient king

By Tom Metcalfe published 26 April 24

It's not known who was buried in the tomb, but one expert says it was probably the Chu state ruler.

Lasers reveal prehistoric Irish monuments that may have been 'pathways for the dead'

Archaeologists used lidar to detect a cluster of rare Neolithic monuments hidden in farmland in Ireland.

Tweak to Schrödinger's cat equation could unite Einstein's relativity and quantum mechanics, study hints

By Andrey Feldman published 26 April 24

Physicists have proposed modifications to the infamous Schrödinger's cat paradox that could help explain why quantum particles can exist in more than one state simultaneously, while large objects (like the universe) seemingly cannot.

World's thinnest gold leaf, dubbed 'goldene,' is just 1 atom thick

By Victoria Atkinson published 25 April 24

Goldene is the latest 2D material to be made since graphene was first created in 2004.

Plato's burial place finally revealed after AI deciphers ancient scroll carbonized in Mount Vesuvius eruption

By Jennifer Nalewicki published 25 April 24

Researchers used AI to decipher an ancient papyrus that includes details about where Greek philosopher is buried.

Save 32% on this feature-packed Garmin Instinct running watch

By Lloyd Coombes published 25 April 24

Deal Amazon are slashing $80 off this fantastic running watch at right now, which boasts two weeks of battery life.

1st self-driving car that 'lets you take your eyes off the road' goes on sale in the US — and it's not a Tesla

By Keumars Afifi-Sabet published 25 April 24

Mercedes-Benz has sold at least one of its new vehicles fitted with its Drive Pilot autonomous driving software, which lets you take your hands off the steering wheel and your eyes off the road.

Hundreds of black 'spiders' spotted in mysterious 'Inca City' on Mars in new satellite photos

By Stephanie Pappas published 25 April 24

Every spring, creepy black 'spiders' sprout up on Mars as buried carbon dioxide ice releases dusty geysers of gas. New ESA images show the phenomenon has begun in the strange Inca City formation.

China green-lights mass production of autonomous flying taxis — with commercial flights set for 2025

By Roland Moore-Coyler published 25 April 24

The EHang EH216-S autonomous flying taxi is the first eVTOL ready for mass production and could lead the way for flying cars around the world.

'We have combined two marvels of modern medicine': Woman gets pig kidney and heart pump in groundbreaking procedures

By Nicoletta Lanese published 25 April 24

In a medical first, doctors transplanted a gene-edited pig kidney into a human patient after giving her a new heart pump.

Scientists find one of the oldest stars in the universe in a galaxy right next to ours

By Jonathan Gilbert published 25 April 24

An ancient star discovered in the Large Magellanic Cloud has revealed the chemical fingerprint of the early universe. It hints that conditions were not the same everywhere when the first stars forged the elements for life.

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• 2 James Webb telescope confirms there is something seriously wrong with our understanding of the universe
• 3 Giant, 82-foot lizard fish discovered on UK beach could be largest marine reptile ever found
• 4 Global 'time signals' subtly shifted as the total solar eclipse reshaped Earth's upper atmosphere, new data shows
• 5 'I nearly fell out of my chair': 1,800-year-old mini portrait of Alexander the Great found in a field in Denmark
• 2 New UTI vaccine wards off infection for years, early studies suggest
• 3 Tweak to Schrödinger's cat equation could unite Einstein's relativity and quantum mechanics, study hints
• 4 Plato's burial place finally revealed after AI deciphers ancient scroll carbonized in Mount Vesuvius eruption
• 5 George Washington's stash of centuries-old cherries found hidden under Mount Vernon floor

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Early mrna research that led to covid-19 vaccines wins 2023 medicine nobel prize.

Biochemists Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman overcame hurdles that enabled vaccine development

Researchers Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman discovered how to deliver mRNA into cells inside the body by enveloping the molecule inside lipid bubbles (illustrated). Technology that was essential for developing some COVID-19 vaccines earned the pair the 2023 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. 

JUAN GAERTNER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/GETTY IMAGES

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By Tina Hesman Saey , Meghan Rosen and Erin Garcia de Jesús

October 2, 2023 at 9:29 am

Updated October 2, 2023 at 1:30 pm

Two scientists who laid the groundwork for what would become among the most influential vaccines of all time have been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology. 

Biochemist Katalin Karikó, now at the University of Szeged in Hungary, and Drew Weissman of the University of Pennsylvania were honored for their research on modifications of mRNA that made the first vaccines against COVID-19 possible ( SN: 12/15/21 ). 

“Everybody has experienced the COVID-19 pandemic that affects our life, economy and public health. It was a traumatic event,” said Qiang Pan-Hammarström, a member of the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, which awards the medicine or physiology prize. Her remarks came on October 2 after a news briefing to announce the winners. “You probably don’t need to emphasize more that the basic discovery made by the laureates has made a huge impact on our society.”

As of September 2023, more than 13.5 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses — including mRNA vaccines as well as other kinds of shots — had been administered since they first became available in December 2020, according to the World Health Organization. In the year after their introduction, the shots are estimated to have saved nearly 20 million lives globally. In the United States, where mRNA COVID-19 shots made by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech accounted for the vast majority of vaccinations, the vaccines are estimated to have prevented 1.1 million additional deaths and 10.3 million hospitalizations.

A different kind of vaccine

RNA is DNA’s lesser-known chemical cousin. Cells make RNA copies of genetic instructions contained in DNA. Some of those RNA copies, known as messenger RNA, or mRNA, are used to build proteins. Messenger RNA “literally tells your cells what proteins to make,” says Kizzmekia Corbett-Helaire, a viral immunologist at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. Proteins do much of the important work that keeps cells, and the organisms they’re a part of, alive and well.

The mRNA vaccines work a bit differently than traditional immunizations. Most traditional vaccines use viruses or bacteria — either weakened or killed — or proteins from those pathogens to provoke the immune system into making protective antibodies and other defenses against future infections. 

The COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna instead contain mRNA that carries instructions for making one of the coronavirus’s proteins ( SN: 2/21/20 ). When a person gets an mRNA shot, the genetic material gets into their cells and triggers the cells to produce the viral protein for a short amount of time. When the immune system sees the viral protein, it builds defenses to prevent serious illness if the person later gets infected with the coronavirus. 

Vaccines using mRNA were a good choice to combat the pandemic, Corbett-Helaire says. The technology allows scientists to “skip that step of making large amounts of proteins in the laboratory and instead … tell the body to do things that the body already does, except now we make an extra protein,” she says. 

In addition to protecting people from the coronavirus, mRNA vaccines may also work against other infectious diseases and cancer . Scientists might also use the technology to help people with certain rare genetic diseases make enzymes or other proteins they lack. Clinical trials are under way for many of these uses, but it could take years before scientists know the results ( SN: 12/17/21 ).

A long time coming

The first mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 became available just under a year into the pandemic, but the technology behind it has been decades in the making.

In 1997, Karikó and Weissman met at the copy machine, Karikó said during a news conference October 2 at the University of Pennsylvania. She told him about her work with RNA, and he shared his interest in vaccines. Although housed in separate buildings, the researchers worked together to solve one fundamental problem that could have derailed mRNA vaccines and therapies: Pumping regular mRNA into the body gets the immune system riled up in bad ways, producing a flood of immune chemicals called cytokines. Those chemicals can trigger damaging inflammation. And this unmodified mRNA produces very little protein in the body.  

The researchers found that swapping the RNA building block uridine for modified versions, first pseudouridine and then N1-methylpseudouridine, could dampen the bad immune reaction. That nifty chemistry, first reported in 2005 , allowed researchers to rein in the immune response and safely deliver the mRNA to cells.

“The messenger RNA has to hide and it has to go unnoticed by our bodies, which are very brilliant at destroying things that are foreign,” Corbett-Helaire says. “The modifications that [Karikó and Weissman] worked on for a number of years really were fundamental to allowing the mRNA therapeutics to hide while also being very helpful to the body.”

In addition, the modified mRNA produced lots of protein that could spark an immune response , the team showed in 2008 and 2010. It was this work on modifying mRNA building blocks that the prize honors.

For years, “we couldn’t get people to notice RNA as something interesting,” Weissman said at the Penn news conference. Vaccines using the technology failed clinical trials in the early 1990s, and most researchers gave up. But Karikó “lit the match,” and they spent the next 20 years figuring out how to get it to work, Weissman said. “We would sit together in 1997 and afterwards and talk about all the things that we thought RNA could do, all of the vaccines and therapeutics and gene therapies, and just realizing how important it had the potential to be. That’s why we never gave up.”

In 2006, Karikó and Weissman started a company called RNARx to develop mRNA-based treatments and vaccines. After Karikó joined the German company BioNTech in 2013, she and Weissman continued to collaborate. They and colleagues reported in 2015 that encasing mRNA in bubbles of lipids could help the fragile RNA get into cells without getting broken down in the body. The researchers were developing a Zika vaccine when the pandemic hit, and quickly applied what they had learned toward containing the coronavirus.

The duo’s work was not always so celebrated. Thomas Perlmann, Secretary General of the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute, asked the newly minted laureates whether they were surprised to have won. He said that Karikó was overwhelmed, noting that just 10 years ago she was terminated from her job and had to move to Germany without her family to get another position. She never won a grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health to support her work. 

“She struggled and didn’t get recognition for the importance of her vision,” Perlmann said, but she had a passion for using mRNA therapeutically. “She resisted the temptation to sort of go away from that path and do something maybe easier.” Karikó is the 61st woman to win a Nobel Prize since 1901, and the 13th to be awarded a prize in physiology and medicine. 

Though it often takes decades before the Nobel committees recognize a discovery, sometimes recognition comes relatively swiftly. For instance, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2020 a mere eight years after the researchers published a description of the genetic scissors CRISPR/Cas 9 ( SN: 10/7/20 ).

“I never expected in my entire life to get the Nobel Prize,” Weissman said, especially not a mere three years after the vaccines demonstrated their medical importance. Perlmann told him the Nobel committee was seeking to be “more current” with its awards, he said.

The timely Nobel highlights that “there are just a million other possibilities for messenger RNA therapeutics … beyond the vaccines,” Corbett-Helaire says.

The researchers said at the Penn news conference that they weren’t sure the early morning phone call from Perlmann was real. On the advice of Weissman’s daughter, they waited for the Nobel announcement. “We sat in bed. [I was] looking at my wife, and my cat is begging for food,” he said. “We wait, and the press conference starts, and it was real. So that’s when we really became excited.”

Karikó and Weissman will share the prize of 11 million Swedish kronor, or roughly $1 million.

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Yellowstone’s Wolves: A Debate Over Their Role in the Park’s Ecosystem

New research questions the long-held theory that reintroduction of such a predator caused a trophic cascade, spawning renewal of vegetation and spurring biodiversity.

Yellowstone’s ecological transformation through the reintroduction of wolves has become a case study for how to correct out-of-balance ecosystems. But new research challenges that notion. Credit... Elizabeth Boehm/Danita Delimont, via Alamy

Supported by

By Jim Robbins

• April 23, 2024

In 1995, 14 wolves were delivered by truck and sled to the heart of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, where the animal had long been absent. Others followed.

Since then, a story has grown up, based on early research, that as the wolves increased in number, they hunted the park’s elk herds, significantly reducing them by about half from 17,000.

The wolves’ return and predatory dominance was believed to have had a widespread effect known as a trophic cascade, by decreasing grazing and restoring and expanding forests, grasses and other wildlife. It supposedly even changed the course of rivers as streamside vegetation returned.

Yellowstone’s dramatic transformation through the reintroduction of wolves has become a global parable for how to correct out-of-balance ecosystems.

In recent years, however, new research has walked that story back. Yes, stands of aspen and willows are thriving again — in some places. But decades of damage from elk herds’ grazing and trampling so thoroughly changed the landscape that large areas remain scarred and may not recover for a long time, if ever.

Wolf packs, in other words, are not magic bullets for restoring ecosystems.

“I would say it’s exaggerated, greatly exaggerated,” said Thomas Hobbs, a professor of natural resource ecology at Colorado State University and the lead author of a long-term study that adds new fuel to the debate over whether Yellowstone experienced a trophic cascade.

“You could argue a trophic trickle maybe,” said Daniel Stahler, the park’s lead wolf biologist who has studied the phenomenon. “Not a trophic cascade.”

Not only is the park’s recovery far less robust than first thought, but the story as it has been told is more complex, Dr. Hobbs said.

But the legend of the wolves’ influence on the park persists.

“How in the world does this lovely story — and it is a beautiful story — come to be seen as fact?” Dr. Hobbs wondered. A chapter of a book tried to answer that, concluding that a video called “ How Wolves Change Rivers ,” which has received tens of millions of views, contributed mightily to the tale.

The ecological record is complicated by the fact that, as elk declined, the number of bison increased substantially, continuing some of the same patterns, like heavy grazing in some places. Moreover, Yellowstone is growing warmer and drier with climate change.

Large numbers of elk in the north of the park had caused significant ecological changes — vegetation disappeared, trampled streams led to extensive erosion, and invasive plant species took hold. Riparian vegetation, or the grasses, the trees and the shrubs along riverbanks and streams, provides a critical habitat for birds, insects and other species to flourish and to maintain biodiversity in the park.

Once elk numbers dwindled, willows and aspens returned along rivers and streams and flourished. The beaver, an engineer of ecosystems, reappeared, using the dense new growth of willows for both food and construction materials. Colonies built new dams, creating ponds that enhanced stream habitats for birds, fish, grizzlies and other bears as well as promoting the growth of more willows and spring vegetation.

But wolves were only one piece of a larger picture, argue Dr. Hobbs and other skeptics of a full-blown trophic cascade at Yellowstone. Grizzly bears and humans played a role, too. For eight years after wolves re-entered the park, hunters killed more elk than the wolves did.

“The other members of the predator guild increased, and human harvest outside of the park has been clearly shown to be responsible for the decline in elk numbers the first 10 years after the wolves were introduced,” Dr. Hobbs said.

The changes attributed to the presence of stalking wolves, some research showed, weren’t only the result of fewer elk, but of a change in elk behavior called “the ecology of fear.” Scientists suggested that the big ungulates could no longer safely hang out along river or stream banks and eat everything in sight. They became extremely cautious, hiding in places where they could be vigilant. That allowed a return of vegetation in those places.

Dr. Hobbs and others contend that subsequent research has not borne that theory out.

Another overlooked factor is that around the same time wolves were returning, 129 beavers were reintroduced by the U.S. Forest Service onto streams north of the park. So it wasn’t just wolf predation on elk and the subsequent return of wolves that enabled an increase in beavers, experts say.

Some researchers say the so-called trophic cascade and rebirth of streamside ecosystems would have been far more robust if it weren’t for the park’s growing bison herd. The bison population is at an all-time high — the most recent count last summer found nearly 5,000 animals. Much larger than elk, bison are less likely to be vulnerable to wolves, which numbered 124 this winter.

The park’s bison, some researchers say, are overgrazing and otherwise seriously damaging the ecosystems — allowing the spread of invasive species and trampling and destroying native plants.

The heavily grazed landscape is why, critics say, some 4,000 bison, also a record, left Yellowstone for Montana in the winter of 2023-24, when an unusually heavy snow buried forage. Because some bison harbor a disease, called brucellosis, that state officials say could infect cattle, they are not welcome outside the park’s borders. (There are no documented cases of transmission between bison and cattle.)

Montana officials say killing animals that may carry disease as they leave the park is the only way to stem the flow. During a hunt that began in the winter of 2023, Native Americans from tribes around the region took part. All told, hunters killed about 1,085 bison; 88 more were shipped to slaughter and 282 were transferred to tribes. This year, just a few animals have left the park.

The Park Service is expected to release a bison management plan in the coming months. It is considering three options: to allow for 3,500 to 5,000 animals, 3,500 to 6,000, or a more natural population that could reach 7,000.

Richard Keigley, who was a research ecologist for the federal Geological Survey in the 1990s, has become an outspoken critic of the park’s bison management.

“They have created this juggernaut where we’ve got thousands of bison and the public believes this is the way things always were,” he said. “The bison that are there now have destroyed and degraded their primary ranges. People have to realize there’s something wrong in Yellowstone.”

Dr. Keigley said the bison population in the park fluctuated in the early years of the park, with about 229 animals in 1967. It has grown steadily since and peaked last year at 5,900.

“There is a hyperabundant bison population in our first national park,” said Robert Beschta, a professor emeritus of forest ecosystems at Oregon State University who has studied Yellowstone riparian areas for 20 years. He pointed to deteriorating conditions along the Lamar River from bison overgrazing.

“They are hammering it,” Mr. Beschta said. “The Lamar ranks right up there with the worst cattle allotments I’ve seen in the American West. Willows can’t grow. Cottonwoods can’t grow.”

A warmer and drier climate, he said, is making matters worse.

Such opinions, however, are not settled science. Some park experts believe that the presence of thousands of bison enhances park habitats because of something called the Green Wave Hypothesis.

Chris Geremia, a park biologist, is an author of a paper that makes the case that a large numbers of bison can stimulate plant growth by grazing grasses to the length of a suburban lawn. “By creating these grazing lawns bison and other herbivores — grasshoppers, elk — these lawns are sustaining more nutritious food for these animals,” he said.

Dr. Geremia contends that a tiny portion — perhaps one-tenth of one percent — of the park may be devoid of some plants. “The other 99.9 percent of those habitats exists in all different levels of willow, aspen and cottonwood,” he said.

The Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a conservation organization, favors a bison population of 4,000 to 6,000 animals. Shana Drimal, who heads the group’s bison conservation program, said that park officials needed to monitor closely changing conditions like climate, drought and bison movement to ensure the ecosystems wouldn’t become further degraded.

Several scientists propose allowing the bison to migrate to the buffer zones beyond the park’s borders, where they are naturally inclined to travel. But it remains controversial because of the threat of disease.

“The only solution is to provide suitable winter range outside the park where they should be tolerated,” said Robert Crabtree, a chief scientist for the Yellowstone Ecological Research Center, a nonprofit. “When they migrate outside the park now it’s to habitat they evolved to prefer — and instead we kill them and ship them away.”

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Scientists push new paradigm of animal consciousness, saying even insects may be sentient

Bees play by rolling wooden balls — apparently for fun . The cleaner wrasse fish appears to recognize its own visage in an underwater mirror . Octopuses seem to react to anesthetic drugs and will avoid settings where they likely experienced past pain. 

All three of these discoveries came in the last five years — indications that the more scientists test animals, the more they find that many species may have inner lives and be sentient. A surprising range of creatures have shown evidence of conscious thought or experience, including insects, fish and some crustaceans. 

That has prompted a group of top researchers on animal cognition to publish a new pronouncement that they hope will transform how scientists and society view — and care — for animals. 

Nearly 40 researchers signed “ The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness ,” which was first presented at a conference at New York University on Friday morning. It marks a pivotal moment, as a flood of research on animal cognition collides with debates over how various species ought to be treated. 

The declaration says there is “strong scientific support” that birds and mammals have conscious experience, and a “realistic possibility” of consciousness for all vertebrates — including reptiles, amphibians and fish. That possibility extends to many creatures without backbones, it adds, such as insects, decapod crustaceans (including crabs and lobsters) and cephalopod mollusks, like squid, octopus and cuttlefish.

“When there is a realistic possibility of conscious experience in an animal, it is irresponsible to ignore that possibility in decisions affecting that animal,” the declaration says. “We should consider welfare risks and use the evidence to inform our responses to these risks.” 

Jonathan Birch, a professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics and a principal investigator on the Foundations of Animal Sentience project, is among the declaration’s signatories. Whereas many scientists in the past assumed that questions about animal consciousness were unanswerable, he said, the declaration shows his field is moving in a new direction. 

“This has been a very exciting 10 years for the study of animal minds,” Birch said. “People are daring to go there in a way they didn’t before and to entertain the possibility that animals like bees and octopuses and cuttlefish might have some form of conscious experience.”

From 'automata' to sentient

There is not a standard definition for animal sentience or consciousness, but generally the terms denote an ability to have subjective experiences: to sense and map the outside world, to have capacity for feelings like joy or pain. In some cases, it can mean that animals possess a level of self-awareness. 

In that sense, the new declaration bucks years of historical science orthodoxy. In the 17th century, the French philosopher René Descartes argued that animals were merely “material automata” — lacking souls or consciousness.

Descartes believed that animals “can’t feel or can’t suffer,” said Rajesh Reddy, an assistant professor and director of the animal law program at Lewis & Clark College. “To feel compassion for them, or empathy for them, was somewhat silly or anthropomorphizing.” 

In the early 20th century, prominent behavioral psychologists promoted the idea that science should only study observable behavior in animals, rather than emotions or subjective experiences . But beginning in the 1960s, scientists started to reconsider. Research began to focus on animal cognition, primarily among other primates. 

Birch said the new declaration attempts to “crystallize a new emerging consensus that rejects the view of 100 years ago that we have no way of studying these questions scientifically.” 

Indeed, a surge of recent findings underpin the new declaration. Scientists are developing new cognition tests and trying pre-existing tests on a wider range of species, with some surprises. 

Take, for example, the mirror-mark test, which scientists sometimes use to see if an animal recognizes itself. 

In a series of studies, the cleaner wrasse fish seemed to pass the test . 

The fish were placed in a tank with a covered mirror, to which they exhibited no unusual reaction. But after the cover was lifted, seven of 10 fish launched attacks toward the mirror, signaling they likely interpreted the image as a rival fish. 

After several days, the fish settled down and tried odd behaviors in front of the mirror, like swimming upside down, which had not been observed in the species before. Later, some appeared to spend an unusual amount of time in front of the mirror, examining their bodies. Researchers then marked the fish with a brown splotch under the skin, intended to resemble a parasite. Some fish tried to rub the mark off. 

“The sequence of steps that you would only ever have imagined seeing with an incredibly intelligent animal like a chimpanzee or a dolphin, they see in the cleaner wrasse,” Birch said. “No one in a million years would have expected tiny fish to pass this test.”

In other studies, researchers found that zebrafish showed signs of curiosity when new objects were introduced into their tanks and that cuttlefish could remember things they saw or smelled . One experiment created stress for crayfish by electrically shocking them , then gave them anti-anxiety drugs used in humans. The drugs appeared to restore their usual behavior.

Birch said these experiments are part of an expansion of animal consciousness research over the past 10 to 15 years. “We can have this much broader canvas where we’re studying it in a very wide range of animals and not just mammals and birds, but also invertebrates like octopuses, cuttlefish,” he said. “And even increasingly, people are talking about this idea in relation to insects.”

As more and more species show these types of signs, Reddy said, researchers might soon need to reframe their line of inquiry altogether: “Scientists are being forced to reckon with this larger question — not which animals are sentient, but which animals aren’t?” 

New legal horizons

Scientists’ changing understanding of animal sentience could have implications for U.S. law, which does not classify animals as sentient on a federal level, according to Reddy. Instead, laws pertaining to animals focus primarily on conservation, agriculture or their treatment by zoos, research laboratories and pet retailers.

“The law is a very slow moving vehicle and it really follows societal views on a lot of these issues,” Reddy said. “This declaration, and other means of getting the public to appreciate that animals are not just biological automatons, can create a groundswell of support for raising protections.” 

State laws vary widely. A decade ago, Oregon passed a law recognizing animals as sentient and capable of feeling pain, stress and fear, which Reddy said has formed the bedrock of progressive judicial opinions in the state.  

Meanwhile, Washington and California are among several states where lawmakers this year have considered bans on octopus farming, a species for which scientists have found strong evidence of sentience. 

British law was recently amended to consider octopuses sentient beings — along with crabs and lobsters .

“Once you recognize animals as sentient, the concept of humane slaughter starts to matter, and you need to make sure that the sort of methods you’re using on them are humane,” Birch said. “In the case of crabs and lobsters, there are pretty inhumane methods, like dropping them into pans of boiling water, that are very commonly used.”

Evan Bush is a science reporter for NBC News. He can be reached at [email protected].

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Perspective

Which scientists get mentioned in the news mostly ones with anglo names, says study.

When the media covers scientific research, not all scientists are equally likely to be mentioned. A new study finds scientists with Asian or African names were 15% less likely to be named in a story. shironosov/Getty Images hide caption

When the media covers scientific research, not all scientists are equally likely to be mentioned. A new study finds scientists with Asian or African names were 15% less likely to be named in a story.

When one Chinese national recently petitioned the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to become a permanent resident, he thought his chances were pretty good. As an accomplished biologist, he figured that news articles in top media outlets, including The New York Times , covering his research would demonstrate his "extraordinary ability" in the sciences, as called for by the EB-1A visa .

But when the immigration officers rejected his petition, they noted that his name did not appear anywhere in the news articles. News coverage of a paper he co-authored did not directly demonstrate his major contribution to the work.

As this biologist's close friend, I felt bad for him because I knew how much he had dedicated to the project. He even started the idea as one of his Ph.D. dissertation chapters. But as a scientist who studies topics related to scientific innovation , I understand the immigration officers' perspective: Research is increasingly done through teamwork , so it's hard to know individual contributions if a news article reports only the study findings.

This anecdote made me and my colleagues Misha Teplitskiy and David Jurgens curious about what affects journalists' decisions about which researchers to feature in their news stories.

There's a lot at stake for a scientist whose name is or isn't mentioned in journalistic coverage of their work. News media play a key role in disseminating new scientific findings to the public . The coverage of a particular study brings prestige to its research team and their institutions. The depth and quality of coverage then shapes public perception of who is doing good science . In some cases, as my friend's story suggests, the coverage can affect individual careers.

Do scientists' social identities, such as ethnicity or race, play a role in who gets named?

This question is not straightforward to answer. On the one hand, racial bias may exist, given the profound underrepresentation of minorities in U.S. mainstream media . On the other, science journalism is known for its high standard of objective reporting . We decided to investigate this question in a systematic fashion using large-scale observational data.

The least coverage? Chinese and African names

My colleagues and I analyzed 223,587 news stories from 288 U.S. media outlets, sourced from Altmetric.com, a website that monitors online posts about research papers . The news stories, published from 2011-2019, covered 100,486 scientific papers. For each paper, we focused on authors with the highest chance of being mentioned: the first author, last author and other designated corresponding authors. We calculated how often the authors were mentioned in the news articles reporting their research.

We used an algorithm to infer perceived ethnicity from authors' names . We figured that journalists may rely on such cues in the absence of scientists' self-reported information. We considered authors with Anglo names – like John Brown or Emily Taylor – as the majority group and then compared the average mention rates across nine broad ethnic groups.

Our methodology does not distinguish Black from white names because many African Americans have Anglo names, such as Michael Jackson. But since we focus on perceived identity across nine different groups based on names, the study's design is still meaningful.

We found that for the subset of first, last and corresponding authors on research papers, the overall chance of being credited by name in a news story was 40%. Authors with minority ethnicity names, however, were significantly less likely to be mentioned compared with authors with Anglo names. The disparity was most pronounced for authors with East Asian and African names; they were on average mentioned or quoted about 15% less in U.S. science media relative to those with Anglo names.

This association is consistent even after accounting for factors such as geographical location, corresponding author status, authorship position, affiliation rank, author prestige, research topics, journal impact and story length.

And the disparity held across different types of outlets, including publishers of press releases, general interest news and those with content focused on science and technology.

Pragmatic factors and language choices

Our results don't directly imply media bias. So what's going on?

First and foremost, the underrepresentation of scientists with East Asian and African names may be due to pragmatic challenges faced by U.S.-based journalists in interviewing them. Factors like time zone differences for researchers based overseas and actual or perceived English fluency could be at play as a journalist works under deadline to produce the story.

We isolated these factors by focusing on researchers affiliated with American institutions. Among U.S.-based researchers, pragmatic difficulties should be minimized because they're in the same geographic region as the journalists and they're likely to be proficient in English, at least in writing. In addition, these scientists would presumably be equally likely to respond to journalists' interview requests, given that media attention is increasingly valued by U.S. institutions .

Even when we looked just at U.S. institutions, we found significant disparities in mentions and quotations for non-Anglo-named authors, albeit slightly reduced. In particular, East Asian- and African-named authors experience a 4 to 5 percentage-point drop in mention rates compared with their Anglo-named counterparts. This result suggests that while pragmatic considerations can explain some disparities, they don't account for all of them.

We found that journalists were also more likely to substitute institutional affiliations for scientists with African and East Asian names – for instance, writing about "researchers from the University of Michigan." This institution-substitution effect underscores a potential bias in media representation, where scholars with minority ethnicity names may be perceived as less authoritative or deserving of formal recognition.

Why equity matters in the discourse on science

Part of the depth of science news coverage depends on how thoroughly and accurately researchers are portrayed in stories, including whether scientists are mentioned by name and the extent to which their contributions are highlighted via quotes. As science becomes increasingly globalized, with English as its primary language, our study highlights the importance of equitable representation in shaping public discourse and fostering diversity in the scientific community.

We suspect that disparities are even larger at an earlier point in science dissemination, when journalists are selecting which research papers to report. Understanding these disparities is complicated by decades or even centuries of bias ingrained in the whole science production pipeline, including whose research gets funded , who gets to publish in top journals and who is represented in the scientific workforce itself .

Journalists are picking from a later stage of a process that has a number of inequities built in. Thus, addressing disparities in scientists' media representation is only one way to foster inclusivity and equality in science. But it's a step toward sharing scientific knowledge with the public in a more equitable way.

Hao Peng is a postdoctoral fellow at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

This story comes from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of experts for the public good.

• racial disparities
• science journalism