Engineer Gang Chen changed his research focus after being wrongly accused of espionage.Credit: Tony Pulsone, MIT When an engineer of Chinese descent, who wishes to remain anonymous, took a flight back to his US university from a conference in Canada in September last year, he got a surprise at a stopover in Chicago, Illinois. The…

Scientists in France have strongly criticized cuts to this year’s research and higher-education budgets, which were confirmed by the government last week. The cuts are just part of a reduction of €10 billion (US$10.9 billion) in overall public spending, outlined by the economy and finance minister Bruno Le Maire on 18 February. The decision follows…

Syahirah Abdul Rahman spent five years pursuing fundamental research for her business PhD. She published her work on Malaysia’s financial markets in a leading journal. But her discovery that “only six people read it” — according to the handful of citations her paper accrued — prompted a career change. She realized that she wanted her…

Abstract Computation promises to accelerate, de-risk and optimize drug research and development. An increasing number of companies have entered this space, specializing in the design of new algorithms, computing on proprietary data, and/or development of hardware to improve distinct drug pipeline stages. The large number of such companies and their unique strategies and deals have…

Since 2022, member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) have been negotiating a new treaty — provisionally termed the Pandemic Agreement. If adopted, it would transform how the world handles pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. Opinions differ on what negotiators should prioritize. But no issue has captivated public attention as much as vaccine equity…

Molecular biologist Alka Rao (left) decodes a laboratory result with the help of sign-language interpreter Sakshi Sharma (centre) and sign-language specialist Digvijay Singh (right).Credit: CSIR IMTECH Sign language in science The lack of scientific terms and vocabulary in many of the world’s sign languages can make science education and research careers inaccessible for deaf people…

A little at a time, spring is coming. This past week, the Great Backyard Bird Count added a few early spring migrants to the Benton and Linn County yearly lists of birds, including our first evening grosbeaks, short-eared owls and violet-green swallows of the year. Fittingly, this is a big week for gardeners around Corvallis,…

Climate scientist Peter Kalmus is freaked out. And he thinks everyone should be just as alarmed as he is over the state of the planet. When he was a graduate student in 2006, Kalmus was studying astrophysics and says he was “blissfully ignorant” about the dangers of climate change. But then he learnt how the…

Kwame Nkrumah, pictured with Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister after independence from Britain. Credit: Everett Collection Historical/Alamy It is within the possibility of science and technology to make even the Sahara bloom into a vast field with verdant vegetation.” These words, which still hold true today, were spoken by Kwame Nkrumah, educator, political theorist…

The LeDNA project will disperse hundreds of volunteers to sample environmental DNA from the world’s lakes.Credit: K. Deiner In a first-of-its-kind project, researchers are tapping into the power of citizen science to collect DNA samples from hundreds of lakes worldwide. Not only will the resulting cache of environmental DNA (eDNA) be the largest ever gathered…