For Yet Better Science

Redesigning social media to improve society requires a new platform for research.

The weapons are error-prone and could hit the wrong targets

It’s time to tackle the cumulative barriers and biases faced by scientists who aren’t from wealthy countries.

It’s clear that the current state of affairs is not sustainable. We cannot just continue to talk and write about these things; we have to take action. We need leaders to step up and work with young scientists on improving conditions in our collective system.  

Here are 10 of the most exciting young scientific leaders in the world today. 

In fast-paced crises like COVID-19, making use of scientific discovery in policymaking is challenging. We should learn the lessons of the current pandemic to make science a better partner to decision-makers in future crises, Sandro Galea writes.

Amending long-established processes to include fresh perspectives is challenging, but journal editor Lisa Loseto is trying to find a path forward.

Science is evolving. New tools and ideas are changing how discovery happens. Science Better is a collection of interviews with the vanguard — a repository of their best ideas and personal research habits.

R esearchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed that  false news spreads “farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth.” The reason is that people like novelty, and false stories are likely to be more novel, the authors suggested. 

Children are not just career interruptions, and parents can come back to work as more insightful and effective scientists.

Language implying that scientists have a special kind of identity (e.g., “Let’s turn on our special scientist brains!”) is prevalent in input to young children and has immediate negative consequences for children’s science behavior in laboratory studies. To test if these effects of language are powerful enough to shape child behavior as it unfolds in the natural course of development, we conducted a large field experiment with prekindergarten teachers and their students. Brief video-based training led teachers to change their language and increased children’s science persistence several days later but did not affect children’s feelings of science self-efficacy. These data reveal tools that could be used to increase science engagement in daily life.

Tools are not just developed by and for the professional scientific research community, but by a wide range of commercial, academic, nonprofit, and community enterprises operating at a range of scales. Here, we outline 16 tools for science that are causing us to rethink the boundaries of scientific research. Looking across these tools and their individual impact on science and society, we begin to ask questions about their collective impact. How do low-cost tools impact science? Do these tools accelerate scientific progress or expand access, and to what extent? Finally, is the impact, and potential impact, of these tools incremental, or potentially revolutionary?

A theory put forward in the 1930s by E. E. Just, embryologist and African American, shares surprising connections with our emerging understanding of development.

W hy give to Women’s Health Research at Yale? Here’s one reason: When researchers study the health of women and sex-and-gender differences in health, everybody benefits. This is because the more we know about the biology and health behavior of women and the differences between and among women and men, the more we can develop prevention and treatment strategies best suited for every person’s unique needs. This principle guides WHRY in our mission to better lives through better science.

The 5th Annual Vivian W. Pinn Symposium to Highlight Benefits of Accounting for Sex and Gender in Biomedical Research

On June 10, 2020, as part of the Black Lives Matter movement, scientists in the United States and throughout the world paused to consider how systematic racism affects the scientific enterprise. As a result, many academic departments are now assessing policies and practices that may contribute to this situation. This paper provides evidence of the nature of inequities related to race–ethnicity and gender in graduate school experiences and career plans of PhD students in one science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) discipline, chemistry. The results can help promote understanding of the problems and guide efforts toward equity within STEM and, potentially, other academic areas. In turn, these changes can strengthen the scientific enterprise and the well-being of society.

Women and ethnic minorities remain underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. The goal of this pilot study is to better understand the beliefs and experiences of underrepresented US students pursuing STEM. Our focus was to gain insights into their mentorship experiences and preferences regarding having mentors who are gender and ethnicity matched. Environmental and psychological factors associated with participants’ decision to pursue STEM, such as family influences, academic mindsets, and attitudes towards STEM, were also studied.

This Hispanic Heritage Month, Good Day BIO will be highlighting the achievements of Hispanic and Latinx individuals who have eliminated barriers in the sciences, medicine, and biotechnology—here’s a list of 25 trailblazers you should know.

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by learning more about some of the many Hispanic and Latinx scientists and engineers who have made important contributions to science history.

February is Black History Month. Learn more about some of the many African American scientists and engineers who have made important contributions to science history.

The history of the scientific enterprise demonstrates that it has supported gender, identity, and racial inequity. Further, its institutions have allowed discrimination, harassment, and personal harm of racialized persons and women. This has resulted in a suboptimal and demographically narrow research and innovation system, a concomitant limited lens on research agendas, and less effective knowledge translation between science and society. We argue that, to reverse this situation, the scientific community must reexamine its values and then collectively embark upon a moonshot-level new agenda for equity. This new agenda should be based upon the foundational value that scientific research and technological innovation should be prefaced upon progress toward a better world for all of society and that the process of how we conduct research is just as important as the results of research. Such an agenda will attract individuals who have been historically excluded from participation in scienc

Science communication is part of a scientist's everyday life. Scientists must give talks, write papers and proposals, communicate with a variety of audiences, and educate others.

Are you fascinated with science and the many intriguing mysteries it has already lifted? Then you will definitely like this list of brilliant science quotes that are thought-provoking .

Enjoy these 20 quotes about science and why it matters.

Nuggets of optimism and motivation from scientists

We’ve all heard of the likes of Ada Lovelace, Rosalind Franklin and Marie Curie, but there are many more famous women in STEM that deserve your attention.

We all learned about Marie Curie and Jane Goodall, but here are 10 more women in science you should know.

The mission of public schools should be inspiration, not inculcation

The data suggest that there is. Under the right conditions, teams may benefit from various types of diversity, including scientific discipline, work experience, gender, ethnicity, and nationality. This article highlights gender diversity.

Open science is a vague mix of ideals. Overall, advocates aim to increase transparency, accountability, equity and collaboration in knowledge production by increasing access to research results, articles, methods and tools. Making all that happen is expensive. Wealthy institutions and regions can afford this better than can poorer ones. Failing to address structural inequalities directly means that the advantages of those who are already privileged will grow, especially given that they have the most influence over how open science is implemented.

Experience and degrees don't matter in the classroom nearly so much as mastery of science and math--and some plain old smarts

  China has revised the country’s pandemic guidelines to include the use of antiviral pills made by Pfizer, Paxlovid , as the country scrambles to contain its biggest outbreak since the early days of the COVID19 pandemic.

Speakers at the Ideathon

The Better Science Ideathon took place at MIT, in Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.

The first MIT Better Science Ideathon brought together teams of people involved in scientific research - including students, researchers, policy makers, publishers, and funders - to explore how the process of science can be improved.

Xylella fastidiosa has infected 20 million of Italy's 150 million olive trees. The bacterial pathogen has potential to kill 100,000s of ancient olive trees

Researchers have found that body temperature exerts a greater effect on lifespan than metabolic rate.