Science

These simple green lights could save sharks and turtles from fishing nets | Science

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An inky, tentacled squid stuck in a net can be a messy problem for a fisher. And for a loggerhead turtle or a diamond stingray, getting tangled in a net often means death. Now, new research offers hope: It shows that affixing green light-emitting diode (LED) lights to fishing nets significantly reduces the catch of … Read more

U.S. science no longer leads the world. Here’s how top advisers say the nation should respond | Science

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A new data-rich report by the National Science Foundation (NSF) confirms China has overtaken the United States as the world’s leader in several key scientific metrics, including the overall number of papers published and patents awarded. U.S. scientists also have serious competition from foreign researchers in certain fields, it finds. That loss of hegemony raises … Read more

Prosecutors drop China Initiative case against MIT’s Gang Chen | Science

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A federal judge has dismissed charges against Gang Chen, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) accused of lying about his ties to China. It was one of the highest profile cases under the government’s 3-year-old China Initiative, which is intended to prevent China from stealing U.S.-funded research. Critics of … Read more

Pill derived from human feces treats recurrent gut infections | Science

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For people fighting repeat infections of the diarrhea-causing bacterium Clostridium difficile, fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) offers a proven—if unappetizing—solution. Stool from a healthy donor, usually delivered via colonoscopy, can help restore a balanced community of gut microbes to vanquish the potentially deadly infection. Several companies are eager to achieve the same effect with less invasive, more … Read more

To find out how insects are doing, these scientists are going to the birds | Science

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For years, entomologists have worried about what appears to be a global decline in insect populations. But data on insect trends can be hard to come by. Scientists have studied relatively few of the some 900,000 living insect species they have named so far, and have yet to name millions more. Now, researchers say one … Read more

A controversial train heads for the Maya rainforest | Science

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Every day at sunset, a 3-million-bat whirlwind emerges from a cave and floods the night sky of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. The cave—El Volcán de los Murciélagos (the Bat Volcano)—hosts at least seven bat species and is a pillar of the region’s ecosystem. Ecologist Rodrigo Medellín Legorreta of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), … Read more

This robot can hike as fast as a human | Science

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China’s population may start to shrink this year, new birth data suggest | Science

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After many decades of growth, China’s population could begin to shrink this year, suggest data released yesterday by China’s National Bureau of Statistics. The numbers show that in 2021, China’s birth rate fell for the fifth year in a row, to a record low of 7.52 per 1000 people. Based on that number, demographers estimate … Read more

Brain surgeries are opening windows for neuroscientists, but ethical questions abound | Science

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In 2019, Kate Folladori spent a month sitting in a hospital room hoping she’d have a seizure. Since her diagnosis with epilepsy nearly 20 years earlier, a series of medications had failed to bring relief. Now, a team at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center had placed wire electrodes into her brain to record neural activity. … Read more

Former Google CEO invests in computing help for university scientists | Science

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Scientists at universities perform much of the world’s cutting-edge scientific research—often while relying on shaky, homemade computer software written by students and postdocs. Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic organization founded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Wendy Schmidt, his spouse, hopes to remedy that situation by investing $40 million over the next 5 years to … Read more