Biology

Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons has threatened to strip the school of its accreditation

Lack of joined-up thinking and decline in funding has seen UK fall behind rivals, says House of Lords report

Centres of Research Excellence, officially launched today, will also strengthen the UK’s leading position in biomedical sciences, says Patrick Chinnery

Leading university threatened with loss of accreditation after complaints of animals being ‘automatically euthanised’ and students facing racism

Evolutionary biologist on the importance of fungal networks and why science is creative

Geneticist Anne Ferguson-Smith is the third new female leader of a UK research council named in recent weeks

Molecular ecologist on moving around, moving genes around, how she juggles four concurrent positions and the importance of thinking before you act

Growth of chapters seen in the 1990s has tailed off, and they are increasingly pushed towards the back

As Science retracts a paper by a second James Cook alumnus, critics ask where they learned their craft

Long timelines, siloed training and the prioritisation of drug development make life-saving advances in detection less likely, says David Crosby

Journalists and fact-checkers must be reminded that scientific concepts can be hard to render in language that is both simple and true, says David Sanders

Identification of new species ‘a beautiful example of the impact indigenous culture and science can have when combined’

Two genetics experts with series of shared attributes enjoy collaborating, but suspect coincidences not bloodlines

The UK’s whole-genome sequencing project could spark a global step change in the treatment of rare diseases, says Damian Smedley

Close relationships between journal boards and most-published authors may explain speedy publishing times, says study

Geneticist warns of the dangers of ‘fetishising’ DNA and turning a blind eye to racism

Huge study busts notion that everything worth knowing can be found in English-language journals

The former Austrian molecular biologist explains how a boring childhood was an advantage, why he switched careers and how designing board games is like basic research

The computational biologist and Royal Society prizewinner on empowering neurodiversity, academic humour and why emotions are key to problem-solving

The woeful environmental record of the UK’s research-intensive universities illustrates a lack of leadership and incentives to cut emissions, says Bill Spence

Long-term public and economic health depends on empowering universities, businesses and health systems to work together, says Michael Spence

Compulsory Covid jabs for students may seem sensible but would discriminate against minorities, says Zachary Michael Jack

Researchers should campaign with the public to build back better, say Stephen Bradley, Jessica Butler and Chris Chambers

Comparisons with big pharma distract from ‘amazing’ achievement that will lead to long-term dividends for science, say experts

The epigeneticist and new Max Planck vice-president on a global childhood, the pleasures of buses running on time, and why young researchers are more stressed than ever

Organisers refused to engage with the problem, or offered a series of stock excuses, say campaigners

‘Exact’ replication a pipe dream, combatants say, amid claims and counter claims about reef science

Publications must always permit debate on the quality and relevance of research – plus the efficacy and costs of derived policy, says Robert Dingwall

Critics say Australian inquiry excluded external witnesses and rationalised questionable activities

The Research Australia report has exposed the fault lines in health research funding, says Ross Coppel 

‘Well-meaning’ codes of conduct do not lead to initiatives that make a difference, study finds

Authors Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West put the case for scepticism at a time when science has become deeply polarising

It is those who commit research misconduct – not those who expose them – that damage science, according to David Sanders. But while the biologist has embraced the role of data detective thrust upon him, he wishes more scientists would share the thankless, legally fraught burden

Making findings open source may enable certain companies and countries to corner the vaccine market, warn Virginia Driver and Tom Woodhouse

The ecologist with more air miles than most on alternative pathways to the professoriate, Australia’s natural boom-bust cycles and whether there is hope for the platypus

Inability to begin reruns of experiments highlights the problem of weak methodologies of journal papers, say Center for Open Science director

Scientific excellence is not the only relevant criterion – either morally or legally, says Alex Conway 

Australian university scrutinises former student’s research record, as whistleblowers refute ocean acidification theory

More Russian universities join top 100 of subject tables 

Journal's investigation exonerates fish researcher, who has previous retraction to her name

Academics’ deep identification with their work means that the failure of a book proposal, grant application or promotion request can cut deeply. But in a competitive profession, such knock-backs are inevitable. Here, six academics recall their most traumatic rejection – and how they got over it

Book of the week: Jules Pretty admires a powerful study of what a declining insect population reveals about how we are treating the planet

Mounting workloads and mushrooming publication output are making the task of staying abreast of the latest developments in the literature ever more difficult for academics. Here, eight researchers reflect on their own approaches and offer their tips

Tropical breakthrough represents the latest research application for the tiny aircraft

Even in disciplines in which research is inherently inexpensive, ‘grant capture’ is increasingly being adopted as a metric to judge academics and universities. But with success rates typically little better than one in five, rejection is the fate of most applications. Six academics give their tips on how to improve the odds

Charlotte Davies considers a sobering account of what is happening to our seas

Robert Montgomerie enjoys an engaging account of a breakthrough in biological thinking

Peter Ridd’s victory in unfair dismissal case raises questions about limits of scientific consensus

Marine biologist Oona Lönnstedt has gone to ground in Sweden after being found to have fabricated data

When credible concerns emerge about research validity, universities and journals must move quickly, writes John Ross

Tributes paid to a leading biochemist who went on to become the third vice-chancellor of the University of East Anglia

Book of the week: Camilla Power assesses a bold new approach to the origins of morality

Bias would be reduced if grant applicants’ capabilities were considered only after assessment of their anonymised proposals, says David Sanders

Matthew Reisz meets an expert on tracking the movements of animals which are sometimes fierce and virtually impossible to catch  

A student’s mysterious accusation of racism saw P. K. Newby removed from her course – and another woman lost from the leaky pipeline

Despite huge strides in the past 75 years, a recent forum suggests to Jon Turney that there’s still a way to go before biologists’ deep insights at the micro level are mirrored at the macro

A scientist argues that the secret of life itself lies in networks of data, says Richard Joyner

Matthew Reisz describes talking to Jordanian molecular biologist Rana Dajani about body image, the West’s view of the East and breaking into science’s big league

Danny Dorling learns about the extent to which our DNA dictates how we lead our lives

Tokenistic and irrelevant assessments of research’s social value are holding back progress, say Clarence Tam and three others