For Yet Better Science

The news is full of stories detailing the negative impact humans have had on the environment and the potential peril of precious natural resources, such as water, that sustain life on this planet. But John Sabo, director of the  Tulane ByWater Institute  and professor in the Department of River-Coastal Science and Engineering at the School of Science and Engineering, is one of a new vanguard of scientists who are moving away from analyzing the problems to finding solutions to them.   

Gertrude "Trudy" Belle Elion was an American biochemist and pharmacologist, who shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with George H. Hitchings and Sir James Black for their use of innovative methods of rational drug design for the development of new drugs.

Philippa "Pippa" Marrack, FRS is an English immunologist and academic, based in the United States, best known for her research and discoveries pertaining to T cells.

Understanding the fundamentals of conducting good science, that will have an impact, is the goal of every aspiring scientist. Providing a wealth of tips,  How to be a Better Scientist  is the book to read if you want to succeed in this competitive field.

Mae Carol Jemison is an American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. She became the first African-American woman to travel into space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992.

Collaborations between the academy and governments promise to improve the lives of people, the operations of government, and our understanding of human behavior and public policy. This review shows that the evidence-informed policy movement consists of two main threads: ( a ) an effort to invent new policies using insights from the social and behavioral science consensus about human behavior and institutions and ( b ) an effort to evaluate the success of governmental policies using transparent and high-integrity research designs such as randomized controlled trials. We argue that the problems of each approach may be solved or at least well addressed by teams that combine the two. We also suggest that governmental actors ought to want to learn about  why  a new policy works as much as they want to know  that  the policy works. We envision a future evidence-informed public policy practice that ( a ) involves cross-sector collaborations using the latest theory plus deep contextual knowled

  "The cardinal sin of every poster I've seen, including the posters I've designed myself, is that they assume people are going to stand there and read our posters in silence for 10 straight minutes, following the order of the sections we've laid out."

Rita Levi-Montalcini   OMRI   OMCA  ( US :  / ˌ l eɪ v i   ˌ m oʊ n t ɑː l ˈ tʃ iː n i ,   ˌ l ɛ v -,   ˌ l iː v i   ˌ m ɒ n t əl ˈ -/ ,   Italian:  [ˈriːta ˈlɛːvi montalˈtʃiːni] ; 22 April 1909 – 30 December 2012) was an Italian  Nobel laureate , honored for her work in  neurobiology . She was awarded the 1986  Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine  jointly with colleague  Stanley Cohen  for the discovery of  nerve growth factor  (NGF).

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1983 Born: 16 June 1902, Hartford, CT, USA Died: 2 September 1992, Huntington, NY, USA Affiliation at the time of the award: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, USA Prize motivation: “for her discovery of mobile genetic elements”

Perhaps the finest nature writer of the Twentieth Century, Rachel Carson (1907-1964) is remembered more today as the woman who challenged the notion that humans could obtain mastery over nature by chemicals, bombs and space travel than for her studies of ocean life. Her sensational book Silent Spring (1962) warned of the dangers to all natural systems from the misuse of chemical pesticides such as DDT, and questioned the scope and direction of modern science, initiated the contemporary environmental movement.  

Lise Meitner  ( / ˈ l iː z ə   ˈ m aɪ t n ər /   LEE -zə  MYTE -nər ,  German:  [ˈliːzə ˈmaɪtnɐ]   ( listen ) ; born Elise Meitner, 7 November 1878 – 27 October 1968) was an Austrian-Swedish  physicist  who was one of those responsible for the discovery of the element  protactinium  and  nuclear fission . While working on radioactivity at the  Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Chemistry  in  Berlin , she discovered the  radioactive isotope   protactinium-231  in 1917. In 1938, Meitner and her nephew, the physicist  Otto Robert Frisch ,  discovered nuclear fission . She was praised by  Albert Einstein  as the "German  Marie Curie ".

One of the  New York Times’  most popular journalists presents groundbreaking scientific news about marriage. And, surprise: It’s good news.

Alexandre Tkatchenko  is   a Professor of Theoretical Chemical Physics at the University of Luxembourg and also Head of the   Department of Physics and Materials Science   (DPhyMS). Prof. Tkatchenko   obtained his bachelor degree in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in Mexico City. Between 2008 and 2010, he was an  Alexander von Humboldt Fellow  at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin. Between 2011 and 2016, he led an independent research group at the same institute. Prof. Tkatchenkoe has given more than 280 invited talks, seminars and colloquia worldwide, and currently serves on the editorial boards of two scientific society journals: Physical Review Letters (APS) and Science Advances (AAAS). He has received a number of awards, including elected  Fellow of the American Physical Society , the  van der Waals Prize from NCNI-2021 , the  2020 Dirac Medal from WATOC , the  Gerhard Ertl Young Investigator Aw

Rudi Balling is a German geneticist. He is the founding director of the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine at the University of Luxembourg He has served as president of the International Mammalian Genome Society and as co-editor of the Annual Review of Nutrition since 2018.

Gender bias in science has resulted in drug tests that treat the female body as an aberration, and search algorithms that perpetuate discrimination, but the solution is simple: increase the numbers of women working in the field and support the girls hoping to join them one day.   

Olexander Smakula  ( Ukrainian :  Олександр Теодорович Смакула ) (1900 in  Dobrovody ,  Austria-Hungary , today  Ukraine  – 17 May 1983 in  Auburn, Massachusetts ,  USA ) was a  Ukrainian  physicist known for the invention of  anti-reflective lens coatings  based on  optical interference .

Borys Yevhenovych Paton  ( Ukrainian :  Бори́с Євге́нович Пато́н ,  Russian :  Борис Евгеньевич Патон ; 27 November 1918 – 19 August 2020 ) was a Ukrainian scientist and a long-time chairman of the  National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine . He was appointed to this post in 1962 and held it until his death.  Paton, like his father  Evgeny Paton , was famous for his works in  electric welding .

In this editorial Hilda Bastian, Scientist and Editor, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, US, discusses the many different ways to respond to published research and highlights possible barriers to the success of post-publication commentaries.

S tudies have piled up in recent years, making clear that newer, hands-on methods of teaching science—emphasizing discussions over lectures, practical applications rather than rubrics—can significantly improve student success. And if anyone could be expected to make a convincing case for the wider adoption of those methods, it’s Carl E. Wieman. Winner of a Nobel Prize in Physics, he has made a second career of studying and promoting such overhauls.

Shen Kuo ,  Wade-Giles romanization   Shen K’uo , (born 1031, Qiantang [now  Hangzhou , Zhejiang province], China—died 1095, Jingkou [now  Zhenjiang ,  Jiangsu  province]), Chinese astronomer, mathematician, and high official whose famous work  Mengxi bitan  (“Brush Talks from Dream Brook” [Dream Brook was the name of his estate in Jingkou]) contains the first reference to the magnetic  compass , the first description of  movable type , and a fairly accurate explanation of the origin of  fossils . The  Mengxi bitan  also contains Shen’s observations on such varied subjects as  mathematics ,  astronomy , atmospheric phenomena,  cartography ,  optics , and  medicine . Shen produced a number of works, including commentaries on the  Confucian Classics , atlases,  diplomatic  reports, and a variety of monographs. His  Mengxi bitan  was written relatively late in life, after he had been removed from office on a trumped-up charge and banished after troops under his titular command suffered a

Chien-Shiung Wu is a pioneer and pivotal figure in the history of physics. An immigrant to the United States from China, she did important work for the  Manhattan Project  and in experimental physics. Her crucial contribution to particle physics was, however, ignored by the Nobel Prize committee when it awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Tu Youyou turned to Chinese medical texts from the Zhou, Qing, and Han Dynasties to find a traditional cure for malaria, ultimately extracting a compound – artemisinin – that has saved millions of lives. When she isolated the ingredient she believed would work, she volunteered to be the first human subject. She is the first mainland Chinese scientist to have received a Nobel Prize in a scientific category, and she did so without a doctorate, a medical degree, or training abroad.

To understand disease, scientists are producing comprehensive  omics  datasets. However, the majority of these are Eurocentric. Recently, the inclusion of patients from Asia and the Middle East in genomic analyses uncovered unique loci linked to COVID-19 severity. This demonstrates that focusing on diversity and underrepresented populations can benefit all.

The COVID-19 years have been banner years for science. Never before in recent memory has science broadly, and population health science specifically, been more in the forefront of public conversations. Scientists previously working in academic cloisters rocketed to rock star status, and what scientists might say became a guiding principle for much of what was discussed, written about and acted on in the policy sphere. And science has had some resounding success in guiding our response to COVID-19.  And yet, despite this elevated visibility of and respect for the science, COVID-19 has been a global tragedy.  We should learn the lessons of the current pandemic to make science a better partner to decision-makers in future crises.

Effective partnering is essential for success in science mergers, acquisitions, alliances, and between departments, but partnering results often fall short. Managing partnering as if it were a project and better partnering meetings significantly improve partnering results.  Find Out How to Ensure Success After the Deal Is Made.