As the Turkish government intensified its attacks on the theory of evolution, the academic community rallied to push back. A researcher recounts how she decided to join them.

Large-scale projects in fundamental science, such as major particle colliders, radio telescopes, synchrotron light sources are promoted by scientific communities in the first place, mainly funded by governments, and ultimately by taxpayers. Little is known, however, about preferences of the latter except in the form of qualitative social attitudes survey. 

Scientific knowledge can help policymakers understand, identify and assess policy options. A new EU document identifies the rationale behind building capacity of science-for-policy ecosystems, as well as the challenges encountered at the science-policy interface.

This study found that the association between low performance in an introductory STEM class and failure to obtain a STEM degree is stronger for underrepresented minority (URM) students than for other students, even after controlling for academic preparation in high school and intent to obtain a STEM degree. 

The Living Planet Report 2022 of WWF reveals global wildlife populations have plummeted by 69%. The staggering rate of decline is a severe warning that the rich biodiversity that sustains all life on our planet is in crisis.

Research software is a fundamental and vital part of research, yet significant challenges to discoverability, productivity, quality, reproducibility, and sustainability exist.

This paper develops a new indicator based on an academic's inferred co-presence at conferences. It finds that hierarchy and influence play a stronger role in determining a scientist's performance in the context of informal networks than they do when considering formal co-publication networks.

The rapid rise in obesity rates among school children in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) could have a direct impact on the region's physical and mental health, disability, and mortality. This review presents the available interventions likely to reduce, mitigate and/or prevent obesity among school children in LAC by modifying the food and built environments within and around schools. Two independent reviewers searched five databases: MEDLINE, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Scopus and Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature for peer-reviewed literature published from 1 January 2000 to September 2021; searching and screening prospective studies published in English, Spanish and Portuguese. This was followed by data extraction and quality assessment using the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool (RoB 2) and the Risk of Bias in Non-Randomized Studies of Interventions (ROBINS-I), adopting also the PRISMA 2020 guidelines. Due to the heterogeneity of the intervention's characteristics and obesity-related measurements across studies, a narrative synthesis was conducted. A total of 1342 research papers were screened, and 9 studies were included; 4 in Mexico, and 1 each in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador. Four studies reported strategies for modifying food provision; four other targeted the built environment, (modifying school premises and providing materials for physical activity); a final study included both food and built environment intervention components. Overall, two studies reported that the intervention was significantly associated with a lower increase over time in BMI/obesity in the intervention against the control group. The remaining studies were non-significant. Data suggest that school environmental interventions, complementing nutritional and physical education can contribute to reduce incremental childhood obesity trends. However, evidence of the extent to which food and built environment components factor into obesogenic environments, within and around school grounds is inconclusive. Insufficient data hindered any urban/rural comparisons. Further school environmental intervention studies to inform policies for preventing/reducing childhood obesity in LAC are needed.

Editormetrics analyses the role of editors of academic journals and their impact on the scientific publication system - but open, structured and machine-readable data remains rare.

A study shows the importance of helping students have positive math and science experiences early and could be a way to help address equity gaps in STEM.

National research agencies are responsible for promoting excellent research. Integrating sex, gender and diversity analysis into research design where relevant should be an aspect of this.

Decisions about how and when to decarbonize the global energy system are highly influenced by estimates of the likely cost. Here, we generate empirically validated probabilistic forecasts of energy technology costs and use these to estimate future energy system costs under three scenarios. Compared to continuing with a fossil fuel-based system, a rapid green energy transition is likely to result in trillions of net savings, even without accounting for climate damages or climate policy co-benefits.

In the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, allied governments rushed out a series of "science sanctions", as part of a broad campaign of penalties designed to deter Russia. What impact might they have on current or future science?

An increased emphasis on falsification - the direct testing of strong hypotheses - will lead to faster progress in science by allowing well-specified hypotheses to be eliminated.

China created a research evaluation system based on publications indexed in the SCI and on the Journal Impact Factor, which helped China become the largest contributor to scientific literature and increase the position of its universities in global rankings.

More than resource allocations, evaluations of funding applications have become central instances for status bestowal in academia. Much attention in past literature has been devoted to grasping the status consequences of prominent funding evaluations. 

Over the past several years, scholars and critics have begun to talk about the survival of the humanities rather than its crisis. This essay traces the emergence of a rhetoric of salvation and survival in academic advocacy literature, evident in the genres, arguments, and metaphors that writers use to describe the academic humanities. 

NPP is committed to consistent and thorough reporting of clinical research which is essential for rigor, reproducibility, transparency, interpretation, and generalizability of published results to the broader human population.

Selecting economic policies to achieve sustainable development is challenging due to the many sectors involved and the trade-offs implied. Artificial intelligence combined with economy-wide computer simulations can help.

In many sectors and in many respects, interdisciplinarity has made progress in recent decades, but less so when it comes to evaluating interdisciplinary work. Challenges remain, especially regarding what counts as ‘good’ interdisciplinarity.

Contributory citizen science is a method in which non-professional participants contribute to data collection in whole or in part to advance scientific research. This Primer outlines the use of citizen science in the environmental and ecological sciences, discussing participant engagement, data quality assurance and bias correction.

A new study finds that Americans underestimate how many are concerned about climate change as well as support for major climate policies by nearly half, with climate policy supporters significantly outnumbering non-supporters.

People with the greatest opposition to the scientific consensus tend to have the lowest levels of objective science knowledge but the highest levels of self-rated knowledge.

This article explores the effects and interrelationships of seven collaboration problems that arise in the context of the tension between cooperation and competition. 

The Academy of Finland (AKA), Finland's major public research funding agency, uses a Web of Science (WoS) based bibliometric indicator to assess the performance of research it has funded. CRIS-based publication data can support multidimensional assessments of research performance and scholarly communication profiles, potentially also in other countries and institutions. 

This paper examines how automation and digitalisation influence the way everyday scientific work practices are organised and conducted. Drawing on a practice-based study of the field of synthetic biology, the paper uses ethnographic, interview and survey data to offer a sociomaterial and relational perspective of technological change.

Calorie availability and extent of food shortages for each nation are estimated following regional or global nuclear war, including impacts on major crops, livestock and fishery production.

Examining how social media affects the public cognitive and affective factors further influences their attitudes towards COVID-19 governance policy. 

In the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-vaccine activism in the USA accelerated, forming an alliance with political groups and even extremists. An organized, well-funded anti-science movement now threatens all childhood immunizations.