A decision by the venerable Carnegie Institution for Science to sell its iconic Washington, D.C., headquarters to the government of Qatar has ignited long-simmering discontent with an imminent restructuring of the 120-year-old organization and with its management.
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These Endangered Birds Are Forgetting Their Songs
Australia’s critically endangered regent honeyeaters are losing what amounts to their culture—and that could jeopardize their success at landing a mate.
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DNA from cave dirt tells tale of how some Neanderthals disappeared
Estatuas cave in northern Spain was a hive of activity 105,000 years ago. Artifacts show its Neanderthal inhabitants hafted stone tools, butchered red deer, and may have made fires. They also shed, bled, and excreted subtler clues onto the cave floor: their own DNA. “You can imagine them sitting in […]
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First round of hearings by Congress back a more muscular NSF
The U.S. Congress this week got its first chance to weigh in on proposals to expand the mission and massively boost the budget of the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the initial response was positive.
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Why muon magnetism matters, and a count of all the Tyrannosaurus rex that ever lived
Host Sarah Crespi talks with Staff Writer Adrian Cho about a new measurement of the magnetism of the muon—an unstable cousin of the electron. This latest measurement and an earlier one both differ from predictions based on the standard model of particle physics. The increased certainty that there is a […]
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California to hunt greenhouse gas leaks and super-emitters with monitoring satellites
In December 2016, soon after advisors to President Trump threatened to shut off NASA’s climate-observing satellites, California Governor Jerry Brown made a famous promise: “If Trump turns off the satellites,” he said while addressing a geoscience meeting, “California will launch its own damn satellites.” That promise is now a reality, […]
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Study reveals ‘exciting’ history of humans in Pacific. But critics blast lack of Indigenous input
It was one of the boldest journeys in human history: People ventured into the open Pacific Ocean in double-hulled canoes, crossing thousands of kilometers to find and settle far-flung lands. Now, a study of the genomes of hundreds of modern Indigenous residents of Oceania provides new insights into the routes […]