For Yet Better Science

There is a gap between most researchers’ work and what happens in everyday life of clinicians who practise in a sports context or deliver health-related programmes for the community. For example, scientists advocate using Nordic hamstrings exercise for injury prevention, but very few players do it. Why? Do they want to sustain a severe performance-limiting injury? In the public health sector, despite a large amount of research showing the benefits of physical activity in reducing the risk of premature death, little progress has been made in translating the WHO guidelines on physical activity into actions within the communities in most countries. It is unlikely that people prefer the adverse health outcomes of inactivity, and it is more considerate to assume that our messages do not reach and affect those intended. We acknowledge that this is a complex problem,   and we think we can come a long way if we tackle it from our side—the knowledge creators—and those working for knowledge diss

The Commission established an Expert Working Group (EWG) to develop a common education and training framework for the EU to fulfil the requirements under Articles 23, and 24 of Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes. All Members States and main stakeholder organisations were invited to nominate experts to participate in the work. The EWG met on 22 - 23  February and 19-20 September 2012, and 3-4 July 2013. The objectives of the EWG were to develop a common framework to facilitate meeting the requirements for competence of all those involved in use and care of animals for scientific purposes and free movement of personnel. This document is the result of the work of the EWG meetings (including those on Project Evaluation/Retrospective Assessment and Inspection and Enforcement), discussions with the Member States as well as legal input from the Commission.  

The impact of data science and AI on science and knowledge production is an important and timely topic. The Frontiers Research Topic entitled “ Data science and artificial intelligence for (better) science ” has collated unique mixes of various contributions from experts, exploring a range of novel approaches to help solving problems facing scientists and advance scientific goals.

Janet Rossant, CC, FRS, FRSC is a developmental biologist well known for her contributions to the understanding of the role of genes in embryo development. She is a world renowned leader in developmental biology. Her current research interests focus on stem cells, molecular genetics, and developmental biology.

Maria Sibylla Merian  (2 April 1647 – 13 January 1717 ) was a German  entomologist ,  naturalist  and  scientific illustrator . She was one of the earliest European naturalists to observe insects directly. Merian was a descendant of the  Frankfurt  branch of the Swiss  Merian family .

Lydia Villa-Komaroff  (born August 7, 1947) is a molecular and cellular biologist who has been an academic laboratory scientist, a university administrator, and a business woman. She was the third   Mexican-American  woman in the  United States  to receive a doctorate degree in the sciences (1975) and is a co-founding member of The Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science ( SACNAS ).  Her most notable discovery was in 1978 during her post-doctoral research, when she was part of a team that discovered how bacterial cells could be used to generate  insulin .

Maria Mitchell was an American astronomer, librarian, naturalist, and educator. In 1847, she discovered a comet named 1847 VI that was later known as "Miss Mitchell's Comet" in her honor. She won a gold medal prize for her discovery, which was presented to her by King Christian VIII of Denmark in 1848.

Virginia Apgar was an American physician, obstetrical anesthesiologist and medical researcher, best known as the inventor of the Apgar Score, a way to quickly assess the health of a newborn child immediately after birth in order to combat infant mortality.

The human mind takes shortcuts by using past experiences to fill in missing information. This special talent helped our forebears avoid unfamiliar dangers and facilitated the development of modern civilization. Today, it allows us to quickly size up new social situations and connect with complete strangers. As researchers, it helps us see patterns in nature that explain how the world works. But this inherently human characteristic has its flaws. In its most benign manifestation, our reliance on shortcuts makes us susceptible to optical illusions or a magician’s slight of hand. More troubling, our tendency to fill in missing facts by making broad generalizations can lead us to draw erroneous conclusions about our fellow researchers and the quality of their work.  

In 2021, Facebook made “metaverse” the buzziest word on the web, rebranding itself as Meta and announcing a plan to build “a set of interconnected digital spaces that lets you do things you can’t do in the physical world.” Since then, the metaverse has been called many different things. Some say it is the “future of the internet.” Others call it “an amorphous concept that no one really wants.” For  Diego Gómez-Zará , an assistant professor in the University of Notre Dame’s  Department of Computer Science and Engineering , the metaverse is something else: a tool for better science.  

The founders of a biotech firm that launched at a UCSF start-up incubator in 2012 with promises of a groundbreaking fecal testing system are facing fraud charges in a case that’s not merely reminiscent of the notorious Theranos scandal, but tangentially connected to it. In 2021,  federal prosecutors charged  the founders of uBiome, Zach Apte, who received a PhD from UCSF in 2012, and Jessica Richman of defrauding investors of $76 million. Prosecutors say they are now fugitives.  

Vera Florence Cooper Rubin was an American astronomer who pioneered work on galaxy rotation rates. She uncovered the discrepancy between the predicted and observed angular motion of galaxies by studying galactic rotation curves.  

As a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Carl Wieman could probably get away with being a mediocre teacher. Yet he’s devoted much of his career to improving the ways colleges and universities teach science, in his own classrooms and in one of the grandest experiments of his life: the multicampus Science Education Initiative.  

Nancy Coover Andreasen is an American neuroscientist and neuropsychiatrist. She currently holds the Andrew H. Woods Chair of Psychiatry at the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa.

The left should advocate for free access to not only scientific literature and data but also the means of production of science.  

A new book explores how racist biases continue to maintain a foothold in research today  

In 2021, Facebook made "metaverse" the buzziest word on the web, rebranding itself as Meta and announcing a plan to build "a set of interconnected digital spaces that lets you do things you can't do in the physical world." Since then, the metaverse has been called many different things. Some say it is the "future of the internet." Others call it "an amorphous concept that no one really wants."

Stefanie Dimmeler is a German biologist specializing in the pathophysiological processes underlying cardiovascular diseases. Her awards and honours include the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation for her work on the programmed cell death of endothelial cells.  

Editor of  The Washington Post 's Wellness Department and former  New York Times  columnist Tara Parker-Pope is one of the most popular and e-mailed journalists in the nation. In this eye-opening—and ultimately optimistic—look at marriage today, Parker-Pope reveals the heart behind the statistics to bust the myths and share the true secrets to marital happiness.