We wouldn’t have guessed it, but it’s awfully hard to get a certain little blue Caribbean fish to breed. In fact, it took an expert at the New England Aquarium a year of work to set up the right combination of mood lighting, tank feng shui, and a never-ending buffet of gourmet fish food to make it happen. Lead biologist Monika Schmuck had two baby Blue Chromis fish at the end of all that work. It was the first time anyone in the world had successfully bred Blue Chromis in captivity. “Today I

Given how controversial genetically modified corn is, it's no wonder that the prospect of genetically modifying humans pushes a lot of people's buttons. But we already have gene therapies, and new technologies are making it faster, safer, and less expensive to modify the human genome in a range of ways. That has the science community and policymakers scrambling to set responsible guidelines for the use of genome editing. In 2015, the International Summit on Human Gene Editing recommended holding

For decades, scientists have shunned direct involvement in politics. They’ve testified before Congress and provided scientific information to policymakers, of course. But most have avoided weighing in on specific policy moves out of concern that such opining could damage scientists' credibility as the source of objective, factual information. In the wake of the 2016 election, that seems to be changing. More scientists - particularly younger researchers - are now jumping into the public discourse

President Trump may not have a science advisor right now, but Secretary of State Rex Tillerson does. His name is Vaughan Turekian, and he was appointed to the post in 2015 . It's not a very old job; it was created by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright in 2000. It's also not a very common job; only seven foreign ministers in the world have a science advisor. Paul Berkman, an oceanographer turned science diplomacy expert at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University,

President Donald Trump has yet to name a science advisor, a position that dates back to the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. It wouldn't be the first time that a president has decided he's better off without one. President Nixon wasn’t happy with the advice he was getting from his Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). He fired his science advisor and he dissolved the office of science and technology. But in 1976, Congress decided the executive branch really needed such an office

One of the first science policy ideas put out by Trump transition team back in November was a proposal to move all earth science out from under the umbrella of NASA and perhaps give it to another agency, like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That transfer hasn’t come to pass – at least not yet – and earth science is still carrying on. In fact, right now, scientists from Harvard University, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and – yes – NASA and NOAA are flying

President Trump’s early executive actions and rhetoric about climate change and vaccines have a lot of American scientists on edge right now – worried about funding cuts, gag orders, and travel and immigration restrictions. To our north, Canadian scientists might as well be saying “been there, done that.” Between 2006 and 2015, Conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, slashed science funding, dissolved jobs and projects, and severely limited public communication. It didn't happen all at once

Over the past two weeks, President Trump's executive actions have crowded just about everything else out of the news. But, despite widespread anxiety about the new administration's attitude toward science, research is still chugging along. And, last week, we got a great glimpse of true scientific skepticism at work. Two physicists from Harvard University published evidence that they had created metallic hydrogen . Of course, hydrogen is usually a gas. When chilled, it can become a liquid, such

Universities, research centers, and science-related professional organizations have been vocal in opposition to the travel and immigration restrictions imposed by President Trump last weekend. They’ve also expressed concern about early White House directives that barred public communication by employees of the USDA and EPA. Others within the science community didn’t wait for President Trump to take office before acting. Back in December, the Union of Concerned Scientists announced it would set

It’s estimated that somewhere between a quarter and a third of the food we eat requires the help of pollinators, like honeybees. Unfortunately, beekeepers have been reporting dire declines in bee populations in recent years, and several species of bees have been added to the Endangered Species List in recent months. There is a whole host of likely culprits, including habitat loss and pesticides. But bee researcher and advocate Noah Wilson-Rich points the finger squarely at one event in the year