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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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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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Saturday Citations: Tarantulas and their homies; how mosquitoes find you; black holes not mysterious at all
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World's second largest diamond found in Botswana
Mathematics
New research analyzes 'Finnegans Wake' for novel spacing between punctuation marks
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Saturday Citations: Citizen scientists observe fast thing; controlling rat populations; clearing nanoplastic from water
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Study sheds light on creative thinking
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Flood of 'junk': How AI is changing scientific publishing

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Materials Science
Inspired by Spider-Man, researchers recreate web-slinging technology
Cell & Microbiology
Lighting the way with accurate and safe 3D embryo imaging
Cell & Microbiology
Biomolecular condensates can split membranes without the aid of proteins, study finds
General Physics
Scientists accelerate uranium beam with record power
Biochemistry
Barnacle-inspired polymers could present new way to design antibiotics, researchers say
General Physics
Researchers discover new isotope plutonium-227
Astronomy
A sharper view of the Milky Way with Gaia and machine learning
Condensed Matter
Theoretical study demonstrates existence of giant photocaloric effects in ferroelectric perovskites
Molecular & Computational biology
Genetic mechanism unlocks a key secret behind disease infection in crops
Social Sciences
Carefully exposing children to more misinformation can make them better fact-checkers, study suggests
Plants & Animals
Researchers find dragonfly species with darker wings have evolved to withstand heat and attract partners
Mathematics
In double breakthrough, mathematician helps solve two long-standing problems
Planetary Sciences
Jupiter's Great Red Spot shows unexpected size changes
Paleontology & Fossils
Scientists recreate the head of this ancient 9-foot-long bug
Archaeology
Fossils and fires: Insights into early modern human activity in the jungles of Southeast Asia
Astronomy
Black hole destroys star, goes after another
Archaeology
Underwater caves yield clues that may help explain early expansion of Homo sapiens into Mediterranean islands
Plants & Animals
Scientists study elephant wrinkles to understand their purpose
Optics & Photonics
Quantum physicists tap into entanglement to improve the precision of optical atomic clocks
Earth Sciences
Snowflake dance analysis could improve rain forecasts

Paul Crutzen, who shared Nobel for ozone work, has died

Paul J. Crutzen, a Dutch scientist who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry for his work understanding the ozone hole and is credited with coining the term Anthropocene to describe the geological era shaped by mankind, has died.

Attacks on science rival COVID-19 as a public health threat

As public health experts feared, COVID-19 cases and deaths surged in the US following the Thanksgiving holiday, when millions of Americans ignored pleas to forego traditional gatherings. In a new Essay published 28th January ...

'Doomsday Clock' stuck at 100 seconds to midnight

The "Doomsday Clock" illustrating the perils facing the planet and mankind will remain at 100 seconds to midnight this year amid the threats of the coronavirus pandemic, nuclear war and climate change.

'Fact-checkers' proposed for Nobel peace prize

With truth famously known as the "first casualty of war," a Norwegian parliamentarian announced Thursday that she is nominating "fact-checkers" for this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

Italian police find stolen copy of Leonardo 'Salvator Mundi'

Italian police have recovered a 500-year-old copy of Leonardo da Vinci's 16th century "Salvator Mundi" painting of Jesus Christ that was stolen from a Naples church during the pandemic without the priests even realizing it ...

Who's writing open access articles?

An Academic Analytics Research Center (AARC) study has found greater rates of authorship of open access (OA) research articles among scholars at more prestigious institutions with greater access to resources and job security. ...