‘Science needs defending’: record number of researchers run for office in US mid-terms

Researchers have developed a technique for detecting and measuring the concentration of many rare-earth elements in plants, without destroying the plant. The technique can be used to optimize "plant mining" efforts, in which plants take up and concentrate these critical materials so that they can be harvested for practical use. The paper is published in the journal Plant Direct.

Popular AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Gemini are not neutral and tend to favor certain political parties when asked who users should vote for. This makes them unsuitable for providing advice in connection with elections, according to researchers from the University of Copenhagen behind a new analysis of political bias in chatbots.

Improved methods for social and behavioral sciences research could help enhance public trust in science, says a new study that investigated the robustness of data analysis to understand whether it reliably stood the test of time. It did.

Glaciers can reveal vast archives of information about Earth's environmental past, but deciphering the origins of the matter within them can be a challenge. Now, using a novel technique that enables researchers to directly analyze millions of individual particles at once, a new study has revealed that specks of dust trapped in Antarctic ice likely originated from a common source during the last Ice Age, between about 120,000 and 11,500 years ago.