The quest to understand and treat a pervasive and mystifying mental health condition. The symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have been known for more than 100 years, although the condition was not formally recognized until the 1960s and did not receive its current name until 1980. Globally, ADHD affects up to 8% of […]
Nature
How to improve vaccine uptake: a huge study offers clues
An analysis of more than one million people in the UK found that two-thirds of people who were vaccine-hesitant during the COVID-19 pandemic went on to get vaccinated. Although some people were initially hesitant to be vaccinated against COVID-19 during the pandemic, many did eventually go on to get at least one dose, according to a study […]
Canada courts US researchers and signals wider commitment to science
Artificial intelligence and international scientists are some of the big winners in the country’s spending plan this year. The contents of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first federal budget, released on 4 November, came as a relief to many researchers in Canada – because a large cut to the country’s three main research-funding councils failed to […]
China’s research hospitals push for prominence
The country’s output in quality health research is going from strength to strength, but can it overcome questions about the integrity of its publishing practices? Increasing evidence suggests that the geographical centre of medical research might be moving, as the amount and quality of research produced by China’s research hospitals rises, and the United States’ […]
Will your study change the world? This AI tool predicts the impact of your research
A tool called Funding the Frontier visualizes all the downstream impacts of funding — and predicts which studies will have the biggest societal impact. Scientific research offers many benefits to society, but how do you trace the impact of specific projects? It’s easy to track which papers result from a grant, but much harder to […]
The chatbots claiming to be Jesus: spreading gospel or heresy?
Jesus chatbots aren’t the only AI technologies seeping into religious practice. Some worshippers don’t agree with the use of them. The canonization of Carlo Acutis by Pope Leo XIV on 7 September was a sign of how the Catholic Church is increasingly embracing the digital world. Acutis, who died of leukaemia in 2006 at the […]
What incentives do companies need to publish research?
There are good commercial reasons for firms to share their research in science journals, but the practice seems to be falling out of favour. Academic research might lay the groundwork for modern technology, but the products we use daily are often shaped by innovations from corporate labs. Unlike in academia, where publishing is central to […]
‘A funeral for our careers’: Trump’s science cuts spill onto Canadian turf
Researchers in Canada prepare for turbulence in the wake of US funding changes — but there’s a silver lining. As US science policy continues to shift under the administration of President Donald Trump, the impacts are rippling beyond the nation’s borders. In Canada, researchers are feeling the heat. Canadian academics are some of the Americas’ […]
Graduate-student stipends in Canada below the poverty line
Students struggle to make ends meet despite recent boosts to federal scholarships, study finds. Stipends for biology and physics graduate students at Canadian universities fall well short of a living wage, an analysis reports. “All of the minimum stipends we found were below the poverty line after tuition, except for the physics department at the […]
Kaitlin Kharas: Fair-pay champion
A PhD student helped to lead a campaign to get Canadian graduate students and postdocs their biggest pay rise in 20 years. On 16 April 2024, Kaitlin Kharas was one of a select few people ushered into an office across the street from the Canadian Parliament and given a sneak peek at the latest budget. […]