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Interview: Should There Be Peer Review After Publication?

As a graduate student, Laura Luebbert uncovered some troubling problems with a series of published research papers on honeybees. After a years’ long effort to document the issues, she and her co-author had trouble getting journals and pre-print…

19/07/2024

Recognizing the Role of the Research Coordinator

Research coordinators play an essential role in managing clinical studies for drugs and medical devices. But the job suffers high turnover, with implications for how soon potential therapies reach the market. One coordinator argues that…

18/07/2024

Will Burying Biomass Underground Curb Climate Change?

Hundreds of carbon removal startups have popped up over the past few years, but they’ve made little progress so far, and they don’t yet add up to a full-fledged industry. That leads to the inevitable question: Could Graphyte and companies like it…

17/07/2024

Book Review: Refrigeration and the Many Virtues of the Cold Chain

Nicola Twilley’s “Frostbite ” is a sweeping history of the cold chain that explores how refrigeration has shaped everything over the centuries from the human gut to global economies. And the future of food preservation may not be cold after all, but…

12/07/2024

Excerpt: When Two Famous Physicists Faced Off in Mussolini’s Rome

A gathering of the world’s most famous physicists in 1931 hosted by Il Duce would pit two eminent Nobel Prize winners — Robert Millikan and Arthur Compton — against each other over revelations about the strange interstellar radiation dubbed cosmic…

05/07/2024

The Misplaced Incentives in Academic Publishing

Most academic journals rely on volunteers to peer review manuscripts submitted for publication. Their work is important, but the incentives for scientists to make such efforts are misplaced and reinforce a broken publishing model, says C. Brandon…

04/07/2024

Could ‘Science Courts’ Help Build Public Trust?

In the U.S., surveys have shown that public trust in science dropped significantly during the Covid-19 pandemic. Some scientists propose that holding science courts — where citizen juries listen to relevant topics debated in a courtroom setting —…

16/05/2024

Indigenous Forest Gardens Help Bolster Land Rights Arguments

For one First Nation, the Nuchatlaht First Nation, researchers’ work regarding forest gardens is being used to support a legal land claim against the province of British Columbia and the Attorney General of Canada before the British Columbia Supreme…

01/05/2024

Testing the Waters: Scotland Surges Ahead on Ocean Power

There is no question that the planet’s oceans contain enormous amounts of energy. But can that energy be harnessed economically — or is the idea of pulling watts from the water doomed to be a sideshow in the quest for green energy? In Scotland,…

29/04/2024

Protecting the Darkness in Chile’s Atacama Desert

The Atacama boasts high altitudes and clear skies, making it a haven for stargazing. And by 2030, Chile will be home to almost 70 percent of the world’s astronomical infrastructure. Light pollution, though, threatens frontier research. Can a…

22/04/2024

As Farmers Face a Warmer Future, an Ancient Grain Shows Promise

The United Nations has declared 2023 the International Year of Millets, which are a type of small grain mostly grown in parts of Asia and Africa. The highly resilient and cost-friendly grains could become a useful crop for the Midwest in the midst…

30/05/2023

In Brazil’s Favelas, Green Roofs Might Help Relieve the Heat

Low-income neighborhoods are more likely to face extreme heat — and its negative health effects. One nonprofit in Rio de Janeiro teamed up with researchers to adapt green roof technology for their overlooked neighborhood. Could it offer a model for…

22/05/2023

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