A SciDev.Net survey reveals the challenges of applying research insights to policy and practice, and underscores that evidence is not enough.
Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins may never have envisioned the current era of Big Data, but their shared fundamental principle – “all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities” – may also apply to the new exponential proliferation of 1’s and 0’s in the digital universe. Is there any reason why data –…
The Dalai Lama has won the Templeton Prize for exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension by spreading his message of compassion worldwide.
Scientists have been exploring the idea that we are all governed by two disparate existential systems, each with its own distinct method of processing the idea of death. Both existential minds have the power to meaningfully change our attitudes and actions, but they work in very different—almost opposite—ways. One of our systems of existential thinking…
Most scientists, on achieving high office, keep their public remarks to the bland and reassuring, but Nina Fedoroff, the president of AAAS and one of the world’s most distinguished agricultural scientists, recently broke ranks in a spectacular manner. She confessed that she was now “scared to death” by the anti-science movement that was spreading, uncontrolled,…
Astronomers have determined that each of the 100 billion stars in the Milky Way probably has at least one companion planet, on average, adding credence to the notion that planets are as common in the cosmos as grains of sand on the beach. The finding underscores a fundamental shift in scientific understanding of planetary systems…
A climate time machine has been erected in Australia. The contraption, comprised of several nine-story-tall frames with pipes that pump carbon dioxide into the air surrounding a forest, is part of an experiment to measure the effect of carbon dioxide on real woodlands — and get a glimpse of the future. The four-acre project, called…