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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

Other news

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
Biotechnology
mRNA vaccines for disease outbreaks can be synthesized in less time with new technique
Astronomy
Using gamma-ray bursts to probe origin of star formation excess discovered by Webb
Evolution
Explosive pollen wars: Plants fight for pollen-space on pollinators
Astronomy
Hubble captures intricacies of R Aquarii, a symbiotic binary star roughly 700 light-years from Earth
Planetary Sciences
Unlocking cosmic origins: Researchers trace 70% of meteorites to 3 asteroid families
Plants & Animals
Aquaculture uses far more wild fish than previously estimated, study finds
Nanophysics
Adaptive ferroelectric materials show promise for energy-efficient supercomputing
Quantum Physics
Hybrid quantum error correction technique integrates continuous and discrete variables
Astronomy
It's twins! Mystery of famed brown dwarf solved
Earth Sciences
Understanding landslides: A new model for predicting motion
Plants & Animals
Are you tasty to mosquitoes? Study offers clues into when and why they bite
Optics & Photonics
Researchers reveal quantum advantage that could advance future sensing devices
Earth Sciences
Plate tectonics drive compositional evolution of the upper mantle, study finds
Paleontology & Fossils
Fossil unearthed in Brazil is 237-million-year-old sister-group to Dinosauria
Astronomy
Astronomer detects eclipses in a candidate cataclysmic variable system
Planetary Sciences
Audible storm waves could turbocharge Earth's radiation belts
Nanomaterials
The corners where atoms meet may provide a path to new materials for extreme conditions
Cell & Microbiology
The making of the gut—studies connect genetics and physics in embryonic development

Using LIDAR to find unmarked graves of murder victims

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in the U.S. reports that LIDAR can be used to find the unmarked graves of murder victims. In their paper published in the journal Forensic Science International, ...

How to cheat at dice – from an expert in games

Archaeologists recently uncovered a 600-year-old die that was probably used for cheating. The wooden die from medieval Norway has two fives, two fours, a three and a six, while the numbers one and two are missing. It is believed ...

Quality control in science

The marketing of research results has become a significant economic factor. Worldwide, the annual turnover of scientific articles alone amounts to 8 billion euros. Unfortunately, this environment also attracts market players ...