A flagship biomedical research facility in Valencia, built during the heady days of the last economic boom, is now going bust. It is a casualty of Spain’s deep spending cuts and, some say, of poor management.
The Prince Felipe Research Centre (CIPF), which hosts 260 scientists and has produced high-profile publications in regenerative medicine and biochemistry, announced an emergency financial plan on 19 October that would see about 100 research staff lose their jobs, and roughly halve salaries for those who remain. Continue reading Spanish institute faces cash crisis→
On the battlefields of the Somme, history and geology meld. Beneath the chalky earth, men carved messages, memorials and poems into the walls of tunnels that were dug almost a century ago during the First World War. Explosions in the tunnels buried countless men and reshaped the surface, where grass and trees now soften the cratered landscape. Many of the soldiers’ bodies — and their words — remain buried. Continue reading Modern Tools Reveal World War I Tunneling Tricks→
It seemed like as good a place as any to brood, so whelks covered it with their eggs. Then crabs crawled onto the scene in a slow-motion seafloor pursuit. Octopi floated in from the murky abyss. Together they tore the whelks from the shells, and left behind a mound of empty conches as a warning to others. Sunken shipping containers are not safe for whelks. But they might make a safe refuge for a lot of other sea creatures, according to a new study that examined how the detritus of seaborne commerce affects residents of the deep sea. Continue reading Sunken Shipping Containers Form Artificial Reefs→
Artist and self-styled experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats is hoping to persuade the art world to join scientists in the Copernican Revolution—nearly 5 centuries late. In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus made the humbling observation that the Earth revolves around the sun. Modern physicists often cite the “Copernican principle” that, as nature’s rules are the same everywhere, the human viewpoint isn’t unique. Continue reading The Story Is Dead. Long Live the Story.→
Journalist covering global development by way of science and technology.
