More science articles by Schindler, please

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA—A muggy quiet has settled over New Orleans, Louisiana’s Gentilly neighborhood as it soaks up a late-September rainstorm. Deep puddles hide dips in the street. And in a soggy patch of grass, a wooden kiosk tells a story of catastrophe. “This place is a memorial to the trauma …

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administration released its 2018 budget on 27 February and scientists couldn’t be happier. It includes almost Can$4 billion (US$3.1 billion) in new funding for science over the next five years, a significant portion of which will go to the country’s three granting …

The obvious criticism is that such work is mere fiction, driven by the intellectual curiosity of a small group of highly specialised scientists, rather than anything relevant to daily life. And in any case, critics might argue, won’t we figure something out in the next century or two that could tackle climate change …

As campaigning ahead of Italy’s national election enters its final weeks, researchers in the country fear that budget cuts and declining interest in science will only continue — whatever the outcome of the vote on 4 March. A complex coalition government is likely to emerge. The country’s traditional centre-left …

Excellence is everywhere in science. Or that seems to be the plan: to make excellence ubiquitous in research. This month, the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica, became the latest academic institution to encourage its scientists to excel, setting up a Regional Centre for Research Excellence …

… quality and to look at whether an article is suitable for a particular journal.” Bloom says peer review does a reasonable job of picking studies of interest to journals such as hers, but it does a poor job of improving the quality of the paper. Some years ago, for instance, she says scientists sent around papers …

LA MACARENA, Colombia — Ángela Díaz stood on a rock ledge above a creek called Caño Piedras and pointed out an unassuming olive-colored plant growing below. Macarenia clavigera, she said, is the key to the future of this remote region in central Colombia. When the rains come in May, the rivers …

The slender, 2-meter-long reptile ran on all fours and lived 245 million years ago, about 10 million to 15 million years before scientists think dinosaurs first appeared. Nesbitt, a ….. This article appears in the March 3, 2018 issue of Science News with the headline, “What makes a dinosaur? Defining what’s …