To combat climate change, companies bury plant waste at sea
Dror Angel, a marine ecologist at the University of Haifa, had for years heard his archaeologist colleagues talk about ancient shipwrecks on the bottom of the Black Sea that were perfectly preserved by the low-oxygen environment. “You can see ropes,” Angel says. “It’s something which is quite spectacular.”
Now, Angel wants to combat climate change by purposefully adding to the wreckage, sinking waste wood to the sea floor, where carbon that the trees stored up while living can remain locked away for centuries.
Angel is a science lead for an Israeli company called Rewind, one of many companies riding a...
Source: ScienceNOW - December 22, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Our favorite online news stories of 2023
A mad scientist. A mysterious sea creature. A sunken warship. That’s not the setup for the next Hollywood blockbuster—it’s a sampling of some of our favorite science news stories of this year. These articles don’t concern studies that are going to change the world; for that, see our
Breakthrough of the Year
coverage. Rather, they’re fun, enlightening, and often exclusive items that were treasured by our readers and staff alike. Happy holidays, and—more importantly—happy reading!
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Two forms of a parasite cooperate to make this ...
Source: ScienceNOW - December 20, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Genetics group slams company for using its data to screen embryos ’ genomes
Related article
Screening embryos for IQ and other complex traits is premature, study concludes
BY
Jocelyn Kaiser
On 5 December, a U.S. company called Orchid Health announced that it would begin to offer fertility clinics and their hopeful customers the unprecedented option to sequence the whole genomes of embryos conceived by in vitro fertilization (IVF). “Find the embryo at lowest risk for a disease that runs in your family,” touts the company’s website. The cost: $2500 per embryo.
Altho...
Source: ScienceNOW - December 15, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Balancing boulders suggest San Andreas fault may shake less than once feared
SAN FRANCISCO—
Someday, a great earthquake will erupt from the San Andreas fault, which cuts through Southern California from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Geologic records make it clear. It has happened, and it
will happen again
.
But when the Big One does hit, it may be less devastating than once thought, at least near Los Angeles. According to new work
presented this week
at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union, the ground there will shake up to 65% less violently than official hazard models suggest.
The good news for Angelenos stems from five rocks balanced precariously on ...
Source: ScienceNOW - December 15, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Researchers protest end of NSF grants to program using data from its $1 billion ecology network
U.S. ecologists are protesting a decision by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to abruptly end funding for studies that rely on its one-of-a-kind network of 81 ecological research sites that debuted just 4 years ago. They believe the move undermines the emerging field of macrosystems biology and limits the potential of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). And after getting the cold shoulder from the research directorate that made the decision, scientists are taking the unusual step of pleading with NSF’s director to reverse the decision.
“NSF is jeopardizing its investment in NEON,” leaders o...
Source: ScienceNOW - December 15, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Curly haired ‘woolly dogs’ of the Pacific Northwest were no myth
This article is so perfect in blending science and the voices of Indigenous people,” says archaeologist Julie Stein, former director of the Burke Museum
of Natural History and Culture. “It’s really impressive.”
Like the Sto:lo, many Coast Salish groups in the Pacific Northwest have oral traditions recollecting dogs whose coiled undercoats were spun into fibers and woven into elaborately patterned blankets. “All those communities had stories that they raised a dog specifically for its wool,” says Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa, a co-author of the new research and historian at Vancouver Island Universi...
Source: ScienceNOW - December 14, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
News at a glance: AI rules for Europe, vaccines for Africa, and a union for NIH early-career researchers
HEALTH EQUITY
A billion-dollar boost for vaccinemaking in Africa
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, has committed up to $1 billion to bolster Africa’s ability to sustainably produce its own doses of lifesaving vaccines. Manufacturers based in Africa produce only 1% of the vaccine doses used on the continent. Last week, Gavi announced that with money left over from the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility—an effort to provide an equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines—it would create the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator (AVMA) to focus on preventing 11 priority infectious diseases. As ...
Source: ScienceNOW - December 14, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Science ’s 2023 Breakthrough of the Year: Weight loss drugs with a real shot at fighting obesity
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2023 Breakthrough of the Year
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Video
Obesity plays out as a private struggle and a public health crisis. In the United States, about 70% of adults are affected by excess weight, and in Europe that number is more than half. The stigma against fat can be crushing; its risks, life-threatening. Defined as a body mass index of at least 30, obesity is thought to power type 2 diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, fatty liver disease, and certain cancers.
Yet drug treatments...
Source: ScienceNOW - December 14, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Researcher loses disability lawsuit against major science funder
A jury in Maryland today delivered a unanimous verdict in favor of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), finding it did not discriminate against Vivian Cheung, a disabled biologist and physician, when it failed to renew her multimillion-dollar award in 2018. The closely watched case put a spotlight on obstacles faced by disabled scientists.
Lawyer Chong Park of Ropes & Gray was successful in persuading a jury of four women and two men that HHMI and its reviewers treated Cheung like any other scientist when she competed unsuccessfully to renew her investigator award for RNA studies. At the end of an 8-day tr...
Source: ScienceNOW - December 14, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Sensitivity to hormone made by fetus may drive severe pregnancy sickness
Exhaustion, vomiting, and aversion to strong smells are well-known—and well-loathed—pregnancy symptoms. But roughly 2% of pregnant people experience a particularly severe form of sickness known as hyperemesis gravidarum. These expectant parents vomit multiple times a day, which can lead to dehydration, weight loss, and, for some people, hospitalization and potentially life-threatening complications for themselves and the fetus.
Now, scientists have turned up new clues about the causes of nausea and vomiting in pregnancy, finding that the severity of illness is influenced by how much of a hormone called GDF15 the ...
Source: ScienceNOW - December 13, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
New Florida law blocks Chinese students from academic labs
A new state law is thwarting faculty at Florida’s public universities who want to hire Chinese graduate students and postdocs to work in their labs.
In effect since July,
the law
prohibits institutions from taking money from or partnering with entities in China and six other “countries of concern.” The list of banned interactions includes offering anyone living in one of those countries a contract to do research. Students could be hired if they pass a rigorous vetting by state officials. But how that process would work is not clear, and the 12 public colleges and universities covered by the law are st...
Source: ScienceNOW - December 12, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Dino extinction researcher committed research misconduct —but not fraud, university report finds
Paleontologist Robert DePalma, whose claim that the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs struck in springtime drew accusations of fraud, is guilty of “several counts of poor research practice” that “constitute research misconduct,” according to an investigation. The report by the University of Manchester, which it shared with
Science
, says DePalma did not fabricate data, but notes he was unable to say where the key isotope data underlying
his 2021 paper in
Scientific Reports
were produced.
“I’m happy the university acknowledged poor research practices [and] misconduct,” says ...
Source: ScienceNOW - December 12, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
Cheap electricity could recycle animal waste, recover valuable chemicals
Talk about a crappy problem. Every year the world’s livestock farms generate more than 3 billion tons of animal waste, equivalent to more than 9000 Empire State Buildings. All that manure pollutes bodies of water and releases noxious fumes and greenhouse gases. But a new recycling technique could reduce those burdens while turning a profit.
Researchers have shown that they can
use electricity to break down organic nutrients in animal waste
, all while recovering valuable chemicals. Initial projections—reported this month in
Nature Sustainability
—suggest that in most cases the value of these...
Source: ScienceNOW - December 11, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
NASA opens door to cooperation with China on Moon rock research
In what could become a rare case of U.S.-Chinese cooperation on space research, NASA is urging scientists it funds to apply to China’s space agency for access to the 1.7 kilograms of lunar soil and rock returned to Earth in 2020 by the Chang’e 5 mission.
Such research collaborations are barred by a long-standing U.S. law that forbids the use of NASA funds for projects with China or Chinese-owned companies—unless NASA certifies to Congress that there is no risk of transferring technology or data to China and that the studies don’t include Chinese officials involved in human rights violations.
Last week, ...
Source: ScienceNOW - December 7, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
‘Not dumb creatures.’ Livestock surprise scientists with their complex, emotional minds
Dummerstorf, Germany
—You’d never mistake a goat for a dog, but on an unseasonably warm afternoon in early September, I almost do. I’m in a red-brick barn in northern Germany, trying to keep my sanity amid some of the most unholy noises I’ve ever heard. Sixty Nigerian dwarf goats are taking turns crashing their horns against wooden stalls while unleashing a cacophony of bleats, groans, and retching wails that make it nearly impossible to hold a conversation. Then, amid the chaos, something remarkable happens. One of the animals raises her head over her enclosure and gazes pensively at me, her widely spaced eye...
Source: ScienceNOW - December 7, 2023 Category: Science Source Type: news
