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AI's rapid evolution could leave infrastructure investors behind
The technology is evolving so quickly that today's investments could be overtaken before they pay off.
Chicago businesses brace for a new state law set to ban hemp-derived THC products
The ban is set to take effect on Nov. 12 in Illinois.
What Military Spouses Taught Me About Building a Business
While building two marketing and website agencies, I didn't expect that these hires would help prepare us for the AI revolution.
France links refrigeration cyberattacks to Iran
French officials on Monday accused Iran’s Revolutionary Guards of orchestrating last month’s cyberattacks that raised temperatures in commercial refrigerators and freezers across France…
Rewards platform Bilt announces 'next evolution' for American consumers, small businesses
Bilt's new Neighborhood OS aims to help small businesses attract customers while expanding personalized rewards and loyalty benefits for consumers nationwide.
Grenades, grief and a deepening political divide: five takeaways from Sonia Gandhi’s new memoir
From the assassinations of her husband and mother-in-law to press stonewalling under Modi, Belonging offers an insider’s account of India’s political evolution
What happens after a midterm tsunami? Lessons from 1974 and 1994
Surprising midterm elections that create new majorities on Capitol Hill look to be revolutions in the days after they occur. Years later, they often appear to be more complex –
Check Out Some of the Top Cards from Mega Evolution—Delta Reign
This Pokémon TCG expert shares why he thinks Mega Rayquaza ex, Legendary Pyroduct, and more may have an impact on the Standard format.
Scientists Zapped Mouse Brains With Lasers to Give Them Phantom Visions
This illusion of reality could be playing a game-changing role in the evolution of perception—ours included.
Machine learning helps explain evolution of fish schools
The study is among the largest studies of the evolution of any behavior ever conducted in any group of species.
Securing AI agents isn't science fiction. It's good engineering
AI is evolving at a rapid pace, and the uptake of Generative AI (GenAI) is revolutionising the way humans interact and leverage this technology. GenAI is
Einstein's equations reveal how gravity could break, reconnect, and release energy
More than a century after Einstein revolutionized our understanding of gravity, scientists have uncovered a surprising new phenomenon hidden within his equations. Researchers at Columbia University and Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez have identified a theoretical process called "gravitational reconnection," in which structures within gravitational fields can break apart and reconnect, transferring energy into matter.
Art, philosophy, and science blend in beautiful wildlife photography
A relation between two living beings shaped by a shared evolutionary history.
NMSU Physical Science Laboratory marks 80 years of aerospace, defense research
NMSU's Physical Science Laboratory celebrates 80 years, tracing its evolution from White Sands rocket testing to modern aerospace and defense research.
Player status report, presented by Orlando Health: Orlando City SC vs New England Revolution
Here is the Player Status Report, presented by Orlando Health, for Saturday's home match vs New England Revolution
How ancient combat may explain why 90% of us are right-handed
Why are most people right-handed? Explore the theories behind human handedness, from brain evolution and upright posture to survival advantages in combat.
Perfectly preserved owl fossil from 47 million years ago could help to solve a major evolutionary mystery
A stunning fossil owl from Germany that has its last meal preserved in its stomach helped researchers to narrow down the time when these birds mostly became active at night.
New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science Celebrates 40 years of discovery
By Sara Atencio-Gonzales, The Paper. – From prehistoric fossils to the mysteries of outer space, the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science has spent four decades bringing the state’s scientific history to life. Now, as the museum celebrates its 40th anniversary, staff members are reflecting on its evolution while preparing several special events…
New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science Celebrates 40 years of discovery
By Sara Atencio-Gonzales, The Paper. – From prehistoric fossils to the mysteries of outer space, the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science has spent four decades bringing the state’s scientific history to life. Now, as the museum celebrates its 40th anniversary, staff members are reflecting on its evolution while preparing several special events […]
400,000-year-old teeth reveal a stunning twist in human evolution
A groundbreaking discovery is rewriting the story of human evolution, revealing that an ancient human species once thought to be an evolutionary dead end may have left genetic traces in people alive today. By extracting proteins from 400,000-year-old Homo erectus teeth discovered in China, scientists uncovered evidence suggesting that these early humans interbred with Denisovans, another mysterious ancient human group. That genetic connection may have eventually reached modern populations in the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and other parts of Southeast Asia.
Scientists discover that a clogged filter could revolutionize oil refining
Scientists have developed a remarkable new membrane that separates crude oil at room temperature, using the oil itself to create microscopic filtration channels. The breakthrough could cut refining energy consumption by nearly 32%, carbon emissions by almost 38%, and operating costs by 36%, potentially transforming one of the world's most energy-intensive industries.
When papers become currency: a Chinese debate about trust in science
Last Saturday, 31 October, I went to the University of Hong Kong’s Beijing Centre for its Talent Forum. It was the fourth stop in the series this year, following events in Shanghai’s Zhangjiang, Shenzhen’s Qianhai, and on HKU’s main campus. The programme covered a remarkable distance in one afternoon. HKU’s Xiao-Jing Wang discussed computational neuroscience, intelligence, and the prefrontal cortex—before even delivering his inaugural public lecture to students back in Hong Kong. His colleague Bing Zhang took us from the Big Bang to artificial intelligence. Tsinghua’s Xue Lan asked how AI might reshape the institutional infrastructure underpinning higher education. There were lively panels featuring industry leaders from JD.com, Xiaomi, Haier—and Kaiser Y Kuo on the closing panel discussing innovation and international connections. I cannot pretend to have followed every detail of the brain models or the astrophysics. The talk that stayed with me was closer to something we have covered before: Zhou Zhonghe 周忠和 on papers, evaluation, and scientific trust. Zhou is a palaeontologist, an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and an international member of the US National Academy of Sciences. He is also editor-in-chief of The Intellectual (知识分子), China’s leading science commentary platform. His subject was uncomfortable enough for a room full of successful academics: what happens when the system for recognising good science starts rewarding something else? Part of my interest came from our sister newsletter, The East is Read, which covered the controversy around “Geng Tongxue” in May. A PhD dropout from Beihang University, Geng has publicly challenged papers by prominent researchers through detailed online allegations of manipulated images and fabricated data. At Tongji University, an investigation into a challenged Nature paper found academic misconduct, and the dean of its life sciences school was removed. The affair brought doubts about academic integrity well beyond laboratories and university committees. How could someone outside the established hierarchy spot problems in papers that had passed through prestigious journals and institutions? And what, exactly, had all that prestige guaranteed? Zhou approached these questions through two essays published in July by The Intellectual: one by Wang Xiaodong, director of the National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, and a response by Wang Liming, of Shanghai’s Shangsi Institute of Natural Sciences. Both began with the controversy over Geng. Their arguments deserve a wider audience, so I want to put parts of them alongside what Zhou said on Saturday. Wang Xiaodong’s starting point is evolution. A research system selects for the behaviour it rewards. Grants, jobs, journals, talent programmes, and prizes collectively determine which scientists prosper and which practices get passed down from advisors to students. “Whatever the system rewards is what it will evolve to produce,” he writes, citing the ancient Chinese saying: The King of Chu loved slender waists, and many in the palace starved to death. That is a more demanding diagnosis than saying there are dishonest people in science. Punishing a fraudster does not change the selective environment that made a particular kind of research profitable. His account also gives scientific success an awkward role in the story. As Zhou put it on Saturday, science became a victim of its own success. Once research became central to industry, national power, and economic growth, universities and laboratories expanded, and public money followed. That created an administrative need for rapid decisions: who should get the next grant, the next laboratory, the next appointment? The difficulty is that the true value of a discovery may take years or decades of testing and building to become clear. Resource allocation cannot wait that long. Publication counts, journal prestige, impact factors, and citations therefore become convenient ways to make an instant judgement. “The real problem is not that these indicators have no value,” Wang Xiaodong writes, “but that they are trying to answer a question that only time can answer.” Telling administrators simply to stop counting papers will never be enough. They still have budgets to distribute and appointments to make. Something has to replace the shortcut. Zhou described the consequences inside publishing. Papers acquire ever more requirements: a complete story, polished presentation, extensive datasets, and accessibility to readers beyond the immediate field. Individually, those demands sound reasonable. Together, he warned, they produce formulaic “eight-legged” papers 八股文 and rigid reviewing, while genuinely original or non-consensus work struggles to get past journal editors—some of whom wield immense gatekeeping power despite having limited laboratory experience themselves. Meanwhile, the demands for sprawling, “complete” narratives have fuelled a wider replication crisis. Wang Xiaodong uses a mahjong metaphor to describe the result: put the complex papers published by the exact same lab over several years side by side, and they often look like “Thirteen Orphans” (十三不靠)—every tile completely unrelated to the next, and none of them reproducible by outsiders. Zhou also spoke frankly as an editor who has trouble finding reviewers. Everyone wants someone else to review their work; qualified senior researchers have little time to return the favour. The labour is anonymous, unpaid, and brings almost no institutional recognition, so it increasingly gets passed down to postdocs and graduate students. And while anonymity protects reviewers from rank and personal favours, hyper-specialisation means an author’s most qualified reviewer is often a direct competitor, shielded from accountability. The protection and the problem coexist. Wang Liming takes the argument a step further. The decisive change, in his essay, is the instant conversion of academic honour into material resources. Once a paper can be cashed in for funding, a job, students, commercial investment, or even a company valuation, scientists are alienated from their work: they must keep minting this “research currency” to keep their teams alive. He is careful not to romanticise the past. The old world of gentleman scientists—financially independent figures like Boyle and Darwin who needed nothing from external funders—was also a closed club that excluded people without inherited wealth, women, and much of humanity outside the West. Professional science allowed ordinary people, himself included, to become researchers. Nobody should want to undo that. The problem, in his account, is an exchange system that becomes too uniform and too difficult to correct. His most pointed Chinese example is the “hat” (帽子): the prestigious talent designation that brings continuing access to money, laboratory space, students, and institutional influence. “If papers are the circulating currency of the research system, then a ‘hat’ is a bond that pays interest over the long term,” he writes. A paper at least requires another round of peer review. A title in the Chinese context can lock in a judgement made years ago and turn it into permanent status rent, regardless of whether its holder is still doing good science. Here, official institutions hire, organise, and evaluate scientists. Unlike honours awarded by autonomous academic communities in the West, a Chinese “hat” blends non-scientist administrative power with state authority. Once granted, it turns a past judgement into permanent status rent that is nearly impossible to revoke—because taking a hat off would imply that official authority erred in putting it on. Both Wangs see China as experiencing, at compressed speed, pressures present across global science. Research expansion, rising investment, publication growth, and elaborate evaluation metrics arrived in China within two or three decades rather than two or three centuries. Zhou agreed with that international framing—noting that recent US White House science policy documents and the new president of the US National Academy of Sciences, a fellow palaeontologist who recently visited Zhou’s institute in Beijing, have raised strikingly similar warnings about consensus-bound peer review, short-term project grants, and the replication crisis. Still, Zhou emphasised that China’s traditional hierarchy, personal networks (guanxi), and the ethos that “a good scholar becomes an official” (学而优则仕) amplify those pressures at home. So what would change things? Here Zhou’s tone differed from the call for a revolution in scientific trust in Wang Xiaodong’s essay. As an evolutionary biologist, Zhou favoured patchwork repair (修修补补). Living systems survive through accumulated adjustments; dramatic mutations are usually fatal. Science cannot return to a small, slow-moving pastoral era, especially after the successive accelerations of professionalisation after the Second World War, the internet, and now artificial intelligence. But it can alter the local environment in which researchers work. He pointed to domestic experiments designed to support unconventional research and diversify funding, including Tencent’s New Cornerstone Investigator Program, the Xplorer Prize, and the Future Science Prize. He also mentioned participating in reviews for “major non-consensus projects” under the National Natural Science Foundation of China. One guiding principle he recalled was wonderfully direct: “Failure is allowed; corruption is not” (允许失败，不允许腐败). That distinction would mean quite a lot if taken seriously. An honest attempt that fails should not have to disguise itself as a success to survive an assessment. Wang Liming’s essay adds a sharp caveat to the optimism about new domestic funders. Multiple organisations do not automatically produce multiple ways of judging science. If the same pool of senior domestic scientists makes the decisions through the same two-round review procedures, it is still “fake diversity.” He argues for three distinct kinds of money: broad baseline funding governed by fair procedures; patient funding for questions that take ten years; and non-consensus funding based on individual taste, deliberately empowering a few genuine experts to make biased, contrarian bets on eccentric ideas that would inevitably be averaged out by a committee. Replacing one monopoly with another achieves little; a healthy ecosystem needs variance. Zhou’s proposals for publishing were similarly concrete: strip papers of their resource-allocation burden and return them to recording discoveries and establishing priority; separate dissemination from evaluation, as eLife and Peer Community In do; adopt more modular “micro-publications” and real-name endorsements; recognize the labour of editors and reviewers; and give replication work proper credit rather than treating it as an unpublishable dead end. AI makes every part of this debate more urgent—and Zhou wove it throughout his talk. In his own preparation, he used AI to survey the declining influence of academic monographs, noting how tools are already changing how scholars gather information. More fundamentally, he placed AI as the latest great acceleration in scientific history: just as the internet sped up the pace of research and tightened external resource pressures, AI is compressing the cycle again. In the essays Zhou cited, AI cuts both ways. Wang Xiaodong expects large language models to erase much of the English-writing disadvantage long faced by Chinese scientists, further swelling the flood of papers coming out of Chinese labs. Wang Liming sees AI accelerating both ends of the trust crisis: it lowers the cost of paper mills and fabricated images just as quickly as it lowers the cost of automated image forensics, data auditing, and code reproduction. “Whoever builds the verification layer wins,” Wang Liming writes. His proposed alternative to the static, packaged “story paper” is a continuously versioned “unit of discovery” containing a falsifiable claim, raw data, analysis code, experimental parameters, and an ongoing log of independent checks—where negative results and failed replications are recorded rather than buried. Zhou ended his keynote by bringing AI back to the question of scientific honour and credit. Citing a recent Intellectual discussion on “What AI Means for Mathematics” featuring Fields Medalist Deng Yu 邓煜—at a moment when AI is already batch-solving mathematical conjectures, as HKU Vice-President Lin Chen noted in his opening remarks—Zhou agreed that human researchers must remain the principal agents: AI is a tool that frees scientists from tedious calculation to think about deeper, messier real-world problems. Yet that partnership creates a thorny new evaluation problem. When a breakthrough is made with AI, what is the human contribution and what is the machine’s? And since AI models distil centuries of accumulated human scholarship, is it right that the credit and value flow so heavily to the private AI companies building the tools? The old struggle over how to assign scientific honour is acquiring a whole new layer. What I took away was a serious discussion of how science can remain trustworthy as its scale, incentives, and tools change. These were scientists with real standing inside China’s system questioning how that standing is produced, and proposing changes that would affect their own institutions and peers. That made the afternoon at HKU’s Beijing Centre worthwhile. At the close, Wang Feng, Director of Communications and Public Affairs at HKU, said the value of the forum series—which heads to Hangzhou in December and cities like Chengdu early next year—would lie in the real cooperation it helped bring about. The university has plenty to celebrate: this week it topped the QS Asia rankings for a second consecutive year, alongside its 11th-place position in the QS World University Rankings 2027. For me, bringing this debate to an audience beyond the people who review papers and allocate grants was a useful contribution. Share [ The East is Read PhD dropout’s exposé forces an academic fraud reckoning in China A former doctoral student turned blogger has shaken China’s academic establishment by publicly accusing prominent university scholars of fabricating data and manipulating papers, triggering investigations at several leading institutions and drawing rare attention from state media… Read more 5 months ago · 43 likes · 8 comments · Yuxuan JIA ](https://www.eastisread.com/p/phd-dropouts-expose-forces-an-academic?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web&embedding_publication_id=47580)
Centuries-old cemetery helps scientists link climate shocks to Industrial Revolution disease
During England's Industrial Revolution, when the country's farming-based economy transformed into an industrial one between roughly 1760 and 1840, pollution, harsh working conditions, inadequate housing ...
Volcanic eruptions and less sunlight made Victorian Era kids sicker
The Industrial Revolution was the main culprit, but the Little Ice Age didn't help.
"Cars That Moved America" automotive exhibition coming to Griffin Museum of Science and Industry
The technological evolution of the automobile has been the subject of some kind of exhibition at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry going back more or less forever, but next year, a new approach to the subject with a new collection is coming.
Texas' Political Blue Wave Has a Soundtrack: 'Choosin' Texas'
'Choosin' Texas,' by Ella Langley, has taken on yet another new meaning: it's now the anthem for political revolution in Texas's midterm elections.
Back to the Future with Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Lamarck believed that “all living beings are constantly transforming themselves” and thus life forms shape their own evolution.
Scientists may have finally explained why our brains and bodies are cross-wired
Scientists propose that the brain’s mysterious cross-wiring, which connects each hemisphere to the opposite side of the body, may have originated more than 500 million years ago in the visual systems of ancient fish. Rather than evolving for a specific advantage, this unusual arrangement may simply be a legacy of evolution building new brain circuits on an ancient foundation.
Wolf 1130: A Triple Star System Just 54 Light-Years Away From Earth May Go Supernova
The triple system's evolution into a "cataclysmic variable is inevitable," according to a recent paper.
Letters: Science isn’t scary, it’s educational | Book-ban hypocrisy
Science is wonder; evolution isn’t scary Regarding the claim that the state education plan is de-emphasizing evolution (“Florida education chief defends science plan as critics say it ‘danced around’ evolution,” Oct. 28): Science is won…
Chernobyl’s Dogs May Be Evolving, but Scientists Don’t Know Why
A new study found evidence of natural selection in the dogs of Chernobyl, but it’s still unclear what drove these genetic differences and what evolutionary advantages they may provide.
Women Entrepreneurs Rock 12 Celebrates Revolutionary Thinking and Bold Moves
Women Entrepreneurs Rock 12 Celebrates Revolutionary Thinking, Bold Moves, and the Power of Women Supporting Women New Jersey Small Business Development Center at Brookdale Community College marks 12 years of inspiring entrepreneurs, strengthening businesses, and
A Bull and a Male Donkey Kept Having Sex. Scientists Say Their Relationship Was About More Than Mating
This is making biologists question what they know about evolution.
But WHY Does Intelligent Design Predicts Ultimate Engineering?
A possible objection to Dr. Burgess’s case for ID might be that the apparent superb design of the human body is what you’d expect from evolution.
Body size, not competition, may kickstart evolution
New theory explains how species begin to diversify
Constraints on Cell Size that Evolutions Can’t Explain
Cells reach a Goldilocks size for their needs. Evolutionists are at a loss to say how cells hit the sweet spot for smooth functioning.
Century-old fossil helps ETSU scientists rethink short-faced bear evolution
ETSU paleontologists used modern imaging to re-examine a century-old fossil, revising the known history of short-faced bears by more than one million years.
Cats, data, and pandemic preparedness
Wellcome Sanger Institute Director, Professor Matt Hurles shares his personal thoughts on the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution and how it could impact science.
Getting past the misconceptions about evolution - Lutheran Alliance for Faith, Science and Technology
Explore misconceptions about evolution, scientific theories and Darwin’s contributions, and how addressing these beliefs can improve science education.
Zohranomics 101: How Mamdani is reshaping NYC's $1.3 trillion economy
A year after Zohran Mamdani's election, a slow-motion economic revolution is underway — from small wins and filled potholes to rent freezes.
IRGC Defines New Geographical Scope for Operations against US
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The spokesperson for the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps announced that identifying new targets and planning operations in new geographical areas are on the agenda, saying Iran has defined a vast operational theater to inflict damage on the enemies.
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.
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. TNCMS.AdManager.render({region: 'fixed-big-ad-bottom-asset', slot: 1, fold: "below"});
“Criminal Minds” to end again — this time with season 20
The series initially wrapped in 2020, before being revived as “Criminal Minds: Evolution.”
TCAI’s Jai Jaisimha on artificial intelligence and mental health: How should AI be used? — Transparency Coalition. Legislation for Transparency in AI Now.
Transparency Coalition Co-founder Jai Jaisimha recently sat down with Rachel Harrison, host of the podcast “The Mental Health Evolution,” to talk about how AI is affecting health care.
Pokémon TCG: Mega Evolution—Delta Reign Mega Rayquaza ex Card Preview
Take an early look at this new special illustration rare card from the upcoming Pokémon TCG expansion.
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
Giant eagles once ruled the skies. They snatched human children, and shaped our evolution
After the dinosaur-killing asteroid hit, giant birds became apex predators for tens of millions of years – and humans were among their prey.
Burnham says he wants to offer more ‘regional empowerment’ ahead of devolution summit
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Anthropic Is a Revolutionary Business, but Its IPO Is Still an Enormous Gamble
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Modern Science: New research on a Megacauda fossil involving an Ohio University professor disrupts previous timeline of mammal evolution
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Orlando City announces 2027 MLS Sprint Season Schedule, presented by Orlando Health
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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.
DeWine, local leaders celebrate Electra investment in Springfield
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Florida education commissioner responds to criticism of proposed science standards
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Corning’s American Tradition of Knowledge in Materials Science
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Postcard from Kraków: From Copernican Revolution to ID Revolution
Even physicists who were more familiar with black holes than dance steps got pulled into the fun.
EAPs Are About to Go Through an Evolution
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Zoho Brings Trusted Business Intelligence to AI Agents in Zoho Analytics Platform Evolution, Connecting Data, Business Context, Insights and Action
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Human Evolution and Disease: How Ancient DNA Shapes Modern Health Risks
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Florida education chief defends science plan as critics say it ‘danced around’ evolution
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COLUMN: The De-evolution of Local Politics
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Did the Hardest A.I. Problem Just Get Much Easier?
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Europe takes cancer science into immunology
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Dan Rather, Wavelength, Original Productions and Anchor Entertainment Partner to Make RATHER Documentary Free to Stream on YouTube Beginning Monday, October 26, in Support of Independent Journalism and Free Speech
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Hollywood's uncanny evolution of evil billionaire tech bros
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Chinese scientists discover “D-rex,” a giant fungus with roots stretching back 65 million years
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New evidence suggests spinosaurus spent most of its life underwater
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NOVA on Evolution of Eating: Here’s the “Science,” Trust Me, Bro!
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Why did humans' brains surpass chimps'? A tiny foe might help explain it
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Jay Bhattacharya: For a Second Scientific Revolution
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Get Kyogre, Groudon, and Giratina Pokémon TCG Promo Cards at Participating Retailers
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A revolutionary new microscope could reveal the hidden machinery of life
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The NFL’s Next Great Offensive Revolution
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Populous and Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment Debut Phase Three of Barclays Center Transformation
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Populous and Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment Debut Phase Three of Barclays Center Transformation
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Scientists discover migration-mediated mechanism enabling bacteria-virus coexistence
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Greenwich Entertainment Buys Philip Byron’s ‘Spin Wars’
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The Family Business Rewritten
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800 Guests, 40 Countries: Chongqing Forum to Unveil Top 10 Science and Tech Foresights
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Is the brain actually 2 nervous systems smooshed together? A new study claims it is.
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Evolution Is Due to Evolution: PBS “Explains” Intelligence
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Chris Ash Breaks Down Notre Dame's Successful Defensive Philosophy
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Florida science standards debate heads to Orange County listening session
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