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New Science Gallery exhibition explores growing friction between the natural and artificial
Kentucky Perfect, installation by Robert Hengeveld, 2019. Installation view at Latvian National Museum of Art. Photo: Didzis Grodzs. As many people question our increased reliance on AI and technology, the growing friction between what we consider natural and artificial will be explored at NOT NATURAL, a new exhibition at Science Gallery Melbourne open from 17…
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Dana-Farber retractions: meet the blogger who spotted problems in dozens of cancer papers
The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston says it is seeking retractions of six papers authored by its researchers.Credit: Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty The prestigious Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) in Boston, Massachusetts, acknowledged this week that it would seek retractions for 6 papers and corrections for an additional 31 — some co-authored by…
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Cities matter to the world’s future — science must serve them better
Mexico City has used research to inform policymaking for decades, but scientists struggle to get such work published in international journals.Credit: Getty The numbers say it all: cities are hugely important to the world’s future but face big challenges. More than half of the world’s nearly eight billion people live in a city. Of those,…
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John L. Heilbron (1934–2023), historian of ‘big science’
Credit: Keith Morris/Hay Ffotos/Alamy John Heilbron’s intellectual rigour transformed how scholars approach the history of science. The intersection of people, scientific ideas and institutions was his domain, ranging from early modern European astronomy to the revolution of twentieth-century physics. The author of more than 20 books, Heilbron was known for his razor-sharp analysis and perceptive…
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Science-based nature targets: Five early insights from companies pioneering the process
Several thousand top companies have set targets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions through the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), widely considered the ‘gold standard’ for corporate climate…
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Japan’s successful Moon landing was the most precise ever
Artist’s impression of the SLIM spacecraft coming in for landing on the Moon.Credit: JAXA Japan has become the fifth country to soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon, using precision technology that allowed it to touch down closer to its target landing site than any mission has before. However, the spacecraft might have survived on the…
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The open-science movement for sharing laboratory materials gains momentum
More practitioners are needed to support the open-science movement to disseminate materials such as bacterial DNA plasmids.Credit: Daniela Beckmann/Science Photo Library Lenny Teytelman can still recall his days as a PhD student 20 years ago when he accessed public databases for his studies in yeast genetics. “My research would be technically impossible had researchers not…
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To curb plastic pollution, industry and academia must unite
From the top of Mount Everest to the deepest ocean trench, pieces of plastic are found almost everywhere on Earth. Specks have even been found in human blood and breast milk. This pervasiveness is just one aspect of a global crisis that encompasses the entire life cycle of plastics. More than 95% of plastics are…
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Biomimicry- When “nature” inspires “science” ?
Priyanka sahoo · Follow Jan 18 — Photo by Bob Brewer on Unsplash Biomimicry is the process where we take inspiration from nature to solve complex problems of science and engineering There are numerous examples of Biomimicry present around us like the design model of wind turbines actually inspired by fins of humpback whale. The design of bullet trains is inspired…
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Science’s fake-paper problem: high-profile effort will tackle paper mills
Paper mills often sell authorships to researchers on nonsense papers.Credit: Jes2ufoto/Alamy A high-profile group of funders, academic publishers and research organizations has launched an effort to tackle one of the thorniest problems in scientific integrity: paper mills, businesses that churn out fake or poor-quality journal papers and sell authorships. In a statement released on 19…