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What Happens When Microplastics Meet Water? Scientists Uncovered a Potential Source of Cell-Damaging Molecules
Researchers tested six common plastics and found that the materials used in grocery bags and yogurt cups were among the most chemically active.
The mystery surrounding death of Botticelli's muse solved by science after more than five centuries
Simonetta Vespucci, the legendary model of the 15th-century Florentine artist, did not die of tuberculosis, as historians had believed. By studying the painter's works, scientists have reached a new conclusion regarding the cause of her death at age 23.
The Great Barrier Reef's most notorious coral killer may actually be helping it
Crown-of-thorns starfish are notorious for devouring coral reefs, but surprising new research reveals these spiny predators may actually help reefs thrive when their populations are kept in check. Scientists studying Australia's Great Barrier Reef discovered that nearly 75% of observed starfish feeding events left behind living coral tissue, rather than destroying entire colonies. By feeding on fast-growing, dominant corals, the starfish create opportunities for slower-growing species to survive, potentially increasing coral biodiversity.
Ancient ape fossil in Egypt could rewrite the story of human origins
A 17- to 18-million-year-old ape fossil discovered in Egypt is challenging long-held beliefs about where the ancestors of humans and other modern apes first evolved. Scientists now suspect that North Africa and the Middle East, rather than East Africa, may have been the cradle of modern ape evolution.
Scientists use sound waves to deliver a new attack on deadly brain cancer
Scientists at the University of Virginia have developed a promising new strategy to fight glioblastoma, one of the deadliest and most difficult-to-treat forms of brain cancer. Their experimental approach combines focused ultrasound, tiny nanoparticles, and genetic molecules called microRNAs to attack multiple cancer-driving genes simultaneously.
Scientists say a forgotten particle may explain why the universe exists
A mysterious particle overlooked for decades may hold the key to why matter survived the Big Bang, allowing stars, planets, and life to exist. Scientists believe this forgotten neutrino reshaped the early universe and may have left detectable gravitational wave signals that could help unlock the cosmos’s deepest mysteries.
Scientists Discover How Dead Stars Could Break One of Physics’ Most Famous Limits
New simulations suggest that powerful internal magnetic fields could allow some white dwarfs to grow far beyond a long-established stellar mass limit. New research suggests that some white dwarfs, the incredibly dense remnants of dead stars, could grow far heavier than a fundamental limit in astrophysics predicts. Computer simulations show that powerful internal magnetic fields
Nancy Guthrie task force meets with Florida DNA scientists as case nears 9-month mark
Authorities continue to investigate the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie as members of the task force travel to Florida to push forward DNA analysis.
If It Feels Like Someone Is Watching You When You’re Alone, Scientists Say This Might Be Why
A new study suggests adults who had imaginary friends as children may be more likely to sense an invisible presence nearby.
Nancy Guthrie task force meets with Florida DNA scientists as case nears 9-month mark
Guthrie, 84, the mother of “TODAY” co-host Savannah Guthrie, went missing from her Tucson, Arizona in February.
Scientists Discovered a 237-Million-Year-Old Sea Monster, and It’s Changing What We Know About Amphibians
This armored amphibian lived in the ocean 237 million years ago, challenging what scientists thought possible for its kind.
NANCY GUTHRIE | After 9 months, investigators turn to Florida scientists for new DNA leads
Arizona investigators working on the Nancy Guthrie case are continuing DNA testing with laboratory partners, according to authorities.
NANCY GUTHRIE | After 9 months, investigators turn to Florida scientists for new DNA leads
Arizona investigators working on the Nancy Guthrie case are continuing DNA testing with laboratory partners, according to authorities.
Chinese archaeologists prepare for hi-tech excavations with AI and deep-sea robots
Scientists will be tasked with deploying big data tech and underwater drones to unearth centuries of lost history under 15th five-year plan.
Scientists finally discover how a common gut bacterium can trigger colon cancer
Scientists at Johns Hopkins have uncovered a crucial missing link between a common gut bacterium and colorectal cancer, solving a mystery that has puzzled researchers for nearly two decades. The bacterium, Bacteroides fragilis, produces a toxin that damages the colon’s protective lining, triggers chronic inflammation, and promotes tumor formation.
A mysterious 4,000-year-old wall is rewriting North Africa’s history
A remarkable 4,000-year-old defensive structure discovered in Morocco is rewriting what scientists thought they knew about ancient North African civilizations. The massive fortifications reveal unexpectedly sophisticated prehistoric societies and suggest that the region played a much greater role in Mediterranean history than previously recognized.
Scientists Confirm "Spiders Do Sleep" For The First Time, Ancient Egypt’s First Female King Finally Recognized, And Much More This Week
All the biggest science news stories of the week.
Scientists discover metals that defy the deep freeze at -424°F
Scientists have discovered a surprising mechanism that allows certain metals to resist cracking at temperatures as low as -253°C (-424°F), when similar materials typically become dangerously brittle. Instead of breaking, two experimental alloys reorganize their internal structures, creating new ways to absorb stress and remain flexible.
While mud-coring in Baffin Bay, scientists accidentally found the marks of a mile-thick ice shelf that blocked three massive ice sheets
A 2023 mud coring excursion mapped seafloor marks of an ice shelf up to 1.3 miles thick that filled Baffin Bay about 20,000 years ago.
From gold rush to cosmic questions: a South Dakota mine and the search for the secrets of the universe
A mile beneath the Black Hills, scientists are building giant detectors to analyse neutrino particles – and possibly find the answer to existence
Florida education chief defends science plan
Education Commissioner Henry Mack pushed back Tuesday against criticism that Florida is de-emphasizing evolution in its new plan for teaching science, insisting the state is still covering a subject he agreed was a bedrock of biological science.“Evolutionary biology and the theory of evolution is in the standards,” Mack said. But several parents and teachers who attended an evening forum on the state’s proposed science standards criticized the proposal by the Florida Department of Education, which Mack runs, specifically the handling of evolutionary science.Joshua Garrett, a teacher in Orange County Public Schools, said the state’s proposed standards “danced around” evolution.State standards are benchmarks for what students should learn in their classes kindergarten through 12th grade, guiding what lessons are taught, what subjects are in state-approved textbooks and what concepts are tested on state exams.Florida’s current science standards call evolution a “big idea” and “the fundamental concept underlying all of biology.”The proposed ones barely mention evolution — a scientific theory explaining change in living species over time from natural selection that has been a cornerstone of biology for more than a century. The term “evolution,” in fact, is never defined in the new high school life sciences standards, though the concepts are sprinkled across several units.The education department has made revisions to its proposal, officials said, but it was not immediately clear at the Tuesday forum, held at Lake Buena Vista High School in southwest Orange County, what those changes were.Mack interjected during Garrett’s comments asking him where specifically he wanted the state to mention evolution more prominently. Then he said, “Consider it done.”Mack also asked Garrett to join the state’s faculty committee on the standards.The state released the new standards in September, and several experts quickly criticized them, saying they lacked depth and skirted around both evolution and climate change, important topics for Florida students to learn.The state has since hosted a “listening tour,” including a virtual forum and two other in-person meetings in Walton and Hillsborough counties. Tuesday’s meeting drew a small crowd of about 30 people, six of whom spoke.Mack described the state’s public forums as a chance for “myth busting” and to make clear Florida’s position.He wants to students to learn “above ideology,” he said, and added that evolution isn’t settled science. TNCMS.AdManager.render({region: 'fixed-big-ad-middle-asset', slot: 1, fold: "span"}); “I want to cultivate skeptics in the healthy sense of that term. As a result of these standards, students should not be walking away convinced of anything other than the rigor of the scientific method,” Mack said.The new standards would replace the current set, adopted after a monthslong, statewide fight over the inclusion of evolution as a required subject of study. Those who opposed the 2008 standards argued creationism, or the biblical story that God created all living things, should be taught alongside evolution.Thomas Simon, a Winter Park parent, compared Florida adopting the new standards to Nazi Germany ignoring the findings of Jewish scientists — which in part lost them World War II.“If this board could explicitly name communism in the history standards last year — because words matter — you must explicitly name the foundations of modern medicine, agriculture, and energy,” Simon said.Florida last year adopted new standards that require students learn about the “dangers and evil of communism.”Teri O’Connor, an elementary science teacher in Orange County, urged Mack to curtail the total number of standards, as they list more than 1,000 benchmarks teachers are to cover during their classes.“It’s only 180 days of school. That right there is an issue, especially if you want to dive in. If we need to teach the rigor of it and to critically think about each one, that’s difficult,” she said.Kathleen Murray, who spoke on behalf of the conservative political group Citizens Defending Freedom, said she was in “strong support” of the proposed standards. Science should teach children how to think, not what to think, she said.“When teaching the origins of life and the universe, the curriculum owes it to the Florida students to be honest about the limits of what scientific models can actually prove,” Murray said.State education officials said they’d received about 1,800 comments on the benchmarks, and they have updated them based on that criticism.With Tuesday the state’s final scheduled public forum, Mack said his biggest takeaway was that the standards needed to be more explicit about teaching students how to evaluate scientific studies and evidence and how to understand the scientific method.“We might have to do a better job of helping students question more as a result of these standards,” he said.In his original statement when the standards were announced in September, Mack wrote in a social media post that “science begins in wonder, not in ideology,” and “the classical tradition taught that nature is intelligible because it is ordered — that the book of creation can be read by reason.”Some read that to mean he was trying to interject religion into public school education. 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Why daylight saving time should be eliminated entirely
Here is why sleep experts, doctors and scientists endorse ending Daylight Saving Time
Scientists think our recent ancestors may have run hotter -- but why?
150 years ago, average human body temperatures appear to have been higher than now. Scientists are still exploring exactly why.
Are Memories Transferable? Meet the Scientists Replicating an Infamous Study to Find Out
In the 1960’s, an odd experiment showed planarian worms could transfer memories by consuming each other. It was a sensational finding—that is until the worms stopped learning.
White Dwarfs Aren’t Just White. Scientists Discover Dying Stars Turning Pink and Green
Astronomers find that a white dwarf’s density and the kind of material it absorbed from its surroundings can produce a rainbow of shades in the star’s atmosphere.
Scientists Have Built a Robot Dog Powered by Human Brain Cells
Neurons could beat AI for robot control.
Scientists develop new system to boost prime editing in dicot plants
A new gene-editing system could make it easier for researchers to introduce precise genetic changes into crops such as tomatoes, soybeans and rapeseed. Developed by researchers in China, SmartPE improves ...
Why do scientists study toast crumbs, itching and head-banging? A new analysis identifies seven ways research gets funny
An analysis of 269 humorous scientific papers found that 48.3% applied rigorous methods to everyday subjects, while researchers identified six other recurring humor strategies.
For many, striped bass fishing is a way of life. But the iconic species could face collapse
Scientists who study striped bass say anglers on the East Coast are right to be concerned, and they say years of overfishing are just part of the problem.
A surprising vitamin A discovery is changing what scientists know about vision
Scientists at Johns Hopkins University have uncovered a surprising process that helps humans develop sharp vision before birth, challenging decades of assumptions about how the eye forms. Using miniature human retinas grown in the lab, researchers discovered that a vitamin A derivative and thyroid hormones work together to shape the foveola, the tiny region at the center of the retina responsible for our sharpest vision.
Scientists seek to rescue endangered plant found only in Santa Clara Valley
Microplastics are showing up in 2 breakfast favorites — and scientists aren't exactly sure why
Why Do People Feel the Presence of 'Ghosts'? Scientists Are Starting to Understand
New research reveals how spirituality and psychology shape our encounters with unseen presences.
Scientists May Have Found a Lost Roman City—and It Could Solve an Ancient Mystery
Ptolemy’s coordinates point to Claudivium. But why did its people walk away from a thriving city?
CDC scientists sought urgent alert on measles in pregnancy. It wasn’t approved.
The report could fill major gaps about a condition doctors have rarely seen for decades.
CDC scientists sought urgent alert on measles in pregnancy. It wasn’t approved.
The report could fill major gaps about a condition doctors have rarely seen for decades.
Neuroscientists reveal method to train people to have lucid dreams — and it involves virtual reality and mediation
People who had no recollection of a lucid dream over the past three years developed the skill after one month of performing a novel training regimen twice a week, neuroscientists report.
You Can See Everything That Billy Evans Watched on 2x Speed
What was Elizabeth Holmes’s partner watching in the new Nathan Fielder documentary? We found the videos (and the scientists in them).
UMaine scientists analyze 4-billion-year-old Martian meteorite
It turns out that the meteorite, called Teghaza 001, is more than 4 billion years old.
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune will probably destroy each other after the sun runs out of fuel, new simulations hint
The outer solar system will descend into chaos just a few billion years after the sun exhausts its fuel — much sooner than scientists previously thought, a new study suggests.
Why human scientists, not AI, still control the fate of biosecurity
AI models have written the genome of a working virus for the first time, though the ones that came alive attack only harmless lab bacteria
Scientists Are Helping Blind People See Again by Turning Other Eye Cells Into Light Sensors
Nobel-winning science is helping people see again, and it started with algae.
Science Begins With Wonder and Sometimes With a Salamander.
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by the Don & Beth Straus Center at Birch Bay Village. BAR HARBOR—The children had come to see the axolotls, those odd little salamanders with pink frills around their heads and the remarkable ability to grow back what they lose. But also there were stickers. There were crafts. There was the kind of excitement that makes a roomful of kindergarteners forget, for a little while, that sitting still is ever a requirement. And then there were the animals themselves, alive in their clear cases at the MDI Biological Laboratory, where 12 children from Pemetic Elementary School got to meet the creatures they had been learning about in class. “Do you love them?” their teacher, Carol Null, asked. The answer came back in a chorus. “I do!” “I do!” “I do too,” Null said, smiling. “I love them even more now.” That was the thing about a day at the lab. Science was no longer a picture in a book, or a word on a classroom wall. It had a face, a tail, and a set of extraordinary powers. And for a child, sometimes that is where wonder begins. Sometimes learning about science is about stickers. Sometimes it’s about bright pink feathers and getting super excited about that glow in the dark. Sometimes learning about science is joy—pure and simple joy. That’s how it was October 28 at the MDI Bio Lab as Miss Hannah (known in the lab as Dr. Hannah Lust, director of STEM, undergraduate and graduate Training), other scientists, graduate students, and MDI Bio Lab staff, hosted 12 students from Carol Null’s Pemetic Elementary School’s kindergarten class. The 2.5-hour program created by Dr. Lust focused on axolotls, a species of mole salamanders, a superhero in the animal world: a superhero with some scientific-study worthy superpowers. One of those superpowers come from the axolotls’ ability to regenerate body parts, including entire limbs. But also, they’re cute. This fall, before coming to the internationally renowned lab nestled in Salsbury Cove, Null has been integrating axolotls into her class. They’ve been part of the kids’ vocabulary and their storytelling. They’ve been part of science. They’ve been part of the children’s learning about facts vs opinions. The Pemetic Elementary kindergarten students learn about invasive species and the impact on the ecology and one student related it to their dad, who lobsters, and his worries about green craps, an invasive species in Maine. “Are they bigger or smaller than you thought they’d be?” the children are asked after the scientists show them multiple see-through cases of axolotls, lined up on a table that they’re told not to jiggle. “Bigger!” “I think they’re bigger.” “Smaller!” The bio lab opening its doors to the collaborations and to students and families is a norm, but this is the first program of this kind. It’s meant to encourage kindergarten students about axolotls. But when the students come to the bio lab something else happens too—something beyond Null’s child-focused teaching—the students see science—and the regenerating creatures in real life. They do crafts. They speak with them. They meet people who know all about them: scientists and educators who talk to the kids like they’re equals. That’s a superhero power, too. Null speaks about meeting the kids where they’re at in her classroom, letting their interest and hearts lead her in their learning. That requires recognition of interests, of individuality, of empathy. Some would argue that’s a super power, too, but it’s also in those 12 students as they listen to the storybook, encounter those live axolotls, and hear about how axolotls might help advance society’s understanding of human health. As Eddie Seckeler (comparative animal models, CORE facility manager), carefully puts the axolotls on a cart and rolls them away, some of the children stop what they’re doing to watch. “Bye axolotls.” “Bye!” “Bye!” The axolotls are not just images in a book, Hello, I’m an axolotl by Hayley and John Rocco; they are real and cool. MDI Biological Laboratory scientists Dr. Prayag Murawala and Dr. James Godwin who both feature in the Roccos’ book. The kindergarteners get to meet them in real life, off the page, in the world, doing science. They learn from them, laugh with them. “The visit is about more than meeting an unusual animal. By introducing children to scientists working in their own community, the experience helps make science tangible and accessible. Students can see that science is not just something they read about in books or learn about at school. It is something real people do every day by asking questions, making observations and working to understand how the world works,” explains MDI Biological Laboratory Director of Communications Rebecca Woods. While the students make axolotl-related crafts around tables, graduate students and staff help out. Ryan holds up his construction paper setting and axolotl to show Omar Maged, a graduate student. “Do you like it?” Ryan asks, eyes wide, turning from his axolotl to look up at Omar. Omar studies the construction paper for a moment, smiles and says definitively, each word important. “It is beautiful.” Null says that she’s so thankful for all the “amazing” community partners that her school and her students get to interact with as they learn and grow and live, but emphasized how the MDI Bio Lab goes out of its way to create something meaningful, something that allows her young students to build their own agency, to know that they can be impactful in their community, to show them how how things they learn about in text is connected to themselves and their community. Woods explains, “Axolotls have an extraordinary ability to regenerate, or regrow, certain body parts, including limbs. Scientists study these animals to understand how regeneration works and what their biology might teach us about tissue repair and healing in humans.” The children enter the space for “a memorable introduction to a big scientific question,” Woods said. “How can some animals regrow body parts? The encounter encourages children to look closely, wonder about what they see and begin to understand how scientists use observations and experiments to investigate questions.” “For the students, the visit is an opportunity to explore a fascinating animal and meet scientists in their own community,” Woods explains. “For MDI Biological Laboratory, it is a chance to share the excitement of research, nurture curiosity, and help young learners discover that science begins with asking questions.“ At the beginning of the school year, Pemetic kindergarteners didn’t know what the axolotl was—at least not exactly—now they know all about the axolotl’s life cycle. “It’s different than a butterfly,” one student told Mrs. Null. It is. The change and knowledge might seem small**,** but it offers a glimpse of what happens when a subject moves beyond the pages of a book and into a child’s world. The children have been learning about butterflies at the Charlotte Rhoades Park and Butterfly Garden. At both the garden and the MDI Bio Lab, the children see the animals, meet the scientists who study them and at the lab encounter a question that researchers are still working to answer: how can some creatures regenerate body parts, and what might that teach us about healing in humans? They leave with gift bags, paper-plate salamanders, new things to wonder about and a connection between the science they learn in school and the work happening in their own community. The axolotls may be remarkable for their ability to grow back what they have lost. For these young students, the day offers something different: a chance to discover how much there is to ask, observe, and imagine. When Null’s students had time to use chalk and draw whatever they want, in the beginning of the year, they drew rainbows. Now? They’re using that chalk and choosing to draw axolotls instead. About MDI Bio Laboratory For more than 125 years, MDI Bio Lab has been a center for training and research in comparative biology. In the last two decades its biomedical research has focused on aging, regeneration, and environmental toxins. The Laboratory houses 11 research groups staffed by an international team of world-class scientists and graduate students. It also leads a statewide network of colleges, universities and research institutions that collaborate to provide training, research experiences and financial support to help young Mainers play a bigger role in today’s biomedical revolution. Located on Maine’s rugged coast, the Laboratory’s 100+ acre campus houses research facilities, cottages and dorms that house visiting scientists and students. It is also home to MDI Bioscience, a subsidiary working to design innovative techniques to speed the drug discovery process. The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Rick Osann Art. LINKS TO LEARN MORE NIH INBRE MDI BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY Pemetic Elementary School Hello, I’m an Axolotl Photos: Carrie Jones/Bar Harbor Story HELP SUPPORT THE BAR HARBOR STORY When we started The Bar Harbor Story, we didn’t know if anyone would read it. But you showed up. You shared. You sent tips. Now—over 400,000 views every month later—it’s clear: people here care about their community and each other. We’ve kept everything free because news should never be out of reach, but every one of our stories takes time to write, and your support keeps The Bar Harbor Story going. If you value our work, please consider a paid subscription, a founding membership, or a sponsorship. It truly helps us cover one more meeting, tell one more story, shine one more light. Even $5 a month makes a difference. Click here to become a one-time supporter now. Thank you so much for being here. Founding member information can be found here. Have questions about sponsorships? Just send Shaun an email at sfarrar86@gmail.com, he’d love to hear from you. Subscribe Share Bar Harbor Story Share Leave a comment
Scientists Just Found Where the Quantum World and Our World Meet: Free Fall
Tom Petty’s famous song applies to all of us, because of Einstein’s equivalence principle of gravity in free fall.
Scientists Just Found Where the Quantum World and Our World Meet: Free Fall
Tom Petty’s famous song applies to all of us, because of Einstein’s equivalence principle of gravity in free fall.
Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences just closed – a blow for budding young scientists like me
Generations of young Philadelphians experienced science firsthand by wandering through Dinosaur Hall, examining dozens of wildlife dioramas or visiting the butterfly garden.
UTA advances science of hypersonic flight
Laser-based technique could improve how scientists measure extreme airflow around spacecraft
Scientists Crack Solar Panels' 33% Efficiency Ceiling
Researchers in Spain increased theoretical efficiency by harnessing extra light reflected from solar cells after it has been absorbed.
Exclusive | Asian scientists are looking to South Korea as it becomes harder to stay in the US
Seoul university says it’s luring researchers in energy, quantum materials and biomedicine while still working with US and Chinese partners.
Could AI ever build itself? Scientists map the road to the 'last AI built by humans.'
Researchers hope recursive self-improvement could tackle the skyrocketing costs of developing advanced AI models. But is it viable?
How a Secret Vote by U.N. Scientists Legitimized Carbon Capture and Skewed Decades of Climate Policy
A U.N. report concluded carbon capture could offset fossil fuels’ effect on climate change. Two decades later, the process has failed to meaningfully scale up, and it’s proving hard to take the promises back.
Winners and gender gap problems of the 2026 science Nobel Prizes
Password is Euronews Tech Talks’ new monthly series unpacking tech and health tech news from Europe and the world. In this first episode, we discover who the scientists awarded Nobel Prizes are, and whether the award has a gender gap issue.
‘The potential to destroy:’ Invasive pest sparks action from Florida scientists
University of Florida researchers have secured $200,000 in federal funding to investigate how an emerging threat could possibly be managed.
700 GB in 15 seconds: Smart system helps scientists keep pace with atom-scale microscope
Researchers run an advanced electron microscope in plain English, from tomography to ptychography, with data processed in seconds.
Year-Round Daylight Saving or Standard Time? Science Says 1 Is the Best Option
Congress is considering moving America to permanent daylight saving time. Scientists say they should do this instead.
New AI tool helps scientists identify bacteria hidden in soil
A handful of soil holds a crowded world of bacteria, fungi and other organisms. Scientists can collect their DNA, but much of it remains difficult to identify. Now, researchers at the Hebrew University ...
Collaboration is not optional – and conservation science shows why
Today’s research challenges are too complex to be solved in isolation. Conservation science offers lessons for academics everywhere about how to build collaborations that genuinely work
Scientists May Have Found a 7th Type of Depression
A new study suggests that disrupted sleep and daily rhythms may help drive depression in some people, raising questions about whether treatments targeting the body's internal clock could help.
Scientists reveal a hidden snakebite crisis killing up to 513,000 people a year
A startling new study suggests that venomous snakebites are killing far more people worldwide than official statistics indicate, with an estimated 274,000 to 513,000 deaths every year. Researchers found that as many as 7 million people could suffer snake envenoming annually, while more than 800,000 survivors are left with long-term disabilities.
Putting a face to the name: the scientist namesakes of Hopkins Buildings
While Remsen Hall celebrates its new landmark status, take the time to consider other scientists who served as namesakes of some familiar sights at Hopkins.
Chinese scientists dissatisfied with jobs but optimistic about future: survey
Despite their frustrations, Chinese scholars were confident about having more successful careers than counterparts in the US and Britain.
CU Denver Researchers Among the Top 2% of Highly Cited Scientists in the World
The impact of CU Denver research is reflected in the 2026 Highly Cited Research lists, published in October by Stanford University and Elsevier.
Humans accidentally canceled the next ice age — but it's no reason to celebrate, scientists say
A shrinking ice cap in Arctic Canada tells a striking story of how humans may have halted the planet's next ice age by burning fossil fuels, according to new research.
What killed 500-plus penguins? How scientists solved the mystery
The penguins that perished lived on the Danger Islands in Antarctica. The prime suspect was avian flu. Researchers were surprised by what they found.
What killed 500-plus penguins? How scientists solved the mystery
The penguins that perished lived on the Danger Islands in Antarctica. The prime suspect was avian flu. Researchers were surprised by what they found.
The Cruisers Mapping Coral Reefs for Science
Tom Puchner and Sonja Napetschnig built the Coral Sailors Initiative to turn cruising snorkelers into reef scientists. The post The Cruisers Mapping Coral Reefs for Science appeared first on Cruising World.
Commentary: Science shapes Michigan policy. Voters deserve to know candidates’ views.
Policy decisions do not happen in isolation, nor are they confined to Capitol Hill or Lansing. Decisions made across all levels of government directly affect Michiganders’ health and livelihoods. From monitoring our food supply to protecting drinking water, scientists help governments identify risks, evaluate possible responses, and decide what actions to take. Recent events in […]
Remembering Gerry Fischbach, ‘orchestra conductor’ who brought scientists together
Fischbach, who died 25 October, elucidated the dynamic changes in neuromuscular junctions. Beyond the lab, he shaped careers, academic departments and scientific societies.
Humans accidentally canceled the next ice age — but it’s no reason to celebrate, scientists say
A shrinking ice cap in Arctic Canada tells a striking story of how burning fossil fuels may have stopped an ice age in its infancy, new research finds
Spring homeowner’s meteorite to go on display at Houston Museum of Natural Science
A meteorite crashed through Sherrie James’ roof in Spring, Texas, on March 21, landing near her daughter and causing a pressure wave that scientists estimated equaled about 26 tons of TNT. That space rock will now be on display at the Houston Museum of Natural Science on Nov. 6.
Spinal cord injury reshapes gut microbes that influence whole-body health
Scientists exploring the links between a spinal cord injury, inflammation and immune function have turned their attention to a genome-level analysis of the gut microbial community, with early study results offering hints at potential new approaches to aid healing. In mice, refeeding a strain of bacteria that was depleted after spinal cord injury...
FSU Discovery Days: Arts-Humanities-Health Symposium fosters interdisciplinary collaboration
Florida State University artists, scientists and therapists united at the Arts-Humanities-Health Symposium during Discovery Days to explore how the arts
HHS green lights six peptides, despite concerns from FDA scientists
Great news for peptide fans: The Trump administration is giving the peptide craze a regulatory boost, despite objections from FDA career scientists.
Scientists Discovered Shape-Shifting DNA That Birthed Some of the Smartest Creatures in the World
Over evolutionary time, segments of cephalopod DNA were rearranged over and over into something highly adaptable and highly intelligent.
Scientists Discovered Shape-Shifting DNA That Birthed Some of the Smartest Creatures in the World
Over evolutionary time, segments of cephalopod DNA were rearranged over and over into something highly adaptable and highly intelligent.
UMD faculty recognized among the world’s leading scientists and scholars
UMass Dartmouth faculty have been named to the 2026 Top 2% Scientists and Highly Ranked Scholars lists, including several ranked in the top ten of their subspecialties
NASA discovers Jupiter’s invisible shield is more complex than Earth’s
NASA’s Juno spacecraft has discovered that Jupiter uses a surprisingly complex system of powerful plasma waves and multiple shock regions to defend against the solar wind. The findings reveal major differences between Jupiter and Earth and could help scientists understand the enormous shock waves produced by exploding stars.
A single brain signal may explain schizophrenia's most puzzling symptoms
Scientists have identified a weakened brain signal that may connect several seemingly unrelated symptoms of schizophrenia, including sensory processing difficulties, disorganized speech, and greater symptom severity. The surprising discovery could help explain the disorder's underlying mechanisms and potentially lead to earlier detection and new treatments.
Einstein's equations may explain the universe without dark energy
Mathematicians have uncovered what they argue is a fundamental flaw in the standard model of the universe, potentially challenging the need for dark energy. Their calculations suggest that the mathematical framework used to describe cosmic expansion is inherently unstable and that the universe could accelerate naturally under Einstein's original theory of gravity. The findings also raise surprising questions about whether our location in the universe is as ordinary as scientists have long assumed.
Scientists can now rewire living brains
The tool could eventually lead to an entirely new approach for treating mental health
“Some UFOs can disappear without a trace.” Why scientists still struggle to explain certain reports
Some UFOs seem to vanish so abruptly that the footage looks almost impossible. The real mystery is determining if the object disappeared—or if our ability to see it did.
Scientists may have found new dwarf planet
Rubin Observatory has spotted a distant world beyond Pluto as its decade-long survey begins revealing the hidden solar system.
Scientists Ran 100,000 Simulations of Comets Striking Earth. The Results Are a Surprise.
“A one-in-a-million occurrence.”
Research report: The prince and the scientists
A commentary in EMBO Reports argues that scientific leadership is a distinct, neglected skill and that institutions should be managed as ecosystems built on trust.
New simulation of the universe shows the first 2 billion years after the Big Bang play out in stunning detail
A new program aims to help scientists figure out how the ingredients of the universe formed early galaxies, which lit up the cosmos after a "dark age."
A golden age of science is coming
It’s almost hard to remember, but just a few years ago, a lot of very smart people thought that science was in terminal decline. Respected researchers were writing papers with titles like “Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?”, “Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time”, and “Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science”. In 1996, science writer John Horgan even published a book called The End Of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age. The fundamental idea was that the Universe only has so many insights to discover, and that we’ve picked the low-hanging fruit. It was the idea that Joseph-Louis Lagrange expressed when he said that “we cannot find more than once a system of the world to establish.” As the big ideas and the simple ideas get mined out, we’re forced to throw ever more brains at the mysteries of nature just to keep scientific progress going at a fraction of its old pace: It looked like science was hitting a wall. Then along came AI. It’s far too early to tell how much AI will eventually speed up the growth of total factor productivity. But already we can see signs of a speedup in science. Anthropic Founder Jack Clark assembled some of the hopeful data points in a recent lecture: [ Dror Poleg@drorpoleg "If you pick different parts of science, you see the same pattern show up: Progress is accelerating, and it has started to accelerate in the last two years." Jack Clark @jackclarkSF I’m speaking at the IMF in an hour about the singularity and why I believe it has begun and the choices we'll need to make. Watch live here: https://t.co/Hj9HzcXx5h 6:08 PM · Oct 18, 2026 · 21.2K Views 2 Replies · 10 Reposts · 123 Likes ](https://x.com/drorpoleg/status/2111882070376980529) Anthropic is accelerating its investment into drug discovery, and is already announcing some impressive preliminary results: [ BioTender@Junioryu136689 BREAKING: Anthropic unveils early results from six Claude-powered drug development collaborations. • 70% shorter CAR-T signaling domain • ~35,000 antibody designs • >10× tighter antibody binding • 89% less batch-record review time Still largely preclinical. Anthropic @AnthropicAI Over the past few months, Anthropic scientists have engaged in deep research partnerships with six organizations developing new medicines. We've also begun drug discovery efforts of our own. In doing so, we’ve learned much more about how Claude can support the many stages of 9:43 PM · Oct 27, 2026 · 11.2K Views 3 Replies · 24 Reposts · 205 Likes ](https://x.com/Junioryu136689/status/2115197821150495150) Claude also appears to be enabling rapid progress toward a treatment for food allergies. OpenAI, meanwhile, announced a possible breakthrough treatment for neurodegenerative disease. Meanwhile, Google Cloud Chief Scientist Pushmeet Kohli has a list of recent scientific advances that have been enabled by its new Gemini model, including breakthroughs in nuclear fusion reactor design, rare disease research, and quantum computing: [ Pushmeet Kohli@pushmeet Gemini 4 Argon is a step change in model performance. In recent weeks, it has had a transformative impact on the Science projects in our team at @GoogleDeepMind and our external collaborators, and helped make a number of remarkable advances across scientific disciplines. 🧵👇 4:47 PM · Oct 13, 2026 · 36.5K Views 8 Replies · 41 Reposts · 497 Likes ](https://x.com/pushmeet/status/2110049807385702623) But as cool as these stories sound, they’re just very minor, preliminary efforts. There are a number of reasons to think that AI is going to propel us into a golden age of scientific discovery. That age might not last forever — AI might still run into diminishing returns eventually. But the next few decades are probably going to be an absolutely amazing time for human science. The number of “effective researchers” is no longer limited The most important input into science is scientists themselves. Until this year, that meant human brains — talented, highly trained human brains. The number of trained human brains could be increased by sending more people to grad school, but only to a point — the smartest people tend to be sent into the hardest research fields first, and if you 10x the number of researchers, the average quality will go down. This constraint was already starting to bite, as Ekerdt and Wu argued in 2024: We argue that a substantial portion of the downward historical trend in U.S. research productivity is a composition effect resulting from self-selection in researcher ability and the dramatic expansion of the research sector…[W]e find that this composition effect has lowered average researcher ability by between 37% and 53%[.] And of course, low fertility was making the problem worse, because fewer children meant fewer people who were able to become future scientists. AI just blows up this constraint completely. If an AI agent can function as an autonomous researcher, there’s no constraint on the number of researchers in the world — you can just build more of them, by building more computer chips and data centers that enable the running of more AI agents. Whether or not massive hordes of agents can collaborate to solve individual problems much faster, increasing the number of agents allows them to tackle many different research questions in parallel. What’s more, these AI “researchers” can be trained incredibly quickly compared to human beings. A human scientist takes decades to train, and more years to reach the frontier of their research field by diligent reading and conversation. This is the “burden of knowledge”, and it’s commonly believed to be one reason ideas have been getting harder to find — by the time human scientists can get up to speed, they’re often so old that their ideas are no longer novel. AI just annihilates this constraint — it can assimilate the entire literature and reach the frontier of research extremely quickly, and it can also tell human scientists where the frontier lies without forcing them to discover that for themselves. It can also pivot to new research directions more easily than humans can. And there’s also a self-reinforcing economic cycle here. Because scientific advances enable higher GDP, they enable more resources to be invested into the creation of yet more electronic “scientists”. Now that doesn’t mean the amount of scientific research goes to infinity — there may still be some essential bottleneck task that human researchers are still needed to perform. There are some indications that AI’s progress on open-ended conceptual research tasks is slower than in other dimensions, and it may be that humans are still needed to provide some of this long-term conceptual thinking. I’d bet against this being true for much longer, but it might be true for a long time. Even in this most “pessimistic” case, though, the amount of effective capital that scientists can use to leverage their work just went up by a lot. AI eliminates the theory bottleneck Science proceeds by an iterative process of theory and experiment. The theory part of that cycle is typically short, but non-trivial — it took a couple of years after the blackbody radiation spectrum was observed for Max Planck to come up with the quantum hypothesis to explain it, and decades longer before quantum theory as we now know it was created. It took about a year for Watson and Crick to figure out the shape of DNA after the requisite data was gathered. AI will basically eliminate the theory bottleneck entirely — or at least shorten the turnaround time between experiment and theory by an order of magnitude. AI is an absolute beast at math. Recently, an OpenAI model solved some of the most important open problems in computer science, math, and theoretical physics, and no one even batted an eyebrow because that sort of triumph is becoming increasingly commonplace. One of those solutions was a proof that the Standard Model of Particle Physics could be mathematically well-defined — a problem that human theorists had so far been unable to tackle. Not all research relies equally on theory, but understanding novel experimental results almost always involves some important component of either mathematical or spatial reasoning. That part of the task has now been made much, much faster. And on top of that, science is now open to a greater number of humans who aren’t naturally good at theorizing. AI can read the whole literature Much of the work of human scientists involves reading and understanding endless amounts of papers and going to endless conferences and seminars. The purpose of that work is to understand the existing scientific literature. Understanding the literature allows scientists to do the following things: Come up with new ideas for hypotheses to test Avoid doing research that someone else has already done Synthesize approaches from different areas or fields AI can reduce this effort to almost zero. Consider this excerpt from OpenAI’s blog post about their new research into neurodegenerative disease: The team divided the analysis among thousands of AI agents powered by GPT‑Rosalind, an approach we call distributed biological reasoning. The agents examined a whole-brain CRISPR atlas…a dataset showing how gene disruptions affect different types of cells across the mouse brain. Each agent investigated a gene disruption, analyzed cellular responses, searched scientific literature, and proposed explanations for the results. Their reports were combined into a reasoning atlas linking genes, cellular effects, relevant publications, and possible biological mechanisms. The research team estimated that comparable human analysis and literature review, conducted one perturbation at a time, would take months to a year. The agents reproduced findings from human analyses while uncovering additional leads. Their assessments of novelty and scientific value also aligned with judgments from blinded human experts. These findings help prioritize further experiments needed to test the proposed biological mechanisms. Some of these insights point to new leads for understanding brain disease. [emphasis mine] This is one case in which parallel work by a large number of agents really does make a huge difference: [ Haider.@haider1 this is actually insane openai deployed thousands of GPT-Rosalind agents to analyze millions of mouse brain cells in 32 minutes, work that could take human researchers months to a year also the agents uncovered new leads for brain diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's OpenAI @OpenAI GPT-Rosalind surfaced a new lead for drug discovery: could restoring cholesterol transport protect neurons from degeneration? DCTN1 is a gene linked to Perry syndrome, a rare neurodegenerative disorder. In mouse-brain data, disrupting it increased expression of genes involved in 2:41 PM · Oct 21, 2026 · 51.5K Views 26 Replies · 95 Reposts · 1.26K Likes ](https://x.com/haider1/status/2112917197903540516) Not only does instantaneous literature review vastly speed up the research process, but it allows AI to make novel conceptual leaps from combining approaches from wildly different fields of research. AI regularly does this in math research, combining results, approaches, and theorems from far-flung places that no human mathematician would have thought to combine. It can do it in science, too. Much of scientific innovation, historically, has been “recombinant” innovation — scientists applying insights from one field to another. With AI, essentially all research is now cross-disciplinary — AI can read not just the literature on a particular subject, but the literature on a million other subjects that might have produced useful techniques or insights for the problem at hand. Superscience So far, all of the factors I’ve listed are ways that AI can speed up science as it’s already done. I’ve basically described how AI can send gigantic hordes of superhumanly fast, superhumanly well-read, superhumanly mathematically gifted researchers to re-accelerate scientific discovery. But it’s also possible that AI will enable types of discovery — and ways of understanding the natural world — that no network of humans, no matter how large or how brilliant it was or how long it had to work, would ever be able to discover. In a post back in July, I wrote about how that might work: What if there are lots of…aspects of the Universe that [are] too complex to understand in terms of simple laws, but not so complex that they just dissolve into unknowable chaos? It’s possible that we can reliably control these complex phenomena with AI, even if we never reduce them to the kind of principles that we can teach a grad student in a textbook… Another way of saying this is that there may be laws of the universe that humans can’t understand but AI can. I call these “cloud laws” — causal regularities that can be exploited by technology, but which are too diffuse and complex for an individual human being to either intuit or communicate… Perhaps social sciences like economics, sociology, and political science obey similarly complex regularities, and AI can help us find them. Perhaps there are physical processes — plasma, or topological materials, or aerial turbulence, etc. — that obey cloud laws instead of chaos?… [H]uman collaboration is bottlenecked — it’s limited by our ability to intuit patterns at an individual level, and to communicate these patterns from one individual to another. AI, being a computer, just doesn’t have this sort of limitation; it can work with vast, diffuse patterns without having to break them into pieces or simplify them in order to compress them into the tiny pipelines of person-to-person explanation… If much of the Universe turns out to be ruled by cloud laws, we could be on the precipice of a scientific renaissance. In order to discover cloud laws, AI will need huge amounts of data about the natural world. AI figured out human speech by assimilating essentially all of the text humans have ever written. If it’s going to figure out hidden patterns in biology, neuroscience, materials science, etc., it’s going to need similarly massive amounts of data from physical instruments. That data will be far, far more than humans — individually or collectively — would be able to parse, label, characterize, or model. But AI was built to do this. If scientists simply build huge arrays of sensors to measure complex phenomena like the brain, the cell, the economy, etc., they may be able to feed this flood of data to AI directly and bypass human cognitive intermediation entirely. AI would then learn about the world directly, and it might learn things that humans never could. This “superscience”, if you want to call it that, would actually go beyond the kind of science humans have done heretofore. Many of the technologies it yielded would be beyond human comprehension — indistinguishable from magic. But to the AIs, they would make perfect scientific sense. In any case, it seems clear that the scientific slowdown that threatened human progress will now be delayed — at least for a while. Unless humans have somehow found most of the actual exploitable regularities in our Universe, we’re about to enter a new golden age of science. Subscribe Share
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Global Health & WASH
The US National Institutes of Health reopened its center and program-project machinery in force. NIGMS is funding Collaborative Program Grants for interdisciplinary teams, NIAID opened both its Immune Tolerance Network and a next-generation R&D call, the NCI runs its Carcinogen Hazard Assessment Monographs program, the National Library of Medicine is funding institutional training in biomedical AI and data science, and NIH reopened its Centers for AIDS Research. The tell: these pay for standing centers and multi-year consortia at institutions with an existing funded research base, not one-off projects, so the fit is an established US research institution, not a single investigator. Disease-specific foundations are again funding the researcher, not just the research. The Parkinson’s Foundation opened its Paul Oreffice Innovations in Care Award and the National Ataxia Foundation its Research Seed Money Grant. The tell, the same one we flagged last cycle, is a named early-career or seed award that builds a pipeline of scientists committed to one condition, so what wins is a researcher willing to specialize. The post-USAID global-health money is routing through a State Department program statement and multilateral innovation funds. The US Department of State’s Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy opened its Advancing Global Health Annual Program Statement, Grand Challenges Canada opened Nexa Lighthouse for climate and health innovation in Asia and the Pacific at USD $250,000 to $2,000,000, and CEPI opened a rolling call on vaccine-manufacturing analytics. The tell: the largest health money this cycle sits in a standing program statement and in staged innovation vehicles, not in a single bilateral grant. Total Estimated Funding Pool: ~$35.4M across discrete grants. (Separately, large national-formula envelopes not counted in this total: U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy (GHSD).) This post is for paid subscribers. This helps support the time and effort it takes to curate and organize these opportunities. Subscribe To keep this accessible to everyone who needs it, we’re happy to offer pay what you can rates. You can find more details here. New opportunities: Paul Oreffice Innovations in Care Award, Parkinson’s Foundation. *New!* *Closing soon!* The Parkinson’s Foundation created the Paul Oreffice Innovations in Care Award to fund clinicians rethinking how people with Parkinson’s disease receive care. The Foundation is using pilot funding to move promising ideas into testable projects, backing work across four lanes: strengthening community clinician capability, redesigning care models, building patient-centered technologies, and defining the minimum clinical datasets that make better standards possible. It wants hypothesis-driven, clinically grounded projects that can generate evidence strong enough to attract further funding. By opening the door to clinicians at every career stage and strongly preferring projects that involve people with Parkinson’s in their design, the Foundation signals that it values practical, patient-shaped innovation over prestige. The strongest fits are US-licensed clinicians with a focus on Parkinson’s and an institutional home for applied care research. Geographies: united states. Who can apply: Clinicians of all career stages, from fellows to established faculty, who are licensed to care for patients in the United States and have a significant focus on Parkinson’s disease. Physicians must have completed a neurology residency (or justify how their training pathway benefits people with PD); allied health professionals must hold an advanced degree, typically a PhD. Fellows, those in mentored positions, and those within two years of starting an independent position require a mentor and a mentor support letter. The sponsoring institution’s grants office is the authorized recipient and funds are disbursed to the institution. Funding amount: Maximum of $200,000 over two years; up to three awards. Targeted Sectors / SDGs: Health; Innovation; Science & Technology. Deadline: November 1, 2026. Learn more and apply here. Design and Deliver the Next EIT Health Bootcamps, EIT Health. *New!* *Closing soon!* EIT Health is opening its call for consortia to design and deliver the next generation of its health start-up bootcamps, funding the curriculum, masterclasses, mentoring, and investor engagement that turn early health ventures into fundable companies. The organization is using these learning paths to strengthen Europe’s health innovation pipeline across digital health evidence, deep tech and AI commercialization, cross-border investment, and patient access. What EIT Health wants to back is not a single course but durable delivery capacity built by partners who span industry, education, and research. Requiring multi-country consortia and a revenue-sharing stake in the programs signals that EIT Health expects these bootcamps to outlast the grant. The strongest fits are established training providers, universities, and industry partners with proven reach into health entrepreneurs. Geographies: Europe. Who can apply: Consortia only (individuals cannot apply), comprising a minimum of two and a maximum of five independent legal entities. Partners must cover at least two sides of the Knowledge Triangle (industry, education, research), including at least one industry organisation, and at least two entities must be legally established in different Horizon Europe countries. Funding amount: Foundational Learning Path: up to EUR €112,000; Thematic Learning Paths: up to EUR €124,500 per path (up to four thematic projects); up to EUR €610,000 total EIT Health funding available under the call. Targeted Sectors / SDGs: Health; Innovation; Science & Technology; Economic Development & Livelihoods. Deadline: November 2, 2026. Learn more and apply here. Technology Transfer Offices & Entrepreneurship Support Call (Beyond the Lab: From Research to Venture), EIT Health. *New!* *Closing soon!* EIT Health is opening its Technology Transfer Offices and Entrepreneurship Support Call to fund consortia that will deliver the Beyond the Lab: From Research to Venture program for healthcare researchers. EIT Health is using the grant to build local capacity for turning laboratory science into incorporated start-ups, paying experienced technology transfer offices and entrepreneurship support providers to run masterclasses, structured mentoring, and a closing Pitch Day across two cohorts. It wants to back organizations that can walk researchers from discovery to company formation, not just teach theory. Requiring two transfer offices plus one venture-building provider signals that EIT Health values proven commercialization experience alongside academic reach. The strongest fits are European research-commercialization teams with a track record of moving health innovations toward investable ventures. Geographies: Europe. Who can apply: A consortium of two Technology Transfer Offices (representing higher education institutions or research organisations) and one Entrepreneurship Support Provider with demonstrated experience in venture building and start-up support. Applicants may apply for more than one learning path where they can demonstrate the required expertise and capacity for each. Funding amount: Up to EUR €77,000 in 2027 and up to EUR €77,000 in 2028 (up to EUR €154,000 total per consortium over two years). Targeted Sectors / SDGs: Health; Innovation; Science & Technology; Economic Development & Livelihoods. Deadline: November 2, 2026. Learn more and apply here. EIT Health RIS Country Representatives Call (2027-2028), EIT Health. *New!* *Closing soon!* EIT Health is seeking organizations to serve as Country Representatives across eleven Regional Innovation Scheme countries in central and eastern Europe for the 2027 to 2028 period. The money funds a national anchor in each country, an organization that maps the local health innovation ecosystem, connects startups and researchers to EIT Health programs, and builds the stakeholder relationships that let health ventures grow. EIT Health is backing local capacity rather than individual projects, which is why it accepts both single organizations and national consortia that span education, research, and industry. The requirement for co-financing signals that it wants representatives already embedded in their national systems. The strongest fits are established ecosystem builders with deep ties to health innovation stakeholders in one eligible country. Geographies: Croatia; Czech Republic; Estonia; Greece; Hungary; Latvia; Malta; Romania; Serbia; Slovenia; Turkey. Who can apply: Registered legal entities established in one of the eligible EIT RIS countries. Single organisations or national consortia may apply. Consortia must include at least two sides of the Knowledge Triangle (education, research and industry), and all consortium partners must be established in the same eligible country. Suitable applicants have demonstrated experience in healthcare innovation ecosystem development, innovation support and entrepreneurship, start-up acceleration, technology transfer, research and higher education, business support, and stakeholder engagement, with strong links to national innovation stakeholders. Funding amount: Up to EUR €182,000 per Country Representative (maximum funding per project); total call budget up to EUR €1,274,500; EIT Health funds up to 60% of total eligible project costs. Targeted Sectors / SDGs: Health; Innovation; Science & Technology; Economic Development & Livelihoods. Deadline: November 2, 2026. Learn more and apply here. Architects of Trust: Community-Driven Demand Creation for New TB Vaccines, Treatment Action Group (TAG). *New!* *Closing soon!* Treatment Action Group, with funding from Wellcome, is opening its Architects of Trust call to help communities prepare for the new tuberculosis vaccines now moving through late-stage trials. The money backs civil society and community-based organizations to raise awareness, surface local questions and concerns, and press policymakers toward equitable national rollout. By pairing each grantee with an advocacy mentor and running a strategy workshop alongside the Global TB Vaccine Forum, Treatment Action Group is building a durable advocacy bench rather than funding one-off outreach. The two-stage design, starting with a short expression of interest, signals that fit and community rootedness matter more than polished proposals. The strongest fits are locally trusted groups with real TB, immunization, or health advocacy experience and a committed project lead. Geographies: Brazil; Ethiopia; India; Indonesia; Kenya; Malawi; Mozambique; Nigeria; Peru; Philippines; South Africa; Tanzania; Vietnam; Zambia. Who can apply: National, subnational, or regional civil society organizations (CSOs) or community-based organizations based in one of the 14 eligible countries or in Eastern Europe/Central Asia regional networks, with experience in TB, immunization, or other health advocacy and in community engagement or policy advocacy; well integrated into stakeholder networks with membership or affiliation to other CSO or community networks; naming a dedicated project lead (’architect of trust’) who can attend the April 2027 Zaragoza forum in person; and holding (or committing to adopt) organizational policies on safeguarding (bullying, harassment, abuse, and harm), equity, diversity and inclusion, and legal compliance, research practice and governance. Funding amount: Grants of up to US$45,000 will be awarded to 8 CSO partners across 14 high-TB-burden countries plus regional networks in Eastern Europe and Central Asia; each grant funds 12 months of work. Targeted Sectors / SDGs: Health; Governance; Policy & Advocacy. Deadline: November 4, 2026. Learn more and apply here.
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