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The extraordinary life of Alfred Nobel

The Nobel prizes may be one of the most famous and prestigious awards in the world—but who was the man behind them? As I explain in my lectures about Alfred Nobel, the inventor and entrepreneur has left a lasting legacy ...

Winning the Nobel 'an earthquake', says Ruvkun

US scientist Gary Ruvkun, who on Monday won the Nobel Prize in Medicine with fellow American Victor Ambros for their discovery of microRNA, said winning the honor was like "an earthquake".

Publisher Springer Nature makes stock market debut

Leading academic publisher Springer Nature made its stock market debut Friday, one of the few initial public offerings in Frankfurt this year despite the exchange's strong performance.

2024 Nobels offer glimmer of hope as global crises mount

Next week's Nobel Prize announcements will crown achievements that made the world a better place, a glimmer of optimism amid a spiraling Middle East conflict, war in Ukraine, famine in Sudan and a collapsing climate.

Will AI one day win a Nobel Prize?

Artificial intelligence is already disrupting industries from banking and finance to film and journalism, and scientists are investigating how AI might revolutionize their field—or even win a Nobel Prize.

Researchers unpack sign language's visual advantage

Linguists have long known that sign languages are as grammatically and logically sophisticated as spoken languages—and also make greater use of "iconicity," the property by which some words refer to things by resembling ...

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Records show that churches monitored multilingual gossip in Elizabethan London
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The 'publish or perish' mentality is fueling research paper retractions—and undermining science
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Scientists become a source of hope and information on TikTok, Instagram
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Global crises are multiplying: Here's how science can help our public decision-makers
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Saturday Citations: Football metaphors in physics; vets treat adorable baby rhino's broken leg
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'The data on extreme human aging is rotten from the inside out,' says Ig Nobel winner
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Study looks at funded partnerships between nonprofit organizations and researchers
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Saturday Citations: Permian-Triassic mystery solved; cute baby sighted; the nine-day 2023 seismic event
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Backside breathing and pigeon bombers studies win Ig Nobel prizes
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Studies on pigeon-guided missiles, swimming abilities of dead fish among Ig Nobels winners
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First publication of J.R.R. Tolkien's collected poems offers new insights into author's personality
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This year's $890,000 Balzan Prizes awarded for research on aging, restorative justice, climate crisis
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Saturday Citations: Teen seals photobomb research site; cell phones are safe; serotonin and emotional resilience
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A mural honoring scientists hung in Pfizer's NYC lobby for 60 years. Now it's up for grabs
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US disinformation researcher laments 'incredible witch hunt'
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Researchers propose framework for contextual metadata
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First Nations people are three times more likely to die on the road. Here's how to fix Australia's transport injustice
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Saturday Citations: Corn sweat! Nanoplastics! Plus: Massive objects in your area are dragging spacetime
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Claw machine games are Rio de Janeiro's new public enemy
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Best of Last Week—How humans really killed mammoths, making AI systems smarter, mitochondria fling their DNA

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Plants & Animals
Cats associate human words with images, experiment suggests
Planetary Sciences
Second exoplanet detected orbiting an early G-type star
Astronomy
'Old' star could provide new insights into star evolution
Cell & Microbiology
Microbe opens the door to carbon dioxide–driven manufacturing
Earth Sciences
Calcium reduces CO₂ emissions from Arctic soils through mineral formation, study shows
Condensed Matter
Physicists report emergence of ferromagnetism at onset of Kondo breakdown in moiré bilayer lattices
Quantum Physics
Quantum scaling recipe: ARQUIN provides framework for simulating distributed quantum computing system
General Physics
China's underground lab seeks answer to deep scientific riddle
Evolution
City microbes surviving on disinfectants, research reveals
Archaeology
'Getting high' in Paleolithic hunting: Elevated positions enhance javelin accuracy but reduce atlatl efficiency
Other
Walking in short bursts found to consume 20% to 60% more energy than walking continuously for same distance
Astronomy
Using gamma-ray bursts to probe origin of star formation excess discovered by Webb
Planetary Sciences
Unlocking cosmic origins: Researchers trace 70% of meteorites to 3 asteroid families
Astronomy
It's twins! Mystery of famed brown dwarf solved
Evolution
Explosive pollen wars: Plants fight for pollen-space on pollinators
Biotechnology
mRNA vaccines for disease outbreaks can be synthesized in less time with new technique
Astronomy
Hubble captures intricacies of R Aquarii, a symbiotic binary star roughly 700 light-years from Earth
Plants & Animals
Electrophysiology study shows how ant toxin causes extreme pain
Plants & Animals
Aquaculture uses far more wild fish than previously estimated, study finds
Environment
Deep learning illuminates past and future atmospheric blocking events

Recognizing "spin" in the scientific literature

Facts are facts and data are data—both reveal objective truths. But, subjectivity is introduced the moment those facts and data are interpreted. In other words, they are susceptible to spin, or the biased interpretation ...

Like evolution, all scientific theories are a work in progress

Discussions about the nature of science and scientific theories are often confused by the outdated view that such theories are rendered false when anomalies arise. The notion of a scientific theory as a static object should ...

New EU-wide tests to tackle 'food apartheid'

Brussels is rolling out new tests to target inferior versions of the same food products in different member states, EU Consumer Affairs Commissioner Vera Jourova said Monday.

Saving a penalty: How science helps predict the score

Have you ever wondered how top goal keepers such as Manuel Neuer or Gianluigi Buffon decide which corner to dive to in a penalty kick situation? You are in good company. Ever since the first penalty kicks were introduced ...

Finally home, Bundesbank's gold goes on show

All that glitters is definitely gold in a new exhibition at Germany's central bank that lifts the veil on the nation's massive reserves of the precious metal, partly to reassure sceptics that the prized ingots are really ...

Is it time to abandon the Nobel Prize?

In a commentary piece published in De Gruyter's journal Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, authors Clare Fiala and Eleftherios P. Diamandis spawned a debate now further nourished by recent disclosures.