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Big Sky students get a head start on business through International Baccalaureate Program
Two-year course challenges juniors and seniors to analyze real companies, explore business strategy and develop critical thinking skills By Leslie
Mustafa Prize laureate donates award money to support young scientists
TEHRAN – Turkish Professor Mehmet Toner, a 2025 laureate of the Mustafa Prize, has pledged his share of the prize money to support the development of the Rasul Medal and provide research grants for young scientists.
Blindness treatment based on Nobel-winning research shows promise
Oct 9 (Reuters) - It's Nobel Prize season and today we feature promising early results of a novel technique for treating blindness that made Nobel laureates of three scientists this week. We also repo...
The Nobel boys club (again)
All six Nobel awardees in physiology or medicine, physics, and chemistry this year were men. Women make up 4% of laureates since the award’s inception.
Meet the two scientists who have just won the 2026 Nobel prize in ...
Learn about the lives of newly minted chemistry Nobel laureates Henri Kagan and Kensō Soai
Francis Halzen wins 2026 Nobel Prize in physics
Among past laureates are some of the most celebrated figures in science, including Albert Einstein, Marie and Pierre Curie, Max Planck and Niels Bohr.
‘Feeling Is Part of Memory’: In Conversation With Nobel Laureate Karl Deisseroth
The newly named Nobel laureate reflects on using light to probe the brain, the relationship between science and art, and the deep questions that have guided his work.
Nobel laureate Eric Cornell: ‘Progress in science comes from asking new questions’
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Eric Cornell says scientists should focus on doing good science and embrace the joy of discovery, and one day they may discover something new to everybody.
Taming the Duck, for starters
David Malan says CS50’s AI tutor is a net positive — and getting better
Young Australian scientists learn from Nobel Laureates
Nine early-career scientists joined Nobel Prize winners for a week of scientific exchange at the 75th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting.
As The Deadline Nears, Civil Society Urges Spain To Nominate María Neira As WHO Chief
With Thursday’s 24 September deadline looming, international scientific societies and civil society leaders are pushing Spain to sponsor a last-minute WHO Director-General nomination for Dr María Neira. Endorsed by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and Dr Carlos Ferreyra of Climate, Life and Health International, the petition urges Spanish ministers to register her candidacy before entries close.
Sacramento artists to install empty film set, urging attorney general to protect entertainment jobs
Sacramento Poet Laureate Andru Defeye and local artist group Sol Collective will unveil a public art installation in Capitol Park to represent the decrease in California’s entertainment jobs later today.
Transformative Biological and Environmental Frontiers: Synthesizing the 2026 Tang Prize Science Laureates
The Tang Prize in Sustainable Development and Biopharmaceutical Science honors pivotal scientific advances that improve global health, restore damaged ecosystems, and deliver transformative medical treatments. The 2026 science laureates, Professor Susan Solomon for Sustainable Development, along with Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg, Dr. Michel Sadelain, and Dr. Carl H. June for Biopharmaceutical Science, demonstrate how disciplined
Business leaders to be honored
The 2027 class of the Topeka Business Hall of Fame Laureates were announced by Junior Achievement of Kansas.
Benjamin List, Nobel laureate: ‘Chemists have always been seen as a dark force’
The discoverer of asymmetric organocatalysis defends the discipline’s potential to solve humanity’s greatest problems
Poetry Foundation honors Robert Pinsky with a $100,000 lifetime achievement prize
Former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky has received a $100,000 lifetime achievement award.
Poetry Foundation honors Robert Pinsky with a $100,000 lifetime achievement prize
Former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky has received a $100,000 lifetime achievement award. The Poetry Foundation announced the award on Wednesday. Pinsky, who served as U.S. laureate from 1997 to
Poetry Foundation honors Robert Pinsky with a $100,000 lifetime achievement prize
Former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky has received a $100,000 lifetime achievement award | Talk 1370
Transcript: How Does Your Brain Know Where You Are? w/ Edvard Moser
EDITOR'S NOTE: In this conversation from the World Science Festival, host Brian Greene sits down with Nobel laureate Edvard Moser, director of the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience in Trondheim, Norway, to explore how the
Cross-border collaboration crucial for Shaw Prize laureates’ cancer breakthrough
Three winners in life science and medicine honoured for joint efforts to understand and develop treatment for acute promyelocytic leukaemia.
Tyler Chick-fil-A franchise owner named JA Business Hall of Fame laureate
Jeff Johnston, owner of Tyler’s Chick-fil-A franchise on Broadway, received Junior Achievement’s highest honor.
Pre-Health Post-Baccalaureate Program Supports Veterans Through New Initiative
Meredith’s Pre-Health Post-Baccalaureate Program is proud to support veteran students in their educational journeys through a new initiative.
2026 International Congress of Basic Science Opens in Beijing
The 2026 International Congress of Basic Science (ICBS 2026) opened on August 9 in Beijing, bringing together four Fields Medalists — Shing-Tung Yau, Maxim Kontsevich, Martin Hairer and Caucher Birkar — and Turing Award laureate Robert Tarjan, alongside Li Luming, president of Tsinghua University. More than 80 recipients of the Shaw Prize, Wolf Prize and Dirac Medal, some 400 internationally recognized scholars, and more than 800 researchers and students from over 30 countries and regions gather
AI needs science’s search history
“Actually, that’s where the gold is,” said Alasdair Russell, my graduate school friend who leads a pre-clinical genome editing group at Cambridge. He was talking about the winding road of science that is omitted from published papers. “When you’re discussing how to do the experiment, and why this way is better than another way, and what does the data really mean? I know what it shows, but what does it mean?” At RAAIS 2026, he described how his group has begun logging the twisting path of discovery as it happens, recording the verbal and written exchanges that normally disappear. Ideas become nodes in a living graph: they branch when a meeting produces two plausible experiments, merge when separate lines of evidence converge, and go dark when someone quietly stops pursuing them. In his implementation, one agent scores novelty, while another tries to learn “how scientists think and how they navigate through a complex world of data,” so that high-potential nodes can trigger deeper investigation. As frontier AI labs deploy agents toward scientific discovery, giving AI authentic scientific taste remains a trillion-dollar dilemma. The bottleneck is that the record we have kept for centuries of science might be insufficient to get us there. The experiments that never make the paper Peter Medawar, 1960 Nobel laureate and “father of transplantation,” asked in 1963 whether the scientific paper was a fraud, and answered yes: the form of the paper misrepresents the thinking that produced it. Sixty years on, the diagnosis is unchanged. A paper presents a clean progression from hypothesis to result to conclusion. Lost along the way are the unconventional theories, the abandoned or unaffordable methods, and the underwhelming and inconclusive data. It reads like a browser history with every dead end deleted: the ten open tabs, the four rephrased queries, the wrong turn down a subforum. All scrubbed, leaving one clean path from question to answer as the canonical path. What has changed since then is that the discarded material is now worth something. No high-impact journal wants these artifacts, but raw trial and error is the most likely source of the training data required to develop scientific intuition, or what researchers call taste. Earlier attempts to capture the discards were motivated by scientific integrity. The Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine launched in 2002 to publish rigorous studies that disputed established models or exposed ineffective treatments. Its archive preserved negative conclusions after they had become papers, rather than the live alternatives and arguments that produced them. BioMed Central closed it in 2017, saying the mission had been served now that other journals publish null results. A less generous reading is that in fifteen years it published around 200 papers because almost nobody wants to read a negative result, let alone write one up when it will not count toward academic tenure. AI models are different. Even an uninteresting negative result can be useful, provided it is labeled. Earlier this year, Anthropic put a version of this to the test. The company pulled 129 decision points from real Claude Code sessions between January and March 2026, showed models the work up to a human detour, and asked what should happen next. Claude Mythos Preview beat the human choice 64% of the time, while Opus 4.5 managed 51%. The comparison was tilted toward the models because Anthropic deliberately chose moments where the human decision had room for improvement. On 127 further scenarios where the human action was already strong, the models improved on it only about 20% of the time. The study was possible because Anthropic’s researchers work inside a tool that logs by default. The reasoning, detours and outcome are produced in the same working environment. Biology has no equivalent. Its reasoning happens in hallways, at benches, in Slack threads and on whiteboards, while the outcome arrives weeks later somewhere else. The record has to emerge from the work itself. Ask scientists to reconstruct it afterwards and we’ll create another polished account. Subscribe A log is not a label Before any of this becomes training data, a negative result has to say what failed. The first paper published in the Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine examined 234 negative studies across five leading medical journals. Only 30% discussed statistical power, and half clearly defined a primary outcome. Tell a model an experiment failed, without telling it whether the assay was underpowered, a reagent had degraded, or the hypothesis was simply wrong, and it will learn noise with confidence. Decision histories have a second missing label too. When a lab considers five experiments and runs one, only the chosen branch returns an outcome. The other four are experimental counterfactuals. Researchers call this the selective labels problem: the data reveal results only for the actions someone chose to take. Such a record can teach a model to imitate a lab’s taste, but it cannot establish that the taste was good. It also smuggles local constraints into general lessons. A lab that never ran cryo-EM because it did not own a microscope teaches a model that cryo-EM is rarely the right call. Alasdair’s nodes preserve the candidate set, which is the necessary first step. To be useful, each decision record needs six fields: The evidence available at that moment, and nothing that arrived later. The candidates considered, including the ones dismissed in a sentence. For each candidate: the expected result, the confidence attached to it, and the cost in time and money. The route chosen, and the reason. What happened next. How the evidence changed the scientist’s view. These must be timestamped before the outcome, because hindsight turns uncertainty into inevitability. Disagreement also has to survive. Averaging three scientists into one clean rationale reproduces exactly the information loss we are trying to fix. But there is an obvious failure mode here. Once decisions are logged and scored, people log for the record post-facto. Anyone who has watched an electronic lab notebook fill up with retrospective tidying knows how quickly a research tool becomes a compliance exercise. A record that costs a scientist ten minutes of honest reflection per decision is worth far more than one that costs an hour of performance. A publication initiative called Registered Reports offers a useful starting point. Here, researchers submit their rationale, methods and analysis plan for peer review before the data exist, and the journal commits in principle to publish if they follow the approved plan. Nature has now expanded the format across every field it covers. This approach to paper writing timestamps intent before the outcome, but it freezes one plan. A useful search history must also preserve how the plan changed, which alternatives were rejected, when, and on what evidence. Subscribe Run the runner-up Autonomous labs show what happens when decisions and outcomes are connected in a loop. Liverpool’s mobile robotic chemist ran 688 experiments over eight days in a ten-variable formulation space. A batched Bayesian search used each result to choose the next experiments and found photocatalyst mixtures six times more active than the starting formulations. Every completed experiment changed what the system did next. The robot optimized within a goal and search space that humans had already chosen. It did not decide which scientific question mattered. So what this work demonstrates is narrower, but still useful: a search history pays off when the options return standardized outcomes quickly. Open-ended biology is harder because branches can take weeks and the discarded alternatives may never be run. Some exploration therefore has to be bought. Where two branches are plausible and the stakes justify the cost, a lab should sometimes run the runner-up. Otherwise the record captures what today’s scientists usually chose and stays silent on what they systematically overlooked. A funder could ring-fence a small fraction of a grant for the branch not taken, provided that the decision record and the outcome are both deposited. That costs money, but so does having every lab rediscover the same abandoned path. Test whether taste transfers When it comes time to evaluate if our new AI system exhibits taste, the comparison should run across laboratories and fields. At selected decision points in a live research campaign, we should freeze the six fields: the evidence, the candidates, expected results, confidence, costs and the choice made. Experts then rank the options before the outcomes are known, and those outcomes are checked independently later. We could give models one of two diets - papers alone, or papers plus decision histories - and ask them to rank the next experiment on unfamiliar projects. Then, we score information gained per dollar and week, calibration, and how quickly weak branches are abandoned. If histories improve choices only inside the lab that produced them, they amount to useful organizational memory. If they improve choices on unfamiliar problems elsewhere, Alasdair’s group will have captured something science has never managed to write down: a transferable record of taste. Until that happens, a scientific search history is a promising record, not yet a training set.
Mario Vargas Llosa by Gerald Martin review – the passions and politics of Peru’s Nobel laureate
This stylish biography of the author traces his journey from left to right, and from ‘posh Lima’ to Cricklewood
Susumu Tonegawa Dies at 86; Nobel Laureate Showed How Antibodies Fight Infection
The first Japanese scientist to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, he went on to discover how memories are stored, advancing understanding of how the brain works.
Freedom, trust and the future of science: Nobel laureates reflect on the ideas shaping tomorrow
Behind every scientific discovery are years, sometimes decades, of fundamental research, failed experiments, uncertain funding, international collaboration and the freedom to pursue questions without knowing where they might lead. The Nobel laureates recently gathered at the 75th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany argued that scientific breakthroughs depend on far more than brilliant ideas alone. Those conversations unfolded against the backdrop of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and growing geopolitical competition. The question running through the discussions was therefore broader than science itself: what conditions make discovery possible? ‘Europe is a space of freedom’
Scientists overwhelmingly against rule change that would give political appointees say over science grants
Hundreds of thousands of scientists, including Nobel laureates, warn that changes to the way federal grants are approved would greatly damage American science
Trump's support for Venezuela opposition head Machado wanes
Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate María Corina Machado says she wants to return to her earthquake-ravaged homeland. Yet neither Venezuela's government nor the United States thinks that's a good idea.
Computer Science Alum Pair Gains Key Experience Overseeing Data Science Projects as BU Spark! Postbaccalaureate Fellows
Learn how a pair of MET CS alums—one MS in Software Development alum and one who earned a MS in Computer Science with a concentration in Data Analytics—got vital experience overseeing data science projects as postbaccalaureate fellows in the BU Spark! program.
Hungary moves to overhaul university models banned from Horizon Europe
Hungary’s new government is aiming to overhaul the governance model of the institutions and universities that lost access to Horizon Europe and Erasmus+ funds “in a short timeframe,” according to Péter Horváth, the new state secretary for science policy and innovation. “As of today, the two non-university foundation-controlled institutions under my remit have been transformed,” he told Science|Business. “We hope the universities will follow and that this will be enough to satisfy the EU’s demands.”Under the previous government, led by Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party, many academic and scientific institutions were restructured and made into special public trust foundations, with members strongly linked to the government given lifelong mandates and significant decision-making powers with little oversight. The European Commission deemed that this undermined academic freedom and transparency in the country, leading to a ban on 34 institutions in 2022, including 21 universities, which saw academics in Hungary lose access to Horizon Europe grants. The new Hungarian government, elected in May and led by Péter Magyar and his Tisza Party, has promised to dismantle this governance model and restore the institutions to EU programmes. As a result, the European Commission has promised to return access to the Erasmus+ education mobility programme, but so far no concrete agreement has been made on the Horizon Europe programme for research and innovation. Hungary has already made legislative changes in June to allow the institutions to be reformed and set a timeline for the implementation.The non-university foundations, which are mainly cultural centres such as the Foundation for Hungarian Culture or the Makovecz Campus Foundation, will all be dissolved by August 31 this year, a date tied to EU-set milestones that Hungary must meet to unlock frozen funds, with control transferred to relevant ministries. Meanwhile, the universities will have until 31 August 2027. For each university foundation, the government will set the dissolution date and the body to take over operations. There is no final decision on a permanent new model for the universities, according to Hungarian MEP Eszter Lakos, who is shadow rapporteur for the Horizon Europe specific programme, a separate piece of legislation detailing implementation rules for the EU’s next research programme, due to start in 2028. “The aim of the transition year is to settle this with [the universities], not to impose a model, and not to put them under state control,” she told Science|Business. “The goal is to give academic independence back to universities.”There are three models that are most likely to be implemented. One would be a return to a traditional, state-run model. Another could be a newer, more self-standing public institution. A third option would be a reformed version of the foundation models that meet EU standards. According to Lakos, the dismantling of the system put in place by the Orbán government is well underway and if all goes according to plan, Hungary could regain access to EU research money by the start of the next academic year in 2027. “I believe that the Hungarian government is doing the necessary changes so the universities could return as beneficiaries to Horizon from the next school year,” she said. In the meantime, “the universities, institutes and cultural assets carry on under proper public stewardship rather than a handful of unaccountable trustees,” said Lakos. The laws passed in June impose new safeguards: board terms are capped at four years and renewable only once, appointments are made through open competitions and sitting politicians cannot join joining these boards.It remains unclear whether a domestic science funding programme set up as a back-up scheme by the former government following the EU funding ban, called HU-rizon, could be continued. “This programme should never have had to have been established in the first place, but it has proven to be quite popular,” he said. “I am considering continuing this programme with a refined focus on helping international collaborations.”Re-organising the research network One of the first priorities for Horváth and his cabinet is to resolve questions over the future of the Hungarian Research Network, Hun-Ren. The network of academic institutes was taken away from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2019 and turned into a quasi-private organisation, with similarities in its governance to the public trust foundations.Horváth and his team have consulted over 5,000 representatives from the network and the conclusion is broad unhappiness with the directors of all the institutes involved. “We have presented the results to the president and the chief executive of the network and this is currently being discussed,” Horváth said. The plan is to re-integrate the network back into the Academy of Sciences but in an improved way, “learning from mistakes of the past,” he added. The government also wants to reintegrate four humanities and social science research centres into the network that the previous government had transferred to Eötvös Loránd University. The transfer brought sharp criticism from the academic community, with a group of Hungarian research heads, including European Research Council grant recipients, sending an open letter to Orbán warning that the transfer would “cause historically significant harm to the entirety of Hungarian scientific life.” The transfer was “one of the biggest shames in Hungarian research in the past 20 years,” Horváth said. “We want to immediately re-integrate them back into the research network and to regain the trust of these institutions, because the way they were treated was really unfair.”Another pressing issue is the Élvonal Excellence Research and Talent Development Foundation, led by Nobel laureate Ferenc Krausz. The foundation signed a financing agreement with the former government earlier this year for a budget of over €730 million over the next five years. The goal is to create a world-class centre to attract top talent from abroad and to develop local researchers. But there was little transparency about this foundation, and news of its huge budget, which is nearly as much as Hungary’s entire research budget, caused a stir in the media following the recent elections. Another issue is that, as with the foundation boards of the institutes banned from Horizon Europe, there was little-to-no oversight of decisions led by Krausz. “It was an excellent idea but an unacceptable execution,” Horváth said of the foundation. “The fact that this is out of the Hungarian funding scheme, mostly concentrating on one person who decides on the budget is unacceptable for us.”The government plans to merge the centre with the National Research, Development and Innovation Office, the country’s R&D funding agency, with a reduced budget. Horváth is hopeful that Krausz will still be involved. The new government’s R&D goalsA phrase that crops up regularly during the discussion with Horváth is “democratic process.” The new state secretary is determined to involve Hungary’s research community in shaping future policies. This marks a departure from the previous government’s approach, and several people in Hungary’s research community have commented on the openness of the new government. In terms of concrete goals, Horváth and his team already have plans. He wants to create a new science fund in Hungary, based on the best practices of other European countries. The fund would not be tied to annual government budgets and would provide long-term, stable financing. “If we were to succeed in creating this fund, then I think it would be one of the biggest achievements for me in this period of government,” Horváth said. On the innovation side, he is looking into how best to bring in the private sector. “We want to make sure that we are working with the private sector to support innovation,” Horváth said. One of his big aims is to introduce entrepreneurship teaching into high schools. Hungary already has a reputable national academy offering research and innovation training in the field of natural sciences, and Horváth wants to expand this to all disciplines and across the whole country. “One of the main ways to elevate our innovative businesses is to teach our children to be innovative,” he said. “This will probably need ten years to pay off, but this is what we should do. Our aim is to make Hungary strong in our region, and this is what is needed.” Related articlesHungary’s Horizon Europe performance in numbersCommission unlocks Erasmus+ cash for Hungary, Horizon could be next‘Academic Huxit.’ Hungarian researchers speak out on impact of EU ban A more difficult task will be funding. The new government is aiming to increase research spending to 2% of the GDP by 2030, and then increase it to 3% in line with EU objectives. Currently, spending sits around 1.3%. But according to Horváth, the current budget, inherited from the previous government, is “heavily in the negative,” so any plans to increase research spending will have to start next year. Achieving 2% by 2030 already needs a big push, almost doubling the research budget. “This is something we’d definitely like to reach, and something I can see us achieving,” he said. “From the 2030s, I’d like to see an innovative generation growing up that can help us reach the 3% target.” Positivity in the new governmentDespite the many challenges facing Horváth and his team, the mood is positive. “It feels a bit like a start-up right now. Everyone is working 24/7, day and night, trying to do as much as they can. There is a lot of energy,” he said. It is a big change for the state secretary who, like many in his cabinet, is coming from a background in research or business, and not in politics. “Six weeks ago, I was sitting with my microscope and my research PhDs, so it’s been a big change for me,” said the computer scientist, who was previously the director of the Institute of Biochemistry at the Hun-Ren Biological Research Centre in Hungary and worked at the Institute for AI for Health at Helmholtz Munich. But he is relishing the task to transform the country’s R&D landscape. “We feel enormous support from the Hungarian people, but also from Europe,” he said. “We’ve received a lot of letters of support from around Europe. There is big trust there, and huge responsibility on our side. We want to get everything back on track, and there’s a lot to do.”
L’Oréal-UNESCO for Women in Science Week 2026: Celebrating excellence
From 8 to 11 June 2026, UNESCO and the Fondation L’Oréal welcomed the five laureates of the 2026 L’Oréal-UNESCO for Women in Science International Awards to Paris for a week of exchanges, discovery
Program Director Shares How Articulation Agreements Benefit Meredith Pre-health Post-Baccalaureate Students
Karthik Aghoram, director of Meredith’s Pre-health Post-Baccalaureate Program, recently spoke with Inspira Advantage about the program’s articulation agreements and why they are valuable for students seeking careers in health care.
Susan Solomon named 2026 Tang Prize laureate
MIT Professor Susan Solomon was awarded the 2026 Tang Prize in Sustainable Development for her work on the recovery of the ozone layer and the lasting impacts of carbon dioxide emissions on the Earth’s climate.
NIH Bethesda Declaration report: politics hindering research
'The administration is attempting to change almost every aspect of how science is conducted in the United States,' one Nobel laureate said.
NIH Bethesda Declaration report: politics hindering research
'The administration is attempting to change almost every aspect of how science is conducted in the United States,' one Nobel laureate said.
Elections to top science bodies test Croatia’s gender equality in research
Croatia’s track-record on gender equality in science has been both questioned and lauded in recent months, following both bad and good news on the topic. On the one hand, a senior awards committee was announced without a single woman researcher included. On the other, the national science academy welcomed its first cohort of fellows with more women than men.Members of the committee, which gives national awards recognising scientific achievement, are proposed by the ministry of science and endorsed by the parliament. The current line-up does include a woman, but she is culture minister Nina Obuljen Koržinek rather than a researcher. Even then, she didn’t make it into the photograph released to announce the appointments on April 16. “The image speaks a thousand words,” says Tanja Rudež, a science journalist for Jutarnji List newspaper. “I am surprised that none of these men, all well-known scientists, saw a problem with the fact that there was not a single successful female scientist on the committee,” she told Science|Business.Ivan Đikić, a prominent Croatian biochemist based at Goethe University Medical School, commented on LinkedIn that the news illustrated a “sad truth” about the state of science in Croatia.“It [. . .] reveals a system where women, despite contributing a substantial share of high-quality, internationally competitive science, are systematically excluded from the very processes that determine recognition and influence,” he wrote. Some 60% of researchers in Croatia are women, according to the Croatian Bureau of Statistics, and they perform well in international competitions. For example, of the 12 European Research Council (ERC) grants awarded to Croatian researchers, seven went to women.“So how is it possible that decision-making bodies are still dominated by men over 60, while not a single female ERC laureate is involved in the selection process?” asked Đikić. “This is not a marginal oversight; it is a structural failure.” The ministry of science did not reply to a request for comment. The awards committee is not unusual. For example, a scientific advisory body announced by the ministry of demographics in April comprises 35 men and five women. The board of the Croatian Science Foundation, newly appointed by the parliament, is a little better, with five men and two women, but still unequal. “This is especially significant because such bodies do not merely distribute prestige. They shape research priorities, funding allocation and long-term scientific development,” Marija Lugarić, chair of the parliament’s committee on gender equality, told Science|Business. “Representation here matters not only symbolically, but materially.”Referring to the awards committee and the board of the science foundation, Lugarić says that while both bodies were appointed by parliament, neither met the minimum 40% gender balance threshold that Croatian law and EU guidelines expressly recommend for public bodies.Đikić wants to see EU institutions put pressure on the government to ensure basic standards of fairness, transparency and democratic governance in science policy are met. “Meaningful change will not come without pressure,” he wrote. “It must intensify both within Croatia and at the level of European institutions. Anything less undermines the credibility of Europe’s commitment to excellence and inclusion in science.”Rudež also underlined the importance of talking and writing about this topic, “because public opinion in Croatia does influence changes in the status and visibility of women in science.”The European Commission has not yet responded to a request for comment.Good news from the academyA more positive story came from the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts on 21 May, with the announcement of seven new women fellows and five men. This is the first time in the academy’s 165-year history that women have outnumbered men in a new intake.One of the new fellows, two-time ERC grantee Iva Tolić, credits the academy leadership with trying to be more modern and inclusive, representing the whole community better. “The academy is really aware that so far, before this election, there were very few women,” she told Science|Business. “So, they are actively trying to make this more equal.”Related articlesExplained: How the MSCA is close to achieving gender balanceCall for EU to leverage academic freedom in global talent raceRudež is more cautious, noting that despite the academy’s “breakthrough this year [. . .] it is still a predominantly male institution, with only 18% women.”This reflects a wider imbalance in Croatia’s research landscape. “The key levers of power in science are still in the hands of men,” she went on. “For example, all 14 rectors of private and public universities are men.”Similarly, Lugarić says a structural glass ceiling still exists in Croatian science, which is “most visible precisely where power is exercised.”She cites data from the Commission’s She Figures 2024 report, which shows that Croatia ranks second in the EU for gender equality in research and innovation overall, with an equality index of 79.6 out of 100. It is in the top five for women’s career advancement, participation in research; representation across all research sectors and for scientific publications.In stark contrast, it ranks second to last when it comes to women in decision-making positions in science. “This is not a coincidence,” Lugarić says. “It is a structural pattern.”Informal barriersThe persistent under-representation of women in the highest structures of Croatia’s academies, boards, award committees and leadership positions is not down to formal barriers, Lugarić says, but arises from more subtle obstacles such as “informal networks, persistent expectations regarding traditional gender roles and the unequal distribution of care responsibilities.”Tolić would like to see more support for young women in terms of affordable housing and child support, and higher salaries. Currently, she says, salaries in science stay low for the first 10-15 years, while housing and spaces in kindergarten are limited and expensive. “You have to work a lot, you get very little money, so it’s not great to have a family in this situation,” she says.But despite the challenges, Tolić is optimistic, saying that gender equality in research in Croatia is “definitely improving and going in the right direction.” The situation is particularly promising in biology, she adds, where most full professors, heads of department and deans of faculties are women. Lugarić, too, see the glass ceiling “very slowly, cracking,” and cites the academy election as an example that structural change is possible. Yet the situation in the national awards committee is a “stark reminder that without a conscious, systemic commitment to gender balance, progress will remain slow and uneven.”
Jiben Roy: When science can’t predict the unthinkable
It’s a tricky point, and science does not have an answer. Tagore, a 1913 Nobel laureate in literature, lost seven family members, including his wife and three of his five children, within a short period of time.
Nobel Laureate and UC San Diego Alum to Discuss the Future of American Science at Public Forum
On June 11, Nobel Laureate Ramsdell will join School of Biological Sciences Dean Kit Pogliano for a discussion on the nation’s scientific enterprise and its foundation that has delivered bold breakthroughs and transformed lives through research and innovation.
China Has Outspent The U.S. On Research For The First Time. 3,375 American Scientists Are Telling Congress To Pay Attention
China outspent the U.S. on R&D for the first time in 2024. 3,375 scientists, including 48 Nobel laureates, just filed formal testimony with the Senate.
Marking 28 years of impact, the 2026 L’Oréal–UNESCO For Women in
UNESCO and The Fondation L’Oréal are proud to announce the names of the five international Laureates of the 2026 L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science International Awards.
Thousands of Scientists Sign Letter to Combat Science Board’s Firing
Thousands of Scientists Sign Letter to Combat Science Board’s Firing: The signatories, including more than 35 Nobel laureates, decry the “alarming attack on the ability of the US to engage in basic and applied research”
Alarm grows over health of Iran’s female political prisoners
Rights activists have raised renewed concerns over the health of prominent female political prisoners after Nobel Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi was transferred to a hospital in Tehran and reports emerged of worsening conditions for jailed activist Fatemeh Sepehri.
Iran releases Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi on bail amid health fears
Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi has been released on bail and transferred to Tehran for urgent medical treatment after supporters warned she was at risk of dying in prison. The activist,…
2026 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship Award
First year Materials and Nanoscience graduate student Stéphane Miaule (Tolbert group) has been awarded the 2026 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship, one of the country’s most prestigious honors for graduate students in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). The program, jointly sponsored by the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, supports doctoral students across a broad range of scientific and technological fields of strategic importance. This highly competitive fellowship provides full tuition, fees, and a monthly stipend for three years. In 2026, only 102 fellowships were awarded nationwide, and Stéphane is the sole recipient from UCLA. Before transferring from Santa Monica College to UCLA, Stéphane interned at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and Marshall Space Flight Center, where he researched the mechanical and thermodynamic properties of lunar regolith, as well as radiation shielding materials for lunar habitation development. At UCLA, he joined the Soft Materials Research Laboratory under Professor Qibing Pei, focusing on the synthesis and characterization of hafnium oxide nanocomposite scintillators. After earning his bachelor’s degree in chemistry, he remained in the Soft Materials Research Laboratory as a post-baccalaureate researcher for one year before joining Professor Sarah Tolbert’s group as a Ph.D. student. Stéphane’s Ph.D. research is focused on improving the properties of conjugated polymers, which are a family of plastic materials that can conduct electricity. Stéphane is specifically looking at self-assembling polymers that can be processed in water to create light-weight, flexible, high-conductivity polymer devices without the need for toxic or volatile organic solvents. After completing his Ph.D., Stéphane hopes to work in a national laboratory, researching semiconducting polymers for applications in new electronic devices. “The Graduate (1967) featured a memorable scene in which the protagonist was told that ‘there’s a great future in plastics.’ We know this still holds true today, as polymer research has expanded rapidly due to the wide variety of applications these materials enable. Through my work on semiconducting polymers, I hope to contribute to the continued development of plastic electronics,” Stéphane said. Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penjen@g.ucla.edu.
Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi hospitalized after health crisis in prison
Iran’s imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has been urgently transferred from prison to a hospital in northwestern Iran after a “catastrophic deterioration” of her health, her foundation said Friday.
Calls grow over hospital care for jailed Iranian Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi
On Friday her family said the 54-year-old had been taken from prison to a local hospital after a sharp deterioration in her health.
Narges Mohammadi, imprisoned Iranian Nobel laureate, hospitalized after a health crisis
Mohammadi's family said in February that her health was worsening in prison, in part because of a beating she endured during her arrest in December.
Iranian Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi hospitalised as health deteriorates
Mohammadi has lost consciousness twice and suffered a severe cardiac crisis, her foundation has announced.
Iranian Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi hospitalized after a health crisis in prison
BEIRUT (AP) — Iran’s imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has been urgently transferred from prison to a hospital in northwestern Iran after a “catastrophic deterioration” of her health, her foundation said Friday.
Hungarian Science Exhibition Opens in Washington with Katalin Karikó
A travelling exhibition celebrating Hungary’s most influential scientists has opened in Washington, featuring Nobel laureate Katalin Karikó.
The 'Oscars of Science': Breakthrough Prize 2026 awards over $18 million for discoveries across space, physics and more
"This year's laureates show what great science can do — deepen our understanding of the world and lead to discoveries that improve millions of lives."
3 UC scientists honored with ‘Oscars of Science’ at the 2026 Breakthrough Prizes
Two UC Berkeley faculty members and a UC Santa Barbara Nobel laureate were awarded Breakthrough Foundation prizes for their incredible contributions to advancing science.
Entertainment this week: KT Tunstall, Earth Day Celebration and more
Friday, April 24 Writers in the Woods: Poet Laureate, Lee Herrick 6-9 p.m. | Incline Village. UNR at Lake Tahoe About this event Two-term California State Poet Laureate, Lee Herrick, will give a reading and...
An Imperial Week in Photos: Celebrating Global Achievements in Science
Among the Imperial Family's mid-April engagements was the Japan Prize ceremony, which honored laureates for advancing science for peace and prosperity.
Library of Congress appoints Arthur Sze to a second 1-year term as US poet laureate
U.S. poet laureate Arthur Sze has been appointed to a second one-year term by the Library of Congress | KCBS All News 106.9FM and 740AM
Bob Dylan's 'Rough and Rowdy Ways' tour heading to the Palace Theatre
Bob Dylan, the iconic singer-songwriter and Nobel laureate, will come to Columbus on the North American leg of his \
The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science, and the Crisis of Belief by Richard Holmes
Pantheon Review by Walter Cummins The image of Alfred Tennyson I’ve carried for decades goes back to the childhood card game of Authors that depicts him with a stately continence sharpened by a jutting black beard. He’s formidable, his aura superior. Holmes opens his biography of the youthful Tennyson by describing the similar formality of the imposing Tennyson statue at Trinty College Cambridge, sharing the honor with other Trinity greats, including Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Babington Macaulay. Holmes doesn’t want to chip away at that statue but rather reveal its inner youthful core of the man—tall, handsome, and talented but unformed, emerging from a disturbed family of addicted or insane male siblings and four unusual sisters struggling under a violent alcoholic clergyman father. Alfred was certainly statuesque, but would he end up a block of unformed stone like his equally promising brothers? He was youngest of three equally regarded Tennyson brothers at Cambridge, all bright, handsome, and talented, in fact Alfred regarded by some as less promising than his elders who also wrote poetry. Yet Alfred wrote one of his major poems, “The Kraken,” at twenty, revealing both his talent, his interest in geological forces, and the haunting creature that embodied his anxieties. While Holmes focuses on Tennyson of the 1830s and 1840s, he can’t tell his story without exploring his involvement with the Victorian intellectual upheaval. Tennyson was fascinated by new scientific perspectives, following the latest findings as soon as books and articles were published. He was especially taken with Charles Lyell’s deep studies of geology and the discovery of fossils and a timeline of the planet’s development that did much to question fundamental religious assumptions. The impact of these discoveries is reflected in Tennyson’s poetry and led to the crisis in belief he shared with so many contemporaries. He was especially taken by the cycles of destruction and renewal that informed the struggles he confronted in In Memoriam, Maud, and Idylls of the King. Tennyson was only one of the eventual major figures at Cambridge at the same time, young men just beginning to realize their potential. Charles Darwin was at Christ College, although there is no evidence that he and Tennyson even met as students or later in life. Yet evolution became significant in Tennyson’s thinking and the issues of his poetry. One of Tennyson’s best and most important Cambridge friends was Edward FitzGerald, who became the translator of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám and in their on and off relationship served as Tennyson’s harshest critic. FitzGerald was also a friend of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, the two of them partying in Paris as undergraduates. That connection led to a friendship between Thackeray and Tennyson. Others who came to play significant roles in Tennyson’s life were Thomas Carlyle, the Brownings, and the Pre-Raphaelites. Tennyson’s deepest friend at college was Arthur Hallam, who at twenty wrote a glowing review of Tennyson’s first poetry collection, travelled on European adventures with him, and fell in love with his sister Emily. Hallam was also regarded as one more very promising Cambridge student. His sudden death at twenty-two in Vienna from a stroke while travelling with his father devastated many friends, but perhaps Tennyson most of all. He did not write immediate poems of grief but took years to compile those collected in In Memoriam A.H.H., published in 1850, almost twenty years after Hallam’s death For all of Tennyson’s early poetic successes and successes, Holmes reveals him as an often troubled young man suffering periods of depression, fearing planetary upheaval, concerned about supporting himself, disappointed in romances, and worried that he would inherit the family’s mental illness tendencies. Yet despite his seeming withdrawals, he was always writing poetry that he kept private and would not let go, constantly revising. 1850 became a transformative year for Tennyson. He finally consented to publishing In Memoriam with a last-minute prologue that acknowledged God and perhaps convinced the religious Emily Sellwood to marry him after years of pursuit.. He opened up to Emily, revealing his struggles with fears of depression and “weird seizures.” The devastating event of that time was the stillborn death of his unnamed first son. It shook him, but Emily’s faith brought them closer and convinced him to believe in an afterlife. Two later sons survived. With the death of William Wordworth in April of 1950, Tennyson was named poet laureate at age forty-one, reluctantly accepting. It’s as if Tennyson’s life split in half in that year. He lived another forty years, now a recognized success, with the prestige of being an official poet writing patriotic verse, wealthy and revered, no longer the insecure young man seeking an outlet for his immense talent. He earned a place in the Authors deck, now dignified and in 1884 elevated to the peerage as Arthur, Lord Tennyson. Richard Holmes is the author of twenty previous books on the Romantics and Victorians, several of which received awards. The Boundless Deep was shortlisted for the 2025 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. He captures the complex vicissitudes of Tennyson’s youth, illustrated by frequent excerpts from the poetry, placing that life in the full context of the shattering discoveries that led to an upheaval of thought in the Victorian age.
A newly-discovered molecular process explains how our bodies perceive the cold
Research by Nobel laureate David Julius has captured how the TRPM8 protein changes when exposed to low temperatures, opening a new avenue for treating cold-induced pain
Distinguished Binghamton Professor and Nobel laureate elected AAAS Fellow
Distinguished Professor of Chemistry M. Stanley Whittingham elected for his decades of lithium-ion battery research
SW FL Business Hall of Fame honors four new leaders. Read about them
Junior Achievement of Southwest Florida inducted four new laureates into its Business Hall of Fame on March 24.
SW FL Business Hall of Fame honors four new leaders. Read about them
Junior Achievement of Southwest Florida inducted four new laureates into its Business Hall of Fame on March 24.
Marc Abrahams, founder of the satirical Ig Nobel Prizes: ‘Scientists in the US are very angry. People are waking up’
The awards are moving to Switzerland, because their founder believes he can no longer guarantee the laureates’ safety in the United States
Video: Business Report Hall of Fame honoree Bob Greer
A respected figure in the insurance and banking industries, Robert Stephenson “Bob” Greer Jr. made an indelible impact on Baton Rouge, combining an abiding love for his hometown with ambitious ideas on how to make it better. Greer was recently named a 2026 Hall of Fame laureate (posthumous) by Business Report. Watch the video of Bob […]
Trump Tempers María Corina Machado’s Political Ambitions in Venezuela
President Trump is tempering the political ambitions of María Corina Machado, a Nobel laureate, as he deepens ties with her foes in Venezuela.
Epstein used his ties to Nobel laureate scientists to try to rebuild his image
A 2006 conference for physicists in the U.S. Virgin Islands that included a trip to Jeffrey Epstein's private island shows how he used his wealth to build relationships with prominent scientists.
Epstein used his ties to Nobel laureate scientists to try to rebuild his image
A 2006 conference for physicists in the U.S. Virgin Islands that included a trip to Jeffrey Epstein's private island shows how he used his wealth to build relationships with prominent scientists.
Gene Johnson ’73 inducted into North Carolina Business Hall of Fame
Gene Johnson ’73, a dedicated UNC Charlotte advocate and donor, is one of the newest members of the North Carolina Business Hall of Fame, presented by Junior Achievement of Central Carolinas. Johnson joins the group that honors the state’s most influential business leaders. A ceremony celebrating the 2026 laureates was held Feb. 17. Johnson earned […]
Imprisoned Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi is in worsening health, husband says
PARIS (AP) — The health of Iran’s imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi is worsening, in part because of a beating she endured during her arrest two months ago, her husband told Th…
Imprisoned Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi is in worsening health, husband says
PARIS (AP) — The health of Iran’s imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi is worsening, in part because of a beating she endured during her arrest two months ago, her husband told Th…
Young scientists from across the UK shortlisted for largest unrestricted science prize
The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists today announced the Finalists for the 2026 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the United Kingdom. The Awards recognise scientific advances by UK researchers across Life Sciences, Chemical Sciences, and Physical Sciences & Engineering. Now in its ninth year, each Blavatnik Awards Laureate will receive an unrestricted £100,000 (US$135,000) prize, while the remaining six Finalists will be awarded £30,000 (US$40,400) each. This year’s Finalists include: Chemical Sciences Finalists Michael J. Booth, PhD – University College London (UCL) Mathew H. Horrocks, PhD – The University of Edinburgh Maxie M. Roessler, DPhil – Imperial College London Life Sciences Finalists Nicholas R. Casewell, PhD – Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine Thi Hoang Duong (Kelly) Nguyen, PhD – MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Pontus Skoglund, PhD – The Francis Crick Institute Physical Sciences & Engineering Finalists Radha Boya, PhD – The University of Manchester Paola Pinilla, PhD – University College London (UCL) Iestyn Woolway, PhD – Bangor University
World Laureates Summit: Can science give a blueprint for our future?
In a landmark convergence of intellect and governance, the World Laureates Summit (WLS) opens on Sunday in Dubai, gathering over 150 of the world's most eminent scientists, policymakers, and institutional leaders.Convened alongside the 2026 World Governments
Louis E. Brus, Nobel Laureate Who Illuminated the Nanoworld, Dies at 82
He accidentally created some of the first quantum dots, tiny semiconductors that now power many electronics.
Trump Has Machado’s Nobel Prize, but Neither Got What They Really Wanted
President Trump has María Corina Machado’s medal, but he is not recognized as the prize laureate. Ms. Machado did not win Mr. Trump’s endorsement to become Venezuela’s president.
Trump to meet Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Maria Corina Machado later
Trump and his top advisers have previously hinted at their willingness to work with acting president Delcy Rodríguez
Schwenk, Kaiser 2026 Junior Achievement Dubois County Business Hall of Fame inductees - Dubois County Free Press, Inc.
Junior Achievement of Southwestern Indiana announced the 2026 JA Dubois County Business Hall of Fame Laureates at a press conference on Thursday, January 8, at the Dubois County Museum. The 2026 Laureates are Bill Kaiser and Raymond “Ray” J. Schwenk. Laurates will be inducted into the JA Dubois County Business Hall of Fame on Thursday,...
Alain Aspect, Nobel laureate in physics: ‘Einstein was so smart that he would have had to recognize quantum entanglement’
The pioneer of quantum computing talks about how Albert Einstein would have reacted to his experiments, the hype around the technology, and the parallels between physics and his new hobby: magic
Didn’t stand out at school? You may be destined for greatness
From Nobel laureates to Olympic champions, it is late developers, not child prodigies, who dominate at the highest levels of adult performance
Myanmar regime claims Aung San Suu Kyi ‘in good health’ despite son’s fears
Noble laureate's son says military must 'prove' Suu Kyi is healthy after years in detention following military coup.
Belarus frees prominent political prisoners as U.S. lifts sanctions on country's potash exports
Belarusian authorities on Saturday freed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski, key opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova and other prominent political prisoners, a human rights group confirmed.
Belarus releases political prisoners including Nobel winner
Authorities in Minsk released Nobel laureate Ales Bialiatski from jail Saturday along with another 122 political prisoners. The move comes as Belarus seeks to mend ties with Washington and the US lifts some sanctions.