-
Discovery of ‘dark oxygen’ from deep-sea metal lumps could trigger rethink of origins of life
Potato-size metallic nodules strewn across the Pacific Ocean seafloor produce oxygen in complete darkness and without any help from living organisms, new research reveals. The discovery of this deep-sea oxygen, dubbed “dark oxygen,” is the first time scientists have ever observed oxygen being generated without the involvement of organisms and challenges what we know about…
-
I’ve built a career without a big golden grant. Here’s how
As a full professor working in public health in the University of California system, I’m often asked about my funding portfolio. Many junior faculty members assume I’m the principal investigator (PI) of multiple million-dollar grants, with a large laboratory and a prolific paper output, because this is the norm for professors at my institute. When…
-
What Kamala Harris’s historic bid for the US presidency means for science
President Biden has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place in the November election.Credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty After US president Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign on Sunday, he and other senior Democratic politicians threw their support behind vice-president Kamala Harris. Although the situation could change between now and the official selection of the…
-
Evidence of dark oxygen production at the abyssal seafloor
Abstract Deep-seafloor organisms consume oxygen, which can be measured by in situ benthic chamber experiments. Here we report such experiments at the polymetallic nodule-covered abyssal seafloor in the Pacific Ocean in which oxygen increased over two days to more than three times the background concentration, which from ex situ incubations we attribute to the polymetallic…
-
ChatGPT for science: how to talk to your data
“Computer, analyse.” In science fiction, characters don’t need programming skills to extract meaningful information from their data, they simply ask for it. Now a growing number of companies are attempting to make that fiction a reality — sort of — using large language models (LLMs). These powerful but focused artificial intelligence (AI) tools let researchers…
-
China–US research collaborations are in decline — this is bad news for everyone
Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology in the US and Tianjin University in China collaborated to create the world’s first functional semiconductor made from graphene.Credit: Georgia Inst. Technol. China’s scientific collaboration with other countries has declined since the pandemic, driven by falling partnerships with the United States, an analysis shows. Scientists have been warning that…
-
What the new cabinet means for science in South Africa
Himla Soodyall Lire en français In June 2024, after three decades of rule, the African National Congress (ANC) had to form a coalition government for the first time. The country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has separated the national education department from its department of science and innovation (DSI). Blade Nzimande, the former minister of higher education,…
-
What is it like to attend a predatory conference?
By the time she arrived in the United Kingdom from Chile in March 2024, Pía Loren had already been to conferences in Latin America and Europe. Attending another international conference was a condition of her grant. The 25th Global Nephrology, Urology and Kidney Failure Congress caught her eye, because the conference website listed several “renowned…
-
Hundreds of racist plant names will change after historic vote by botanists
From 2026, plants such as Erythrina caffra will instead be known as Erythrina affra.Credit: Orazio Puccio/Alamy For the first time, researchers have voted to eliminate scientific names of organisms because they are offensive. Botanists decided that more than 200 plants, fungi and algae species names should no longer contain a racial slur related to the…
-
Black Bears Move Into the North Bay
On a gray early March morning in Sonoma County, everything is dripping. Somewhere, out of sight, in hollow trees and rocky caves, tiny American black bear cubs nurse in the dark. Born at less than a pound only a few weeks before, they won’t emerge until spring. But adults—ones that haven’t given birth this year—might be…