With travel halted and universities and research institutions shutting down, scientists are having trouble keeping their research running. Here’s why that matters outside the lab.
Blood samples from pediatric health screenings can provide valuable data for public health research.
AP Photo/Carlos Osorio
The EPA has just adopted a rule that limits what kinds of science regulators can use in setting rules. A scholar explains how this shift could impede his work mapping child lead poisoning.
Grant abstracts with more words, more complex language and more storytelling tend to earn more money – even if that’s not exactly what funders say they’d want.
China’s military may bear the brunt of hits to the country’s scientific reputation.
Roman Pilipey/Pool Photo via AP
In an era of big scientific collaborations, China’s renegade actions have hurt its reputation. As international researchers back away, it may be the country’s military that ultimately suffers.
In Antarctica, many countries want a piece of the action.
Flickr/Christopher Michel
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.
Park guards view maps and photos of high-altitude glaciers – information that can be shared with local communities dealing with changing water levels.
Anne Toomey
Science can’t just stay in the ivory tower. But what does impact really mean and how does it happen? A study of more than a decade of ecological fieldwork projects in Bolivia suggests a better way.
Facebook already controls how its users’ data can be gathered and shared. It’s university ethics boards that need to join the digital age.
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The Cambridge Analytica scandal wasn’t a data breach – it was a violation of academic ethics. Maybe it’s universities, not social networks, that need to update their privacy settings.
There’s no blueprint for excellence, but some building blocks are crucial.
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Research institutes and “centres of excellence” exist around the world to draw talent and to share resources - all with the aim of solving important problems.
It may take time for a tiny step forward to show its worth.
ellissharp/Shutterstock.com
Scientists are rewarded with funding and publications when they come up with innovative findings. But in the midst of a ‘reproducibility crisis,’ being new isn’t the only thing to value about research.
Science itself needs to be put under the microscope and carefully scrutinised to deal with its flaws.
Nattapat Jitrungruengnij/Shutterstock
We are observing two new phenomena. On one hand doubt is shed on the quality of entire scientific fields or sub-fields. On the other this doubt is played out in the open, in the media and blogosphere.
It’s good for scientists to work in glass laboratories.
Len Rubenstein
Science isn’t cold, hard facts uncovered by emotionless robots. Acknowledging how and where values play a role promotes a more realistic view and can advance science’s reputation for reliability.
The Taung child (foreground) was the first of a long series of human ancestors discovered in Africa.
Julien Benoit
Recent research suggests that humankind’s origins lay outside of Africa. This is the nature of science: a paradigm that cannot be questioned on a regular basis becomes a dogma.
The National Research Foundation doesn’t have enough money for the growing number of researchers who qualify for “incentive” funding.
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South Africa’s National Research Foundation will dramatically scale back “incentive” funding to rated researchers, both those who already have a rating and those who will be rated in the future.
Scientific truth is based on a body of research which has been tried and tested by many researchers over time. Peer review filters the good science from the bad.
Previous Vice President of the Academy of Science of South Africa and DSI-NRF SARChI chair in Fungal Genomics, Professor in Genetics, University of Pretoria, University of Pretoria