I spent the early years of my PhD at an Austrian non-academic research institute, where competing for grants was the only way that my colleagues and I could secure funding for our research. Everything else we did, from publishing papers to presenting at conferences, felt designed, ultimately, to help secure the next grant. The system seemed back to front: surely it should be about the science first?
Picture a scientist with a provocative hypothesis - something that defies conventional wisdom or verges on the outlandish. Supporting the pursuit of that big, bold claim is the goal of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science's new Extraordinary Claims, Extraordinary Evidence (ECEE) program. Designed for social scientists who want to explore highly controversial topics, the program helps tenure-track faculty generate the rigorous evidence necessary to assess their ideas.
In 2019, shortly after finishing her master's at Nanjing University in China, Xinyi Zhao opened an e-mail to learn that she had been offered a PhD position at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany. "When I told my parents, they asked me to double-check whether the offer was real, as they weren't familiar with the institute." But Zhao knew of its glowing scientific reputation.
I have experience in my field, and was only getting bites here and there from hiring panels who were genuinely more overwhelmed than I was. I found a job in Australia within a week. I dream of scenes from my childhood: beaches, fish and chips, and the bright bloom of pohutukawa trees. But as vivid as those memories are, you can't build a life on scenery alone.
Here's another that aired Sunday night: correspondent Bill Whitaker reported on Trump's battles with elite universities over accusations of liberal bias and antisemitism. He has threatened to cut their federal funding for research. If Trump were to follow through on more of those threats, it could jeopardize research into potentially life-saving advances in medicine and severely limit scientific progress. Harvard scientist Don Ingber told Whitaker, "We are truly putting the brakes on scientific innovation in this country at a time when our ostensible adversary, China, is going faster and faster and faster."
The UK government has unveiled a new £75 million strategy to accelerate the phase-out of animal testing in scientific research, setting out a clear roadmap to replace existing experiments with cutting-edge alternatives such as organ-on-a-chip systems, artificial intelligence modelling, and 3D bioprinted human tissues. Science Minister Lord Vallance announced the plan on Tuesday, calling it a "roadmap for innovation and compassion" that will help the UK become a global leader in non-animal testing methods.
Around the world, budgets for fundamental research - studies that seek primarily to advance knowledge for its own sake, without an expectation of a return on investment - are coming under pressure to an extent not seen for at least a generation. In the United States, the principal funder of fundamental research, the National Science Foundation, has this year terminated some 1,600 grants worth a total of US$1 billion, a huge chunk of its $10 billion budget.
Immunology is at a pivotal moment. The huge successes in public health brought about by vaccines are now facing erosion, as anti-vaccination sentiments spread around the world and the United States cuts funding to domestic and overseas infectious-disease research. Measles, for example, was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000 by the World Health Organization, but in July this year, there were more reported cases than in any year since 1992.
The fee, the complaint states, "will result in significant and potentially catastrophic setbacks to research that benefits the American public and ensures the United States remains a leading source of innovation and expertise. For example, the fee will likely result in sharp cutbacks in the employment of highly talented foreign workers and severe setbacks for university research, graduate programs, and clinical care, compounding an anticipated shortfall of 5.3 million skilled workers over the next decade."
If artificial intelligence takes over, some argue, there's little point in studying physics or any science. AI could be doing half your job before you even get your degree. But that argument ignores why people study science in the first place. It's to figure out new things, to ask questions uncurious bots would never dream of. Humans love that whole problem-solving process. It's why they like to get the sides of Rubik's cube to match.
Using artificial intelligence (AI), researchers have designed novel viruses capable of killing strains of Escherichia coli. The team used the DNA of a simple bacteriophage called ΦX174 to guide AI models to generate viral genomes with the specific function of infecting antibiotic-resistant strains of E. coli. Researchers used the model's suggested sequences to select 302 viable phages. When put to the test, 16 of these phages could infect E. coli, and combinations of them could kill three strains of the bacterium, a feat the original ΦX174 couldn't pull off.
Gay's remarks, delivered at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Amsterdam, are some of the most extensive she has given in public since her resignation. "Universities have come to rely on donors more desperately than ever, particularly as public support has diminished, and donors have come to expect more than just gratitude. They want influence. They want control. They want, in the language of our times, a seat at the table," she said.
"As a proud alum, I've seen UMass Amherst, including its College of Engineering, become a world-class institution over the past 20 years. While UMass has come a long way, I believe it has untapped potential and with the right level of investment and support, its best days are yet to come," Riccio, who also received his Master of Science from the college in 2024, wrote in the donation's announcement.
Alán Aspuru-Guzik takes a lot of calls these days from scientists considering an exit from the United States. Aspuru-Guzik, a theoretical chemist, left Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, during Donald Trump's first term as US president, from 2017 to 2021, to join the University of Toronto in Canada and hasn't looked back. "I'm the happiest guy here," he says. Aspuru-Guzik left because he didn't agree with Trump's politics and policies.
Unlike many sector bodies, NCUB combines government backing with membership contributions from both universities and businesses, a model it says ensures policy recommendations and practice are grounded in the realities of both sectors. Over the next four years, NCUB's strategy will focus on three core priorities: making the UK a more attractive destination for business investment, strengthening links between universities and companies to accelerate innovation, and building coordinated responses to global change across the skills, research and innovation system.
Parents, grandparents and others their age lined El Camino Real during Monday's 17×17 Labor Day rally - as in previous anti-Trump protests. But where were the younger people? At the protest, aiming to line up 17,000 people for 17 miles of El Camino Real in a safe, civil and welcoming environment, elders seemed to far outnumber teens and people in their 20s. Kristina Schmidt, 63, a bookkeeper from San Jose, said she was in attendance to defend several causes such as gay marriage, immigration and Medicaid.
