This Week’s NOVA Next Feature Article
As federal funding dries up, independent research institutes are looking to universities and corporations for support, raising concerns over external influence. NOVA Next contributor Peter Gwynne reports on the tight finances that could spell the end of independence for research centers.
In other news from NOVA and around the web:
- A decade-long quest to land on a comet comes to an end. Get caught up here .
- Due to “cognitive tiredness,” you may be more likely to lie and cheat at night.
- The solar industry is abuzz over a relative newcomer: perovskite .
- From 310 miles above the Earth, satellites are weighing groundwater lost to irrigation.
- Researchers have successfully made diamonds out of carbon-rich peanut butter.
- “Before everyone had heard of Oso, almost no one had heard of Oso.”
- People with pagophagia report a burning desire to chomp on frozen things. A new theory could explain why.
- A microscopic life form called mycorrhizal fungus could help feed the hungry . Listen to a Gastropod episode on the story.
Did you miss "Emperor’s Ghost Army" this week? Watch it streaming online.
- The U.S. and China are teaming up to reduce carbon emissions .
- Comet 67P/CG could help us understand our solar system’s origins. So could this image of an embryonic star system.
- Could a dark-horse experiment win in the race to detect gravity waves?
- Did you follow yesterday’s spectacular comet landing, and want to know how it happened? Watch “To Catch a Comet” streaming online.
- French artist Thierry Cohen imagines the world’s largest cities under clear night skies .
- Climate change could lead to conditions in which lightning striking a tree may spark a forest fire, even in the tropics .
- For every 1˚C of global warming, lightning strikes will increase by 12%.
- Bringing social issues into science classrooms could open up more STEM career possibilities.