A SciDev.Net survey reveals the challenges of applying research insights to policy and practice, and underscores that evidence is not enough.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) consistently disregarded scientific advice when determining how much land to protect for endangered species during the George W. Bush Administration, a new study shows. The analysis, which includes decisions made between 2002 and 2007, shows that the agency was much more likely to ignore expert advice to increase…
People have been asking questions like “How did we get here?” and “Are we alone?” since the time of Epicurus, around 300 B.C., if not earlier. And Dimitar Sasselov, an astrophysicist, says we probably won’t have a definitive answer in the next century either. But new tools and new data in a range of fields…
The stifling pollution in Beijing is being called “airpocalypse” by some. According to an air monitoring station located at the U.S. Embassy there, particulate pollution was literally off the charts — with readings well into the 700s on a 0-500 scale. To see how the pollution over much of China increased from Jan. 3 to…
The Philippine tarsier is a tiny primate with a seriously high voice. The saucer-eyed mammal can let out (and listen to) squeaks and squeals at such a high frequency that it effectively gives the mammal a private communication channel. A team of researchers found that the tiny tarsier can hear and emit sounds in the…
One of the lowest mass supermassive black holes ever observed in the middle of a galaxy has been identified, thanks to NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and several other observatories. The host galaxy is of a type not expected to harbor supermassive black holes, suggesting that this black hole, while related to its supermassive cousins, may…
If the idea stands up, it is a bombshell. The universe is not the same wherever you look; it has special directions in which certain things occur and others do not. Parity is violated; the cosmological principle seems weakened. Author Metanexus Editors