In the aquamarine waters off Kenya’s eastern coast, fishing nets often accidentally ensnare endangered sea turtles. A local conservation group has spent years recording these encounters in a sprawling archive of data. Yet much of it remains unused. The authors propose a creative solution: hackathons, a competitive activity that has gained popularity across STEM fields because it challenges participants to quickly develop solutions to real-world problems.

Hiring a few research stars uses up resources that might otherwise support a number of promising younger researchers.

in 2012 a new law ordered French public employers to offer stable employment to workers after 6 years of short-term contracts. It backfired.

For all but a small percentage of aspiring researchers, doing a postdoc at a university is a lousy idea because it will neither result in an academic job nor otherwise advance one’s career.

A light-hearted opinion piece about the arbitrariness of academic success.

Able women who set out to make academic careers in math-intensive fields of science have as good a chance of succeeding as men today, keeping in mind that the chances don’t appear great for anyone of either gender.

Der amerikanische Literaturagent John Brockman stellt der Cyber-Elite jedes Jahr seine Edge-Frage. Lesen Sie an dieser Stelle eine Auswahl der jüngsten aufregenden und überraschenden Antworten.

What scientist hasn’t dreamed of spending less time getting funding and more time doing research?

Marie and Pierre Curie, Watson and Crick, Brin and Page. Collaboration pays, so funding agencies are promoting team research. At the same time, fields that demand multidisciplinary cooperation such as translational medicine, climate science, and systems biology are on the rise.