The U.S. Capitol, shown against dark clouds.

Government funding for science is usually immune from political gridlock and polarization in Congress. But, federal funding for science is slated to drop for 2025.

Science research dollars are considered to be discretionary, which means the funding has to be approved by Congress every year. But it’s in a budget category with larger...

Authors: Staff

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two teenage girls smile as they stand cheek to cheek

The promised artificial intelligence revolution requires data. Lots and lots of data. OpenAI and Google have begun using YouTube videos to train their text-based AI models[1]. But what does the YouTube archive actually include?

Our team of digital media[2] researchers[3] at the University of Massachusetts Amherst collected and analyzed random...

Authors: Staff

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In 1974, on a survey in Hadar in the remote badlands of Ethiopia, U.S. paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson[1] and graduate student Tom Gray found a piece of an elbow joint jutting from the dirt in a gully[2]. It proved to be the first of 47 bones of a single individual – an early human ancestor whom Johanson nicknamed “Lucy.” Her...

Authors: Staff

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For about 15 minutes on July 21, 1961, American astronaut Gus Grissom[1] felt at the top of the world – and indeed he was.

Grissom crewed the Liberty Bell 7 mission[2], a ballistic test flight that launched him through the atmosphere from a rocket. During the test, he sat inside a small capsule and reached a peak of over 100 miles up...

Authors: Staff

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