Science

Current Picks

How Funding Panels Weigh a Null Result Before the Outcome Is Known

By Alice Chen / Sep 18, 2026

A survey of grant panelists finds null results are rated less innovative than positive findings before any outcome is known, revealing a structural bias in research funding.

Catalysis Moves From Refinery to Polymer Bench

By Renu Shah / Sep 18, 2026

How refinery catalysts migrated to polymer benches, reshaping synthesis through olefin metathesis and Ziegler-Natta chemistry, with practical notes on ligands, supports, and scale-up.

Seafloor Pressure Sensors Trade Coverage for Resolution Against Satellite Altimetry

By Karim Osman / Sep 18, 2026

Seafloor pressure sensors measure local sea level with extraordinary precision but sparse coverage. Combining them with satellite altimetry improves models and forecasts.

Archived Code Decides Which Supernova Results Hold Up

By Jonas Eriksen / Sep 18, 2026

Archived code, not just data, decides whether supernova classifications survive scrutiny. A closer look at how smoothing choices and missing error bars reshape published results.

Rubin Observatory's LSST Camera Turns Every Night Into a Repeated Survey

By Alice Chen / Sep 18, 2026

Rubin Observatory's 3.2-gigapixel LSST Camera turns the southern sky into a ten-year time-lapse, letting astronomers measure motion, not just position.

Reproducibility Audits and Journal Sanctions Diverge on Retraction Reach

By Karim Osman / Sep 18, 2026

Reproducibility audits test claims; journal sanctions test conduct. The two tracks run on different clocks, different evidence, and produce different retraction reach.

Priming Studies Survive Contact Only Where Labs Logged Their Negatives

By Renu Shah / Sep 18, 2026

Priming effects diverge sharply under replication. Semantic priming holds up; social priming often does not. The deciding factor is whether null results got logged.

Liquid Electrolytes Outrun Solid Polymer Cells Above Room Temperature

By Karim Osman / Sep 18, 2026

A focused explainer on why liquid electrolytes outperform solid polymer cells above room temperature, what the conductivity data show, and what the comparison leaves out.

Kahneman and Tversky Asked 100 Subjects About a Disease

By Jonas Eriksen / Sep 18, 2026

How Kahneman and Tversky's 1981 Asian disease problem revealed framing effects, why identical outcomes produced opposite choices, and what replications show.

Fluid Dynamicists Carry a Turbulence Model Into Galaxy Formation

By Alice Chen / Sep 18, 2026

How fluid dynamicists' k-epsilon turbulence closures migrated into galaxy formation simulations, what procedural choices make them work, and where the analogy breaks down.

Grant Review Panels Score Methods Sections Before Results Sections

By Karim Osman / Sep 18, 2026

Grant panels often score methods sections before reading results. This methodology breakdown explains how review order shapes funding decisions and how to audit it.

Lab Priming Talks Stall When Raters Guess the Hypothesis

By Renu Shah / Sep 18, 2026

Priming talks often rely on human raters who infer the hypothesis from video clips. That inference inflates effects and stalls replication. Here is the procedural fix.

Replication Studies Stall Where Grant Cycles End

By Karim Osman / Sep 18, 2026

Why replication attempts in psychology and behavioural economics stall at the grant cycle, and what shared pools, standing funds and null-result journals could change.

Counting What a Catalyst Costs Before Counting What It Makes

By Jonas Eriksen / Sep 18, 2026

Catalysis papers report activity, not the infrastructure and synthesis costs behind it. A research-economics look at what the literature leaves out and how to read it.

Spectrograph Throughput Sets the Cost of a Survey Night

By Renu Shah / Sep 18, 2026

How spectrograph throughput drives the real cost of a survey night, why funding favors new instruments over operations, and what survey teams can audit before proposing.

Cold Atoms Settle a Quasiparticle Mass Debate in Two Labs

By Jonas Eriksen / Sep 18, 2026

Two cold-atom experiments measured quasiparticle effective mass and disagreed by roughly 30 percent. Here is what shaped the verdict, and how to read such claims.

Python Scripts Move Into Economics Departments and Rewrite What Counts as a Result

By Karim Osman / Sep 18, 2026

Python has become standard in applied economics, turning code into evidence and forcing departments to budget for reproducibility they never planned to fund.

The Redshift Drift Test Measures Expansion Without Assuming a Model

By Renu Shah / Sep 18, 2026

Redshift drift measures cosmic expansion directly, without assuming a dark energy model. Here is how the test works, what today's instruments can do, and what it cannot yet settle.

Ocean Cores Rewrite the Timing of the Last Ice Retreat

By Alice Chen / Sep 18, 2026

Deep-sea sediment cores and oxygen isotopes in foraminifera shells have reshaped the chronology of the last ice retreat, and with it the craft of dating ancient climate.

Two Pipette Calibrations Decide Whether a Grid Cell Finding Replicates

By Renu Shah / Sep 18, 2026

Grid cell findings often fail to replicate. The culprit may be pipette calibration drift, a mundane variable that shifts spike timing and goes unlogged in methods sections.