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Daily briefing: How Captain Picard inspired today’s scientists
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Actor Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard.Credit: RGR Collection/Alamy
Scientists are paying tribute to actor Patrick Stewart, who has died aged 86. In the Star Trek franchise, Stewart played Captain Jean-Luc Picard, who researchers say exemplified the qualities of a good scientific leader. “Picard made me rethink why I do science in the first place,” says physicist Níckolas de Aguiar Alves. He “made me see that this may all mean something. For that I will forever be grateful”.
Polling data for the 3 November mid-term elections in the United States suggest that Democrats could take control of one or even both of the chambers of the US Congress — a result that could have substantial consequences for the country’s scientific landscape. Republicans currently control both chambers, which has given the party and administration of President Donald Trump unified control of the federal government. Since Trump’s inauguration, his administration has slashed the science workforce and terminated thousands of research grants. Many researchers and science advocates hope that a new Congress will stand up to the administration to protect science funding and investigate its actions.
Applications to the European Research Council’s Starting Grant programme have surged by 60% year-on-year, a rise that could result in an exceptionally low success rate. The spike is in part attributable to the ease of writing applications with artificial-intelligence tools. The programme received 7,710 proposals for 2027 funding with only 373 grants available. That will mean a success rate of less than 5% — the lowest since 2007. “It’s almost a lottery,” says systems and synthetic biologist Devang Mehta.
Fossils of dinosaurs and mammals are over-represented in high-profile scientific publications compared with other, less ‘charismatic’ fossils. Palaeontologist Bryan Gee analysed more than 4,200 research papers published since 2000 and found that more than 50% of fossils described in Science or Nature were Avemetatarsalians — the group that includes dinosaurs and birds — and mammaliamorphs, which includes mammals and their close relatives. The bias warps incentives in palaeontology research, Gee argues, potentially driving early-career researchers away from working on less-captivating species. (Nature | 5 min read)
New portable technologies could help to clear up per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — commonly known as ‘forever chemicals’. These molecules’ hardiness — the property that once made them so useful — makes them incredibly persistent pollutants. Researchers have previously developed tech that can strip forever chemicals from water and other materials, but the resulting PFAS-laden waste has proved trickier to deal with. The new methods can effectively destroy the compounds using extreme heat and pressure, or electricity. Now, scientists must decide where and how to use them.
A woman recounts the good old days of human-alien relations in Where have all the saucers flown? and a pair of workers use an unconventional method to pass notes in Somewhere over the transcontinental burrito tunnel.
The Rub’ al Khali, the world’s largest sand sea, was once part of the lush savannah known as ‘Green Arabia’. Evidence of ancient humans abounds in the regions around the desert, but an expedition into its interior has returned empty-handed. This has led archaeologists to suggest that ancient peoples needed not just water to settle, but stone as well. “It’s really kind of turned our thinking about migration on its head,” archaeologist Jeff Rose tells the Nature Podcast. Ancient humans weren’t “opportunistically filling out this entire landscape. They’re specifically going to distinct locations where there’s rich raw material sources”.