Wetenschap

Nature.com






Sciencedaily.com

This 2-pound dinosaur is rewriting what scientists know about evolution

  Openen als pagina
A nearly complete dinosaur skeleton discovered in Patagonia is helping scientists crack the mystery of alvarezsaurs, a bizarre group of bird-like dinosaurs. The fossil of Alnashetri cerropoliciensis reveals that these animals became tiny before developing their later specialized features, such as stubby arms and ant-eating adaptations. Weighing under two pounds, the dinosaur is one of the smallest known from South America.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260309225231.htm


Scientists may have discovered a brand-new mineral on Mars

  Openen als pagina
Scientists studying Mars may have uncovered a brand-new mineral hidden in the planet’s ancient sulfate deposits. By combining laboratory experiments with orbital data, researchers identified an unusual iron sulfate—ferric hydroxysulfate—forming in layered deposits near the massive Valles Marineris canyon system. The mineral likely formed when sulfate-rich deposits left behind by ancient water were later heated by volcanic or geothermal activity, transforming their chemistry.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260309225228.htm


Cosmic voids look empty but they may be tearing the universe apart

  Openen als pagina
Cosmic voids may seem like the emptiest places in the universe, stripped of matter, radiation, and even dark matter. But they’re far from nothing. Even in these vast empty regions, the fundamental quantum fields that fill all of space remain, carrying a small but real amount of energy known as vacuum energy, or dark energy. While this energy is overwhelmed by matter in galaxies and clusters, in the deep emptiness of cosmic voids it becomes dominant.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260309225236.htm


Stanford scientists say colorblindness may hide a deadly bladder cancer warning

  Openen als pagina
Colorblindness may be doing more than making traffic lights confusing — it could also be hiding a life-threatening warning sign. Researchers analyzing millions of medical records found that people with bladder cancer who are also colorblind have a 52% higher mortality rate over 20 years compared to those with normal vision. The likely reason: many people with color vision deficiency struggle to see red, making it harder to notice blood in urine, the most common early sign of bladder cancer.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260309225222.htm


Scientists finally solve the mystery of yeast’s tiny centromeres

  Openen als pagina
Scientists have uncovered how brewer’s yeast developed its unusually tiny centromeres, the DNA regions that guide chromosome separation during cell division. By studying related yeast species, researchers found centromeres that appear to represent evolutionary halfway points. These structures seem to have formed from retrotransposons—mobile “jumping genes” in the genome. The discovery shows how DNA once considered genomic junk can be transformed into essential chromosome machinery.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260308201606.htm


sci.news

Two New Bird Species Identified in Amazonia

  Openen als pagina

An antbird long thought to be a single widespread species across the Amazon rainforest is, in fact, several different ones. Among them are two newly-described species -- Cercomacra mura and Cercomacra raucisona -- that inhabit separate regions of southern Amazonia.

The post Two New Bird Species Identified in Amazonia appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

https://www.sci.news/biology/amazonian-antbirds-14611.html


3I/ATLAS is Unusually Rich in Methanol, ALMA Observations Show

  Openen als pagina

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have detected hydrogen cyanide (nitrogen-bearing organic molecule commonly seen in comets) as well as unusually high levels of methanol (organic molecule tied to prebiotic chemistry) in the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS.

The post 3I/ATLAS is Unusually Rich in Methanol, ALMA Observations Show appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

https://www.sci.news/astronomy/alma-3i-atlas-methanol-hydrogen-cyanide-14610.html


Triassic Crocodile Relative May Have Learned to Walk on Two Legs

  Openen als pagina

Fossils from the Chinle Formation of Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, the United States, reveal that Sonselasuchus cedrus, a species of shuvosaurid that lived about 215 million years ago (Triassic period), likely began life walking on four legs before shifting to a bipedal stance as it matured.

The post Triassic Crocodile Relative May Have Learned to Walk on Two Legs appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

https://www.sci.news/paleontology/sonselasuchus-cedrus-14609.html


NASA’s Planetary Defense Test Changed Binary Asteroid’s Orbit around the Sun

  Openen als pagina

New measurements show that the DART impact in 2022 not only shortened the orbit of the moonlet Dimorphos around its parent asteroid, Didymos, but also subtly shifted the entire binary system’s path around the Sun.

The post NASA’s Planetary Defense Test Changed Binary Asteroid’s Orbit around the Sun appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

https://www.sci.news/space/nasa-dart-impact-binary-asteroid-orbit-14608.html


Stellar ‘Space Weather’ Could Be Blurring Radio Signals from Extraterrestrial Civilizations

  Openen als pagina

Stellar activity and plasma turbulence could distort narrow radio signals before they leave their home planetary systems, potentially explaining part of the long silence in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

The post Stellar ‘Space Weather’ Could Be Blurring Radio Signals from Extraterrestrial Civilizations appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

https://www.sci.news/astronomy/stellar-space-weather-radio-signals-extraterrestrial-civilizations-14607.html


The Lancet

[Editorial] Gender equality and equity: essential for health and society

  Openen als pagina
The terms gender, equity, and equality have been fiercely contested and increaslingly instrumentalised over the past year. The Trump Administration's January 2025 orders to cease the use of the term gender in federal documents, to stop all funding that does not promote the male–female binary, and to terminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion programmes will have detrimental effects on health in the USA and abroad.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(26)00456-3/fulltext?rss=yes


[Comment] CAR T-cell therapy for patients with relapsed or refractory marginal zone lymphoma

  Openen als pagina
Marginal zone lymphoma (MZL) is an indolent B-cell malignancy that accounts for approximately 7% of mature non-Hodgkin lymphomas.1 It is characterised by varied anatomical and clinical features across nodal, splenic, and extranodal or mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue subtypes.2 For relapsed or refractory MZL, standard options include anti-CD20-based regimens, lenalidomide–rituximab, and Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitors (BTKis).3 However, the achievement of deep and durable remissions remains challenging.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(26)00094-2/fulltext?rss=yes


[Comment] Hypofractionated nodal radiotherapy in breast cancer: time for an updated standard of care?

  Openen als pagina
Minimising the effect of arm swelling (lymphoedema) caused by breast cancer treatment is a key goal for patients and health-care providers, given the potential detrimental effect on physical, psychological, and social wellbeing. Historically, breast axillary nodal radiotherapy was associated with major harm to patients in the 1970s and 1980s, resulting in lymphoedema and nerve damage (brachial plexopathy), which caused severe pain and loss of arm function. The causes were multifactorial, including large radiation doses, overlapping radiotherapy fields, and poor-quality radiotherapy with an absence of standardised protocols and quality assurance.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(26)00091-7/fulltext?rss=yes


[Comment] Aldosterone synthase inhibition in resistant hypertension: promises and unknowns

  Openen als pagina
Raised blood pressure remains the leading modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease and premature mortality worldwide, affecting an estimated 1·3 billion adults.1 Although most patients achieve adequate blood pressure control with two or three antihypertensive agents, up to 20% of cases remain uncontrolled, despite guideline-recommended combination therapy. After exclusion of pseudo-resistance, these patients are classified as having true resistant hypertension, a phenotype associated with elevated cardiovascular risk and a higher prevalence of secondary hypertension.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(26)00253-9/fulltext?rss=yes


[Comment] Why investing in women's health is a societal imperative

  Openen als pagina
Women spend 9 years of their lives in poor health, which is 25% more than men.1 For women, these years are not confined to the end of life, but centred earlier in life from menarche up to menopause.1 Over the past decade, substantial sex differences in disease presentation, progression, and treatment response have been recognised in conditions affecting both men and women, for example, in cardiovascular disease. In addition, there are disorders that occur exclusively in women and girls.2 These female-specific disorders are benign but burdensome conditions that affect the female reproductive organs or the hormonal systems regulating them.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(26)00404-6/fulltext?rss=yes


Newscientist.com






Phys.org


Ancient stone jars shows how tree cover shapes freshwater ecosystems over millennia

  Openen als pagina
Researchers at McGill University used 2,000-year-old stone jars in Laos to observe long-term ecological processes, enhancing understanding of how strongly tree cover shapes small freshwater ecosystems. Their findings stand to help scientists predict how freshwater habitats will respond to environmental change, the researchers said.

https://phys.org/news/2026-03-ancient-stone-jars-tree-freshwater.html


Why averages fail for bacteria in the open ocean

  Openen als pagina
How can bacteria that forage on organic particles survive in vast ocean regions where such particles are extremely sparse? A new study by researchers from ETH Zurich and Queen Mary University of London shows that variability at the level of individual bacteria plays a central role. Using a probabilistic population model linking mathematics and microbiology, the team demonstrates that rare, high-impact encounters sustain bacterial populations even when average conditions suggest decline. The paper is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

https://phys.org/news/2026-03-averages-bacteria-ocean.html



Distant past may expose companies to claims of hypocrisy

  Openen als pagina
Companies risk being criticized as hypocritical when their words and deeds don't match—even if those discrepancies are decades apart, Cornell-led research finds. In a series of studies involving nearly 5,000 participants, real and fictional organizations were deemed hypocritical for inconsistencies separated by more than a half-century—if, for example, they accepted a government bailout in 2008 after having opposed bailouts in the 1960s.

https://phys.org/news/2026-03-distant-expose-companies-hypocrisy.html


Sciencenews.org






Geesteswetenschappen

Aeon.co






Artnews.com






CreativeBoom.com






Neural.it






theguardian.com/education/humanities

Tim Winton among 100 high-profile Australians calling for university fees that don’t ‘punish’ arts students

  Openen als pagina

Open letter urges Labor to reverse JRG scheme, introduced by Coalition in 2021, as cost of humanities degrees reaches more than $50,000

Tim Winton knows what it’s like to be the first in a family to go to university – “what a breakthrough that is, the kind of opportunities it provides”.

It was at the Western Australian Institute of Technology, studying arts, that he wrote his first novel, An Open Swimmer, launching a four-decade writing career.

Continue reading...

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jul/28/open-letter-to-australian-government-university-fees-jrg-scheme


Large language models that power AI should be publicly owned | Letter

  Openen als pagina

The future of public knowledge rests on building open-access LLMs driven by ethics rather than profit, writes Prof Dr Matteo Valleriani

Large language models (LLMs) have rapidly entered the landscape of historical research. Their capacity to process, annotate and generate texts is transforming scholarly workflows. Yet historians are uniquely positioned to ask a deeper question – who owns the tools that shape our understanding of the past?

Most powerful LLMs today are developed by private companies. While their investments are significant, their goals – focused on profit, platform growth or intellectual property control – rarely align with the values of historical scholarship: transparency, reproducibility, accessibility and cultural diversity.

Continue reading...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/may/26/large-language-models-that-power-ai-should-be-publicly-owned


Humanities teaching will have to adapt to AI | Letter

  Openen als pagina

Jim Endersby recalls how maths teachers responded to the arrival of cheap pocket calculators in the 1970s and likens it to current fears of AI use by university students

I agree with Prof Andrew Moran and Dr Ben Wilkinson (Letters, 2 March) that cheap and easy‐to‐use AI tools create problems for universities, but the reactions of many academics to these new developments remind me of the way some people responded to the arrival of cheap pocket calculators in the 1970s.

Reports of the imminent death of maths teaching in schools proved exaggerated. Maths teachers had to adapt, not least to teach students the longstanding rule “garbage in, garbage out”; if students had no idea of the fundamental principles and ideas behind maths, they would not realise their answer was meaningless. Today’s humanities teachers are going to have to adapt in similar ways.

Continue reading...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/04/humanities-teaching-will-have-to-adapt-to-ai


The deep cultural cost of British university job cuts | Letters

  Openen als pagina

Arts and humanities are being hit hardest by cuts in higher education, write Prof Thea Pitman and Prof Emma Cayley, and Dr Ronan McLaverty-Head and another letter writer comment on cuts at Cardiff and another Russell Group university

In response to the shocking news predicting up to 10,000 imminent job losses across the UK higher education sector (Quarter of leading UK universities cutting staff due to budget shortfalls, 1 February), we write to flag up a fact that the article largely misses: the degree to which arts and humanities subjects are bearing the brunt of these cuts.

While the article singles out the loss of nursing courses at Cardiff University and the closure of chemistry courses across the country, it mentions the humanities just once in passing. Last week it was ancient history, modern languages, music, religion and theology at Cardiff University. Not so long ago, it was subjects including English, history, music and theatre at Goldsmiths, and art history, music, philosophy and religious studies at the University of Kent, to name just two. And with each passing week more arts and humanities courses and departments are cut.

Continue reading...

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/feb/05/the-deep-cultural-cost-of-british-university-job-cuts


The Guardian view on humanities in universities: closing English Literature courses signals a crisis

  Openen als pagina

With degrees disappearing and reading rates plummeting, the arts face a critical moment in education and culture

The announcement that Canterbury Christ Church University in Kent is to stop offering English literature degrees has set several hares running, most of them in the wrong direction. The university said in effect that hardly anyone wanted to study English literature at degree level any more and the course was therefore no longer viable. If you can’t do EngLit in the city of Chaucer and Marlowe, where can you do it?

Canterbury’s tale is a familiar one. EngLit is in wholesale retreat at A level, with numbers down from 83,000 in 2013 to 54,000 in 2023, and there has been a decline at university, too, over the past decade, though statistics are disputed because the subject gets studied at degree level in many guises, including creative writing and linguistics. Overall, humanities subjects seem to be losing their appeal, with only 38% of students taking a course in 2021/22, down from nearly 60% between 2003/4 and 2015/16.

Continue reading...

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/dec/05/the-guardian-view-on-humanities-in-universities-closing-english-literature-courses-signals-a-crisis