The United Kingdom’s largest biomedical charity is to shake up the way it forks out its funding, with an increased emphasis on ‘high-risk’ research and stronger support for less-experienced scientists. Read more
UK universities and science minister David Willetts resigned from his role on 14 July as part of a cabinet reshuffle. Read more
Astronomers will have a virtual front-row seat to study a pristine comet in October, when it squeaks past Mars and a flotilla of spacecraft orbiting the red planet. NASA scientists are finalizing their plans to observe the rare event. Read more
Just in time for the World Cup final, researchers have succeeded in building the first “buckyballs” made entirely of boron atoms. Unlike true, carbon-based buckyballs, the boron molecules are not shaped exactly like footballs. But this novel form of boron might lead to new nanomaterials and could find uses in hydrogen storage. Read more
Organic produce certainly costs more than conventionally grown food, but is it better for you? Read more
Cautious efforts to restore unity to the billion-euro Human Brain Project have begun. Both the European Commission and the project’s leaders have now responded to a scorching open letter in which angry neuroscientists condemn the flagship project, and pledge to boycott it. Read more
An ambitious citizen-science effort to revive and redirect a decades-old NASA spacecraft has hit a snag. The International Sun-Earth Explorer-3 (ISEE-3) probe, now roughly 5 million kilometres from Earth, appears to be out of the nitrogen gas that it needs to pressurize its propulsion system’s rocket thrusters. Read more
The official responsible for animal research at Imperial College London (ICL) has stepped down following criticism of aspects of the university’s work with animals. Read more
Cosmic swirls that were hailed earlier this year as evidence for primordial gravitational waves – ripples in spacetime dating back to the early universe – may turn out to have been caused by dust. But several top physicists are standing by the decision to announce the result back in March, before it had been peer-reviewed. Read more
More than a fifth of research departments in Portugal are to have their funding cut, leaving the future of the groups and their staff uncertain. Read more
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