“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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

Summer continues to bathe the Willamette Valley in sunshine, and some days, in serious heat. After our five-day 100-degree heat wave that set records across the area, the temperatures have cooled a little, at least for this week. That makes it a great week to get out and enjoy the coast, the mountains, and all…

Researchers have overcome efficiency and power issues to create what they believe to be the lightest and smallest sunlight-powered rotorocraft in the world. Micro aerial vehicles or MAVs could have a host of applications from environmental monitoring to search and rescue. But currently, these tiny flying machines have a problem — endurance. MAVs that weigh…

Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here. Ice-core containers are stacked high at the US National Science Foundation Ice Core Facility in Denver, Colorado.Credit: Curt LaBombard Ancient-ice archive gets ‘future-proofed’ The refrigeration system that houses the largest collection of climate-tracking ice cores is…