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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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Political science
Megastudy tests crowdsourced ideas for reducing political polarization
Earth Sciences
Could injecting diamond dust into the atmosphere help cool the planet?
Plants & Animals
Bumblebee queens choose to hibernate in pesticide-contaminated soil, scientists discover
Astronomy
Physicists show that neutron stars may be shrouded in clouds of axions
Nanophysics
Controlling sound waves with Klein tunneling improves acoustic signal filtration
Cell & Microbiology
Cellular senescence research identifies key enzyme to promote healthy aging
Biochemistry
Lignin molecular property discovery could help turn trees into affordable, greener industrial chemicals
Plants & Animals
American lobster population and habitat preferences shifting, study finds
Biochemistry
Team develops promising new form of antibiotic that makes bacterial cells self-destruct
Analytical Chemistry
New strategy unlocks magnetic switching with hydrogen bonding at molecular level
Analytical Chemistry
Leveraging skyscraper architecture: New design enhances porosity and structural stability for metal-organic frameworks
Plants & Animals
Butterfly brains reveal the tweaks required for cognitive innovation
Cell & Microbiology
Uncovering new regulatory mechanisms in embryo implantation
Earth Sciences
Scientists identify potential deep-ocean greenhouse gas storage solution
Earth Sciences
Scientists untangle the challenging complexities of radiocarbon in ice cores
Cell & Microbiology
Team achieves successful reproduction of hematopoietic stem cell developmental process in an in vitro culture system
Condensed Matter
Key role of structural defects in amorphous solid deformation uncovered
Cell & Microbiology
Single-molecule imaging reveals aberrant DNA-binding dynamics of cancer-linked chromatin remodelers
Biotechnology
Molecular 'cut and sew' process could accelerate drug design
Astronomy
First results from the Axion Dark-Matter Birefringent Cavity experiment establish a new technique for axion search

Data guru Hans Rosling dies at 68

Data guru Hans Rosling, a Swedish public health expert famous for combating scientific ignorance with catchy YouTube videos in his mission to promote a "fact-based world", has died at the age of 68, his foundation announced.

Should scientists engage in activism?

Have you heard that scientists are planning a march on Washington? The move is not being billed as a protest, but rather as a "celebration of our passion for science and a call to support and safeguard the scientific community," ...

When scientific advances can both help and hurt humanity

Scientific research can change our lives for the better, but it also presents risks – either through deliberate misuse or accident. Think about studying deadly pathogens; that's how we can learn how to successfully ward ...

Lost songs of Holocaust found in University of Akron archives

In the final months of World War II, as Allied Forces began to liberate the prisoners of Nazi concentration camps, they captured on film the horrors they saw around them. Soon, the whole world saw—images of skeletal survivors ...

Travel ban throws research, academic exchange into turmoil

Universities across the nation say President Donald Trump's ban on travelers from seven Muslim countries is disrupting vital research projects and academic exchanges in such fields as medicine, public health and engineering, ...

Where are the tools for scientific writing?

Writing a scientific research paper is tough at the best of times regardless of funding conditions and political intervention. As such, a scientist will turn to any tool they might find to help with this generally arduous ...