The latest government showdown over the budget risks not only a shutdown but jobs, regional economies and America’s competitiveness in AI and other advanced fields.
Louis Brus, center, shares Nobel recognition with two other quantum dots pioneers.
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The winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine made a discovery that helped create the COVID-19 vaccines. They couldn’t have anticipated the tremendous impact of their findings.
Cell cultures are often grown in petri dishes.
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Cell cultures are common tools in biology and drug development. Bringing them up to scale to meet the meat needs of societies will require further development.
The lung-on-a-chip can mimic both the physical and mechanical qualities of a human lung.
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Basic research is best when it’s allowed to proceed on merit, rather than with political interference, says an open letter from 63 leading researchers protesting government interference in ARC grants.
Bacteria that are resistant to every available antibiotic in the U.S. already exist.
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A biomedical engineer explains the basic research that led to the discovery of insulin and its transformation into a lifesaving treatment for millions of people with diabetes.
Some of the dishes that make up the Square Kilometre Array’s radio telescope system. This kind of “blue skies” research can have great real-world value.
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Vanessa McBride, International Astronomical Union's Office of Astronomy for Development
The pandemic has underscored that the world requires agility for survival. That makes blue skies science, which encourages curiosity and nimble thinking, perhaps more important than ever.
Whether in the wild or in the lab, worms have an interesting story to tell.
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‘Worm’ is really a catchall term for a huge variety of animals with different characteristics that span the tree of life. They hold clues about our own origins as well as hints about human health.
It takes time to see which finding might be a golden egg.
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Basic research can be easy to mock as pointless and wasteful of resources. But it’s very often the foundation for future innovation – even in ways the original scientists couldn’t have imagined.
China’s political system sets the course for the science in universities, government labs and industry.
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China’s government is prioritizing world-class science and tech. An expert describes the Chinese research landscape – and questions its sustainability.
Money doesn’t grow in flasks – scientists have to find funds outside the lab.
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Money always seems tight for university scientists. A sociologist conducted hundreds of interviews to see how they think about funding sources and profit motives for basic and applied research.
You can’t keep a good scientist down.
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President Trump’s first year was a rough one for scientists and others who value truth and expertise. Many rallied to the cause, while others used research to make the case for the value of science.
Scientists are using a powerful gene editing technique to understand how human embryos develop.
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A new gene editing experiment explores human development. With this comes new ethical questions: How do scientists acquire embryos and how are their projects approved?
Basic research and applications coexist in a tangled two-way ecosystem.
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Research dollars don’t stay locked up in academia and government labs. R&D collaborations with the private sector are common – and grow the innovation economy.
Polysaccharide molecules such as cellulose, seen here, are long chains of sugars that are very hard to break apart. Enzymes – proteins that can degrade polysaccharides – have many industrial uses.
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Bio-prospecting is the search for useful materials from natural sources. A biologist explains what we can learn from bacteria about breaking down plant material, and how we can use that knowledge.
Academic researchers need funding – especially as the federal government devotes less to basic research.
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With federal support for on-campus R&D dwindling as a percentage of GDP, keeping basic research afloat is a challenge. Schools and researchers are left to try to fill in the funding gaps.
Embarking on the path to a PhD is a scary business.
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Peter Ngure, African Population and Health Research Center
Many people are left floundering when they try to get working on their PhDs. In Africa, this is often because the skills they need haven’t been developed earlier in their academic careers.