Science

AN ANCIENT Roman ship downed by a storm has been found centuries later at a holiday hotspot – and there’s even treasure on board.

The 2,000-year-old discovery was made mere metres from a popular beachfront – and baffled researchers claim the ship is still in great condition.

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The archaeological sensation was unearthed along the Dalmatian Coast in Croatia this month, almost two millennia after it sunk.

Its timbers even “look like they were just carved”, according to the gobsmacked research team.

Divers suspected there might be a wreck at the Roman port of Barbir after discovering an antique plank with a metal nail in 2020.

Five years later, the entire 42-foot vessel has now been revealed, along with a haul of ancient coins.

One of them even included the ancient Roman emperor, Trajan.

The incredible shipwreck lies in the village of Sukošan just a few miles south of Zadar, one of Croatia’s biggest tourist destinations.

The International Centre for Underwater Archaeology, which led the excavation, said the ship was likely lost in a storm.

Director Mladen Pešić said: “As the evidence shows us, the ship was docked in the harbour.

“It was found just in front of the pier, so we suppose that due to the bad weather the ropes could be broken and the ship might have hit the shore.”

He added: “Broken stern elements give us evidence of this, since this beam that belongs to the keel was split like it hit a hard surface.

“The ship was probably in such bad condition that the owners decided to leave it on the bottom of the harbour.”

Radiocarbon analysis dates the ship to the first or second century AD – roughly the period of Trajan’s reign.

And though the ship was damaged enough to sink, it is in surprisingly good condition for its age.

Dr Pešić said: “The preserved ship was almost 13 meters in length and 3.5m in width.

“Many different elements were preserved – keel, planks, frames, ceilings, and many elements of the ship’s upper construction.”

He continued: “It is quite well preserved; some of the planks and frames look like they were just carved.”

The construction of the vessel suggests it was built to carry heavy loads over medium-to-long distances.

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And the artefacts found on board point to the same conclusion.

Dr Pešić said there were many shards of “pottery, glass, and other archaeological material” that could be connected with ship and the port.

“Most interesting are two complete jugs that were part of the ship’s equipment,” he explained.

“As we found many olive pits on it, we suppose that at the moment of sinking, the ship was transporting olives for further processing or for sale.”

The ship will now be preserved in-situ, being covered with a protective geotextile membrane and reburied in the sand.

But a recreation of the ship is planned for public display.

Dr Pešić said: “The plan is to make a 1:10 scale reconstruction of the existing ship construction in order to make a predictive model of ship how it looked in Roman times.”

Excavation of the ship was the work of a multinational team, including experts from Croatia, France, Poland, Germany, and the UK.

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A MAN lived with a transplanted pig liver for more than a month in the most successful operation of its kind, scientists say.

The terminally ill 71-year-old received the genetically modified organ in Anhui, China, last year.

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It then functioned normally for 38 days – five weeks – before having to be removed due to blood clotting, a complication from the op.

The patient was the first living person to have the procedure and survived for 171 days, about six months, afterwards.

He had run out of treatment options for liver cancer and scarring caused by hepatitis B, and died from internal bleeding months after the transplant was removed.

His survival is not as long as the record for a patient with a pig’s kidney, at six months and counting.

But it was longer than the previous record for a liver, set by a brain-dead patient whose life support was turned off after 10 days.

Scientists have also experimented with transplanting a lung into a brain-dead patient.

A new era has started

Dr Heiner WedemeyerThe Journal of Hepatology

Surgeon and study author Dr Beicheng Sun, from Anhui Medical University, said: “This case proves that a genetically engineered pig liver can function in a human for an extended period.

“It is a pivotal step forward, demonstrating both the promise and the remaining hurdles.”

Scientists hope that organs from pigs could be used to save people at risk of dying on transplant waiting lists.

They are similar in size to human body parts and gene editing can cut the risk of the immune system rejecting them.

Writing in the Journal of Hepatology, Dr Sun said more experiments are needed to perfect the procedure.

Dr Heiner Wedemeyer, editor of the journal, said: “A new era of transplant has started.”

PORTLAND, Maine — Australian scientists tested the strength of bite-resistant wetsuits by allowing sharks to chomp the materials at sea and found that the suits can help keep swimmers safe.

Fatal shark bites are vanishingly rare, with less than 50 unprovoked shark bites on humans worldwide in 2024, according to the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History. But increased sightings of large sharks in some parts of the world have swimmers, surfers and divers looking for new ways to stay safe.

Scientists with Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, tested four bite-resistant materials and found they all reduced the amount of damage from shark bites. They performed the work by dragging samples of the materials behind boats and allowing white and tiger sharks to bite the samples.

The bites from such large sharks can still cause internal and crushing injuries, but the materials showed effectiveness beyond a standard neoprene wetsuit, the scientists said. The research found that the bite-resistant materials “can reduce injuries sustained from shark encounters,” said Flinders professor Charlie Huveneers, a member of the Southern Shark Ecology Group at Flinders and a study co-author.

“Bite-resistant material do not prevent shark bites, but can reduce injuries from shark bites and can be worn by surfers and divers,” Huveneers said.

There were small differences between the four tested materials, but they all “reduced the amount of substantial and critical damage, which would typically be associated with severe hemorrhaging and tissue or limb loss,” said Tom Clarke, a researcher with the science and engineering college at Flinders and a study co-author.

Chainmail suits to resist shark bites have existed for decades, but lack in flexibility for aquatic activities like surfing and diving, the scientists said in research published in the journal Wildlife Research on Thursday. Newer wetsuits can be designed to provide flexibility as well as protection.

The scientists tested the efficacy of wetsuit materials Aqua Armour, Shark Stop, ActionTX-S and Brewster. The scientists said in their paper that they found that all of the materials “offer an improved level of protection that can reduce severe wounds and blood loss, and should be considered as part of the toolbox and measures available to reduce shark-bite risk and resulting injuries.”

The promise of effective shark resistant wetsuits is encouraging for people who spend a lot of time in areas where there are large sharks, said Nick Whitney, a senior scientist and chair of the Fisheries Science and Emerging Technologies Program at the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life in Boston. That includes surfers and spearfishers, he said.

Whitney, who was not involved in the study, said it’s also encouraging that the materials are unlikely to make a person “feel invincible” and engage in risky behaviors around sharks.

“I also like it because it’s not relying on any impact on the shark’s behavior,” Whitney said. “It’s basically very, very simple. In the extremely rare event that you get bitten by a shark, this material will hopefully make you bleed less than you would if you were not wearing this.”

The researchers said the suits do not eliminate all risks from sharks, and precautions still need to be taken around the animals.

They are hopeful their research will help the public “make appropriate decisions about the suitability of using these products,” Huveneers said.

Whittle writes for the Associated Press.

Meritocracy in the 21st century is fast becoming the new aristocracy. Envisaged as an ideal to counter inequality, it has become one to create, sustain, and justify it. Or is it a new mediocrity? Earlier, meritocracy was practiced as a smokescreen for a system that was rigged. Now mediocrity is being celebrated as a new gospel. We are witnessing the slow death of classics and literature, theories and science.

Thanks to the dominance of multimedia technology, traditional literacy has lost its primacy, and we have become a “post-literate society.” But this retreat is far more serious, as we are retreating from serious reading even in academia. The retreat from reason is another worrying trend. However, the most alarming phenomenon is what Paul R. Goddard, emeritus professor at the University of the West of England, and Angus G. Dagleish of the University of London call “the death of science.”

Data deluge is threatening to end scientific theory and the scientific method. Today, the science industry is driven by greed and ambition. It represses imagination and freedom and destroys novelty and diversity of ideas. Science is now a technocratic specialization. We have long forgotten the philosophy of science.

Martin Lopez Corredoira of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias argues in his book, The Twilight of the Scientific Age, that after centuries of great achievements science is going through “an exhaustion of new forms” and fatigue has “reached our culture in all of its manifestations, including the pure sciences.”

The search for great truths is on the back burner. Some argue that even the Nobel Prizes are being increasingly awarded for speculative hypotheses, rather than concrete discoveries.

Mediocrity is sweeping the world. Lies, calumnies, and specious arguments are no longer the hallmarks of political discourse today; these now characterize scientific endeavors as well. Managers and politicians have taken over where previously the scientists were in charge.

 There is a tendency to abhor experts. Political correctness now dictates what science must produce and at whose benefit. Many scientists and scientific institutions have now become what Paul R. Goddard calls “the high priests of a new religion.”

Trump’s America, many believe, has regressed back to the myth of meritocracy. As Lauren Tucker, honorary research fellow at the School of Mass Communication Research Center, University of Wisconsin, says, Trump’s Cabinet includes “cronies, grifters, sycophants, neophytes, and those whose qualifications begin and end with ‘once praised Trump on Fox News.’””Trump is bringing back affirmative action for the rich, White mediocrity.

President Trump has mounted a concerted effort to undermine federal scientific research, particularly research relating to climate change. The Trump administration has also removed scientific information from regulatory documents. sought to restrict or prevent further climate change research, including by removing and reassigning federal government scientists.

Federal agencies are facing the pressure to reduce spending on scientific research, with the administration proposing deep across-the-board cuts in many budget cycles.

President Joe Biden had vowed to “end the politics and follow the science” when dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. The first Trump administration regularly suppressed, downplayed, or simply ignored scientific research. This regression is by no means confined to the US.

Last year, over 100 scientis­ts in India decried what they described as the government’s “antagonistic stance” to science and evidence-based thinking and its support of “false narratives, unfounded opinions, and a cloak of religiosity to instill adherence to a majoritarian idea of India.”

We are going through a phase of new regression. Cultural critic Neil Postman persuasively argues how technology today has become an institution. It has acquired the power to bend culture to its own agenda. Its worst fallout can be seen in the field of education. Schooling has become what he calls “a trivial pursuit and a mechanical exercise.”

America’s educational decline is most worrisome. The Nation’s Report Card’s 2024 results confirm a long-term crisis in education, with student performance stagnating or declining despite decades of federal spending and education reform initiatives. And it is not as if efforts have not been made to improve the students’ performance. Federal interventions such as No Child Left Behind (2002), Common Core (2010), and the Every Student Succeeds Act (2015) were all designed to improve student academic outcomes.

The maximum damage has been done by the digital media. Lack of critical thinking is the result of the primacy of the visual over textual learning, algorithm-driven echo chambers, and the bite-sized overload. Social media has ensured that we are more likely to read stuff that confirms our views rather than engage with diverse perspectives.Only through serious research can the past’s inconsistencies be accounted for. Today, McLuhan’s “mass man” has become the “algorithmic man.”

What is worrying is the gradual decline, if not collapse, of high-end, problem-solving research. The slow death of literature and the retreat from serious reading mark a cultural crisis, with far-reaching consequences for politics, education, and civic life. Without books and deep reading, society risks becoming shallow, distracted, and dangerously unserious.

If we dispense with ontology and philosophy, our education will not prepare us for the future. From ancient scrolls to modern paperbacks, books have been the vessels carrying humanity’s stories, knowledge, and imagination. These vessels are being suddenly wiped out.

The post-truth world is sliding into an age of “un-enlightenment.” Bill Gates warned in 2017 that “technologies such as social media let you go off with like-minded people, so you’re not mixing and sharing and understanding other points of view.”

Anti-science sneering, conspiracy theories, and a medieval pottage of religious extremism sweeping the world will have far-reaching consequences. The current Prussian school system produces compliant citizens. After several crushing defeats at the hands of Napoleon, Prussian political and military elites believed that independent thinking was the root cause of their defeat.

What would the world be without literature and theories? Literature has long been a mirror reflecting the human experience, allowing us to empathize with others and understand ourselves better. Literature doesn’t just tell stories; it shapes lives.

Science, with its emphasis on observation, hypothesis testing, and empirical evidence, provides a robust framework for understanding the world, challenging existing assumptions and discovering new knowledge. 

There can be no social science without critical theories. The intellectual’s job is to tell the truth. In fact, as Thomas Huxley says, “Science and literature are not two things, but two sides of one thing.”

All said, the way things are, reading books for pleasure will one day be the province of a special “reading class,” much as it was before the arrival of mass literacy in the second half of the nineteenth century.

A new Dark Age has begun if we go by the titles of books like Jane Jacob’s Dark Age Ahead (2004), Morris Berman’s Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire (2011), James Kirchik’s The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age (2017), and James Bridle’s New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future (2018).

THE real ‘Da Vinci Code’ is close to finally being solved after a major scientific breakthrough.

Experts are racing to crack the mystery of DNA, death and burial tied to legendary artist, scientist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci.

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The world was captivated by 2003 novel and 2006 movie The Da Dinvci Code.

It saw Tom Hanks playing a professor looking to uncover a religious mystery around the Holy Grail with clues hidden in Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic painting The Last Supper.

But the real Da Vinci Code that scientists are trying to solve involves mapping out the artist’s genome.

That’s the entire collection of DNA in da Vinci’s body – all of the genetic instructions needed to make and maintain him.

Now scientists say that they’ve confirmed a male bloodline that they can date all the way back to 1331.

This family tree spans 21 generations and involves as many as 400 individuals.

And they’ve found at least six descendants who, after DNA testing, can be traced directly to Leonardo da Vinci, who was born in 1452 in Anchiano, Vinci, Florence and died in 1519.

As part of the research, the scientists have also confirmed the existence of a da Vinci family tomb, in the Church of Santa Croce in Vinci.

The experts think this may be where several of Leonardo da Vinci’s family members are buried.

That includes his grandfather Antonio, uncle Francesco, and half-brothers Antonio, Pandolfo, and Giovanni.

“Further detailed analyses are necessary to determine whether the DNA extracted is sufficiently preserved,” said David Caramelli, of the University of Florence.

“Based on the results, we can proceed with analysis of Y chromosome fragments for comparison with current descendants.”

Now scientists hope to analyse the remains in the Vinci church tombs to find a match with the Y chromosome of the living descendants.

And scientists are also hoping to look for traces left on his original works.

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This could allow scientists to fully reconstruct da Vinci’s DNA.

“Our goal in reconstructing the Da Vinci family’s lineage up to the present day,” said Alessandro Vezzosi, of the Leonardo da Vinci Heritage Association.

“While also preserving and valuing the places connected to Leonardo, is to enable scientific research on his DNA.

“Through the recovery of Leonardo’s DNA, we hope to understand the biological roots of his extraordinary visual acuity, creativity, and possibly even aspects of his health and causes of death.”

Scientists may be able to use this information to confirm da Vinci’s final resting place.

The Renaissance painter was originally said to have been buried in Amboise, France in the Saint Florentin church.

This church was severely damaged during the French Revolution.

And bones believed to belong to him were moved to the Chapel of St Hubert in Amboise.

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But there have been doubts over whether these bones really do belong to da Vinci – a puzzle that could be solved using his DNA.

So scientists are probing what remains of da Vinci in terms of his works and descendants to crack the real code.

“Even a tiny fingerprint on a page could contain cells to sequence,” says Jesse H. Ausubel, of The Rockefeller University, who is director of the DNA project.

“21st-century biology is moving the boundary between the unknowable and the unknown.

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“Soon we may gain information about Leonardo and other historical figures once believed lost forever.”

WASHINGTON — America’s public health system is headed to a “very dangerous place” with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his team of anti-vaccine advisors in charge, fired Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief Susan Monarez warned senators on Wednesday.

Describing extraordinary turmoil inside the nation’s health agencies, Monarez and former CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry described exchanges in which Kennedy or political advisors rebuffed data supporting the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

Monarez, who was fired after just 29 days on the job following disagreements with Kennedy, told senators deadly diseases like polio and whooping cough, long contained, are poised to make a comeback in the U.S.

“I believe preventable diseases will return, and I believe we will have our children harmed by things they don’t need to be harmed by,” Monarez said before the Senate health committee.

Monarez describes her firing by RFK Jr.

Monarez said she was ordered by Kennedy to resign if she did not sign off on new vaccine recommendations, which are expected to be released later this week by an advisory panel that Kennedy has stocked with medical experts and vaccine skeptics. She said that when she asked for data or science to back up Kennedy’s request to change the childhood vaccination schedule, he offered none.

She added that Kennedy told her “he spoke to the president every day about changing the childhood vaccination schedule.”

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician who chairs the powerful health committee, listened intently as Monarez and Houry described conversations with Kennedy and his advisers.

“To be clear, he said there was not science or data, but he still expected you to change schedule?” Cassidy asked.

Cassidy carefully praised President Trump for his commitment to promoting health policies but made it clear he was concerned about the circumstances surrounding Monarez’s removal.

Houry, meanwhile, described similar exchanges with Kennedy’s political advisors, who took an unprecedented role in preparing materials for meetings of the CDC’s advisory vaccine panel.

Ahead of this week’s meeting of the panel, Houry offered to include data around the hepatitis B shot that is administered to newborns to prevent spread of the deadly disease from the mother. She said a Kennedy advisor dismissed the data as biased because it might support keeping the shots on the schedule.

“You’re suggesting that they wanted to move away from the birth dose, but they were afraid that your data would say that they should retain it?” Cassidy asked.

Critical vaccine decisions are ahead

During the Senate hearing, Democrats, all of whom opposed Monarez’s nomination, also questioned Kennedy’s motives for firing Monarez, who was approved for the job unanimously by Republicans.

“Frankly, she stood up for protecting the well-being of the American people, and for that reason she was fired,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats.

Monarez said it was both her refusal to sign off on new vaccination recommendations without scientific evidence and her unwillingness to fire high-ranking career CDC officials without cause that led to her ousting.

Kennedy has denied Monarez’s accusations that he ordered “rubber-stamped” vaccine recommendations but has acknowledged he demanded firings. He has described Monarez as admitting to him that she is “untrustworthy,” a claim Monarez has denied through her attorney.

While Senate Republicans have been mostly loath to challenge Trump or even Kennedy, many of them have expressed concerns about the lack of availability of COVID-19 vaccines and the health department’s decisions to scale back some childhood vaccines.

Others have backed up Kennedy’s distrust of the nation’s health agencies.

Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, a doctor, aggressively questioned Monarez about her “philosophy” on vaccines as she explained that her decisions were based on science. Alabama GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville said Trump was elected to make change and suggested Monarez’s job was to be loyal to Kennedy.

“America needs better than this,” Tuberville said.

The Senate hearing was taking place just a day before the vaccine panel starts its two-day session in Atlanta to discuss shots against COVID-19, hepatitis B and chickenpox. It’s unclear how the panel might vote on the recommendations, though members have raised doubts about whether hepatitis B shots administered to newborns are necessary and have suggested COVID-19 recommendations should be more restricted.

The CDC director must endorse those recommendations before they become official. Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill, now serving as the CDC’s acting director, will be responsible for that.

“I’m very nervous about it,” Monarez said of the meeting.

Seitz and Jalonick write for the Associated Press. AP writers Mike Stobbe in New York and Lauran Neergaard in Washington contributed to this report.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law giving California the power to set its own immunization schedules based on state health experts and independent medical groups — a sharp break from decades of reliance on guidance from the federal government.

The move came the same day that California and its West Coast allies issued joint recommendations for COVID-19, flu and RSV vaccines, part of a regional alliance formed to counter what they say is a politicized U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

“Our states are united in putting science, safety, and transparency first — and in protecting families with clear, credible vaccine guidance,” said the governors of California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii, which make up the West Coast Health Alliance.

The flurry of vaccine actions came as lawmakers and the University of California proposed a $23-billion ballot measure to replace federal research dollars lost to Trump-era cuts, underscoring efforts by Democrats in the state to shield science and public health from shifting federal policies. The measure, if passed by the California Legislature when lawmakers return in January, would go before voters in November 2026.

“The loss of critical federal funding awarded to the University of California presents an unprecedented and perilous moment for the state and its communities,” Theresa Maldonado, UC vice president for research and innovation, said in a statement.

The healthcare clash comes following a wave of COVID cases and as the annual flu season nears. For decades, the CDC has been the nation’s trusted authority on vaccines — setting childhood immunization schedules, guiding which shots adults should receive and shaping state health policies across the country.

Now, at the direction of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Trump ally, the CDC fired top leadership, lost senior scientific advisors and remade its vaccine advisory committee with members who the Associated Press found spread misinformation and conspiracy theories about immunizations.

Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, has defended the shakeup as necessary to create trust and “eliminate politics from science.”

“They deserve the truth and that’s what we’re going to give them for the first time in the history of the agency,” Kennedy told the Senate Finance Committee earlier this month during a contentious hearing.

The overhaul triggered a fierce backlash as more than 1,000 employees at the health agency and national health organizations have called on Kennedy to resign. Some states, however, have embraced the approach — Florida announced plans to become the first state to end all vaccines mandated, including for schoolchildren.

The polarization is taking a toll. A recent KFF poll found Americans are increasingly uncertain about public health guidance and whether new recommendations from the administration will make them more or less safe.

Public health experts say that not only are vaccines crucial for the health of individuals and the community but they also ultimately save money — preventing sickness and the rise in healthcare costs that would accompany widespread disease outbreaks.

The changes in federal vaccine recommendations have been sweeping. The Food and Drug Administration, which falls under Kennedy’s purview, now requires adults 65 and younger and otherwise healthy — who report no underlying health issues — to consult with a healthcare provider before getting the COVID vaccine. Similarly, the CDC requires parents of healthy children to talk to a healthcare provider before their child can receive the COVID vaccine, a barrier the American Academy of Pediatrics called “deeply troubling.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics issued its own COVID vaccine guidance, countering what the CDC recommended, that says all young children 6 months to 23 months should be vaccinated, as well as certain high-risk older children. The group has also said that older children should be offered the vaccine if their parents request it.

The CDC also changed its vaccine schedule from recommending the COVID vaccine to all pregnant women to offering “no guidance” as to whether healthy pregnant women should get the vaccine. In response, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommended that people receive the updated COVID-19 vaccine at any point during their pregnancy.

California said it too will reject CDC guidance, starting with the recommendations released Wednesday from the West Coast Health Alliance. Those recommendations were developed by health officers and subject matter experts from each state, who considered guidelines from medical organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Academy of Family Physicians.

The COVID-19 vaccine recommendations from the West Coast Health Alliance include vaccinating all children 6 months to 23 months and those 2 years old to 64 years old with risk factors. The alliance also recommended all pregnant and postpartum women or those planning to become pregnant to be vaccinated.

The alliance recommended children 6 months and older and all adults and pregnant women to receive the flu shot. For the RSV vaccine, the alliance recommends it for children younger than 8 months, as well as anyone 75 years or older. The alliance recommends the RSV vaccine for all other ages if a person has risk factors.

“We want the people who live and work in our states to know that there is a strong public health, healthcare and scientific community that will continue to stand together to provide and use the data and evidence needed for you to make healthy choices, and we are here to protect our communities,” said Dr. Erica Pan, director of the California Department of Public Health, in a statement.

This is the story of two Republican doctor-senators named Bill.

One of them, as majority leader from 2003 to 2007, helped a self-described “compassionate conservative” Republican president pass a Medicare prescription drug plan and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), “the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease in history.”

The other, as a member of the Senate Finance Committee, voted to send Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination as secretary of Health and Human Services to the Senate floor. It was a 14-13 vote, so his was a crucial “aye” that allowed a conspiracy theorist, disinformation spreader and anti-vaxxer to become the top public health official in America. He already has defunded world-changing mRNA vaccine research, imposed major restrictions on access to COVID vaccines amid a surging variant of the virus and triggered a crisis at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The firewall between science and ideology is completely broken down,” Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” He was part of the shocking CDC leadership exodus last week after the Trump administration forced out CDC Director Susan Monarez.

The trajectory from heart and lung transplant surgeon Bill Frist of Tennessee to gastroenterologist Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is emblematic of the dark Republican Party journey on science and health — from the Bush family to the Trump family, from American greatness to self-defeating denialism on everything from vaccines to cancer research.

There are four doctors in the Senate: Cassidy, orthopedic surgeon John Barrasso of Wyoming, obstetrician-gynecologist Roger Marshall of Kansas and ophthalmologist Rand Paul of Kentucky. All are Republicans and all voted in February to confirm Kennedy.

Eleven of the 17 medical doctors in the House are Republicans, and all of them voted for the nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts in the vast tax-and-spending law that Trump signed on July 4. So did the four dentists in the House, all of them Republicans. The American Dental Assn. endorsed three of them. The fourth is Arizona’s Paul Gosar, a top competitor with Kennedy in the medical disinformation space whose siblings have made ads urging voters to reject him.

Frist was the only doctor in the Senate when he served. After leaving the Senate in early 2007, he joined the Bipartisan Policy Center, where he is a senior fellow and co-chair of its Health Project. He has been on the board of directors of the Nature Conservancy since 2015, and was elected to a three-year term as global board chair in 2022.

Frist has sharply criticized the Medicaid cuts passed into law this year, saying they threaten rural hospitals and public health. Last spring, accepting a 2025 Earth Award from Time Magazine, he said climate health is crucial to human health, and he urged a personal approach to raise American awareness. He often describes his environmental and health missions as inseparable. “Planetary health is human health. Let’s lead with science, unity, and urgency,” he posted on X on Earth Day.

Good luck with that, at least in the short term. The same new law that cuts Medicaid also cuts funds for renewable energy projects and incentives, with conservationists predicting more pollution, fewer jobs and higher energy costs as a result. Only three Republican senators bucked the party tide on that bill, and Paul was the only doctor among them. His breaking point was a provision raising the U.S. debt limit to $5 trillion — not Medicaid or clean energy cuts affecting health.

Cassidy, of course, voted for it. And when Monarez found herself in Kennedy’s crosshairs over vaccines, Cassidy privately intervened for her, which backfired. Now, having failed to spare America this nightmare when he could have, the senator is threatening “oversight” by the health committee he chairs and trying to get a Sept. 18 meeting of unqualified Kennedy-appointed vaccine “advisors” postponed.

This is thin gruel, especially from a doctor once committed to public health and science writ large. Cassidy co-founded a clinic that gave free dental and medical care to the working uninsured, his website says, and created a public-private partnership that vaccinated 36,000 children for hepatitis at no cost to their families. During the Biden presidency, he voted for bipartisan gun safety and infrastructure bills and the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act to bolster the U.S. semiconductor industry. He was also one of five Republicans voting for a small-business COVID relief bill.

Even more notably, in the Senate impeachment trial after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, Cassidy voted to convict Trump of “incitement of insurrection.” “Our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person. I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty,” he said then. The Louisiana Republican Party censured him the same day.

Now running for his third term, Cassidy is already facing primary challengers who don’t have that baggage. They include state Treasurer John Fleming, a former congressman who worked for Trump in the White House, and public service commissioner Eric Skrmetta, who chaired all three of Trump’s presidential campaigns in Louisiana.

Fleming has said Cassidy’s vote to convict Trump failed the people of Louisiana. And that’s the problem with today’s Republican Party. The truth is that since that brave vote, Cassidy has failed all Americans. He has also assured that his legacy will be the wreckage of our once world-class public health and medical research programs.

On the other side, there is the 314 Action group that is recruiting and funding Democratic doctors and other Democratic scientists to run for office. It’s an openly partisan operation, right up to a snarky-ish all-caps X post about its $1-million commitment to California’s fight to neutralize the five new House seats Texas is trying to add. What else can you do when the other major party, even its medical professionals, is leading, aiding and abetting in the GOP war on science?

“If @SenBillCassidy had a spine, a known anti-vax conspiracy theorist wouldn’t be destroying our public health,” the group posted last Wednesday on X. “He had an opportunity to thwart the confirmation of RFK Jr.,” 314 Action president and founder Shaughnessy Naughton told me in a recent interview. “Instead he chose to go down a different path and go against what his life experience and professional training told him was a dangerous nominee to lead our health services. And he did it anyway. … That is shameful.”

In February, before Kennedy was confirmed, the conservative New York Times columnist Bret Stephens rated him “worst nominee in U.S. Cabinet history.” And then Stephens suggested the person he preferred for the job: Bill Frist.

Jill Lawrence is an opinion writer and author of “The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock.” @jilldlawrence.bsky.social

California, Oregon and Washington are joining forces to insulate vaccine guidance and other public health recommendations from political interference, a direct response to turmoil at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under President Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Govs. Gavin Newsom of California, Tina Kotek of Oregon and Bob Ferguson of Washington announced Wednesday the creation of the West Coast Health Alliance, a pact that aims to keep their states’ health policies unified and grounded in scientific expertise. The move comes as the nation’s top public health agency is being reshaped by Kennedy and his vaccine-skeptic allies, with key leadership fired and the agency in turmoil.

“President Trump’s mass firing of CDC doctors and scientists — and his blatant politicization of the agency — is a direct assault on the health and safety of the American people,” the three governors said in a joint statement. “The CDC has become a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science, ideology that will lead to severe health consequences. California, Oregon, and Washington will not allow the people of our states to be put at risk.”

In June, the three states issued a joint statement condemning Kennedy’s decision to remove all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Among the replacements named by Kennedy are appointees who spread vaccine misinformation and relayed conspiracy theories during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Associated Press.

Kennedy said the change would improve public trust by ensuring members of the committee didn’t have “any specific pro- or anti-vaccine agenda.”

Kennedy has warned that more turnover could be coming at the agency.

In the announcement for the newly formed West Coast Health Alliance, the states said the focus would be on providing evidence-based recommendations about who should receive immunizations while ensuring the public has access to credible information about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. The alliance will share immunization recommendations, but each state will also pursue independent strategies based on “unique laws, geographies, histories, and peoples.”

Dr. Erica Pan, director of the California Department of Public Health and the state health officer, said it’s imperative that California stand with medical professionals.

“The dismantling of public health and dismissal of experienced and respected health leaders and advisors, along with the lack of using science, data, and evidence to improve our nation’s health are placing lives at risk,” Pan said in a statement.

SCIENTISTS have discovered that a “punk rocker” dinosaur had metre-long spikes pointing out of its neck to protect it from predators.

The discovery came as analysis of fossils of the Spicomellus – the world’s oldest ankylosaur – was conducted by researchers, uncovering its elaborate armour.

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The Spicomellus, referred to as one of the “strangest dinosaurs” to have ever lived, roamed the Earth around 165 million years ago and had bony spikes fused onto all of its ribs.

This ultra-rare feature has never been seen before in any other vertebrate species, living or extinct, according to scientists.

Ankylosaurs were a herbivorous group of dinosaurs known for their armoured, tank-like bodies and a club-shaped tail tip.

A team of palaeontologists recently discovered remains, helping to build on the original description of the animal, which was based on just one rib bone found near the town of Boulemane in Morocco, which was sold on to a researcher in 2019.

The new fossils revealed the dinosaur had spikes measuring 87 centimetres emerging from a bony collar around its neck.

These could have been even longer during the life of the Spicomellus, according to the research published in science journal Nature.

Professor Richard Butler, from the University of Birmingham and project co-lead, described the fossils as an “incredibly significant discovery.”

He said: “Spicomellus is one of the strangest dinosaurs that we’ve ever discovered.

“It’s utterly unlike any other found anywhere else in the world.

“I think it’s going to really capture the imagination of people around the world, and tell us a lot about the early evolution of the tank-like ankylosaurs.”

He also told the BBC that the dino was the “punk rocker” of its time, alluding to its spiky looks which resemble loyal punk rock fans who may don spiky hair.

Professor Susannah Maidment of Natural History Museum, London, and the University of Birmingham, who co-led the team of researchers said the “absolutely bizarre” fossils were changing how scientists believe the armoured dinosaurs evolved.

She said: “When we originally named spicomellus, there were doubts that it was an ankylosaur at all.

“Now, not only can we confirm beyond a doubt that this interpretation was correct, but Africa’s only known ankylosaur is far weirder than anyone imagined.”

She added: “Spicomellus had a diversity of plates and spikes extending from all over its body, including metre-long neck spikes, huge upwards-projecting spikes over the hips, and a whole range of long, blade-like spikes, pieces of armour made up of two long spikes, and plates down the shoulder.

“We’ve never seen anything like this in any animal before.”

Professor Maidment said that while it is likely the armour evolved initially for defence purposes, it was probably used later to attract mates and show off to rivals.

The discovery of the spicomellus species was made after Professor Maidment acquired a rib bone from a fossil dealer in Cambridge in 2019.

This comes after a new species of dog-sized dinosaurs was discovered.

The Maleriraptor kuttyi is thought to be one of the earliest killer dinosaurs in history.

The now-extinct dinosaur is believed to have lived some 220 million years ago – during the Triassic period.

The small but mighty beast could grow to a height of 3.2 feet and a length of 6.5 feet – about the size of a large-breed dog such as a Great Dane.

And the creature was one of the earliest known carnivorous dinosaurs, along with the rest of the Herrerasauria family.

Dr. Martín Ezcurra from the Argentina’s Natural Science museum said: “Herrerasaurs represent the oldest radiation of predatory dinosaurs.”

The fossilised dinosaur bones were discovered more than in Telangana, India, forty years ago.

But only now have scientists identified exactly what species these bones belonged to.

Herrerasauria fossils were previously found in South and North America.

But the new bombshell discovery has proved that the creatures roamed far more of the Earth than previously thought.

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Aug. 18 (UPI) — Argentina’s scientific expedition “Talud Continental IV,” which live-streamed the Mar del Plata submarine canyon using the remotely operated vehicle SuBastian, became a cultural phenomenon.

The recently completed mission averaged 500,000 viewers per broadcast and drew more than 17.5 million views in three weeks.

The mission, led by scientists from Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (Conicet) in collaboration with the Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcased the potential of Argentine science on the international stage.

However, that success contrasts sharply with the difficult situation facing scientific research in Argentina.

The country’s science and technology budget has dropped to 0.156% of gross domestic product, its lowest level since 2002, according to a July report from the EPC, a group of researchers, analysts and consultants specializing in science, technology and innovation policy.

The sector’s share of GDP fell 48% compared to 2023. Spending in the first half of 2025 was down 19% from the same period in 2024, marking a decline of more than 40% in two years.

This is the lowest level recorded since 2002, when the country was in the midst of one of its worst economic crises.

Although the figure stood at 0.30% of GDP when President Javier Milei took office, severe cuts to science and technology have been made over the past two years as part of broader austerity measures to fund social programs.

The Ministry of Science was downgraded to a secretariat, while major research agencies faced steep reductions. Conicet lost 41% of its funding compared with 2024, the I+D+I Agency saw its budget cut by 67%, the National Institute of Industrial Technology fell 46%, the National Institute of Agricultural Technology lost 39.6%, the National Commission on Space Activities dropped 40%, and the National Genetic Data Bank saw its resources reduced by 50.4%.

The adjustment marks an unprecedented cut in government investment in science. In 2024, the state financed 59.5% of the country’s research and development, while private companies contributed just 20.7% and universities 1.2%.

In research and development specifically, 61% of funding came from public agencies and universities.

The government, however, has prioritized other areas it considers key to development, including agribusiness, energy and mining, the knowledge economy and innovation, and health, while sidelining programs tied to climate change, the environment and social sciences.

The effects are already visible: insufficient resources for research, lack of equipment and supplies, suspended contracts, wage cuts and a growing brain drain of Argentine scientists abroad.

The effect on scientific employment is clear. An estimated 4,148 jobs have been lost in Argentina’s National Science, Technology and Innovation System, a third of them at Conicet, which now has only 11,868 researchers.

For Guillermo Durán, dean of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires, the problem goes beyond economics.

“There is a political decision to dismantle Argentina’s science and technology system and the high-quality public university system that has always set us apart as a country,” he said. His faculty lost 13% of its teaching staff in 2024 due to budget cuts and salary reductions.

“These people decided to end a series of very good programs for Argentina. The damage they are causing could take many years to recover from,” Durán warned.

Agustín Campero, president of the Alem Foundation and former secretary of Scientific and Technological Articulation under President Mauricio Macri, agreed on the seriousness of the situation.

“It is dire and will have severe consequences for Argentina’s development,” he said.

The Science System Financing Law, approved by Congress in 2021, set a schedule for the gradual growth of state investment in science and technology to reach 1% of GDP by 2032. That is what the scientific community and universities are now demanding.

The first World Humanoid Robot Games have concluded in Beijing with more than 500 androids alternating between jerky tumbles and glimpses of real power as they took part in events ranging from the 100m (109-yard) hurdles to kung fu.

Two hundred eighty robotics teams from 16 countries competed at the Chinese capital’s National Speed Skating Oval, built for the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Events included traditional sports such as athletics and basketball as well as practical tasks such as medicine categorisation and cleaning.

“I believe in the next 10 years or so, robots will be basically at the same level as humans,” 18-year-old spectator Chen Ruiyuan said.

Human athletes might not be quaking in their boots just yet.

At one of the first events on Friday, five-a-side football, 10 robots the size of seven-year-olds shuffled around the pitch, often getting stuck in a scrum or falling over en masse.

However, in a 1,500m (nearly 1-mile) race, domestic champion Unitree’s humanoid stomped along the track at an impressive clip, easily outpacing its rivals.

The fastest robot finished in six minutes, 29.37 seconds, a far cry from the human men’s world record of 3:26.00.

One mechanical racer barrelled straight into a human operator. The robot remained standing while the human was knocked flat although did not appear to be injured.

Robot competitions have been held for decades, but the 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games is the first to focus specifically on robots that resemble human bodies, organisers said.

The Chinese government has poured support into robotics, hoping to lead the industry.

Beijing has put humanoids at the “centre of their national strategy”, the International Federation of Robotics wrote in a paper released on Thursday.

“The government wants to showcase its competence and global competitiveness in this field of technology,” it added.

In March, China announced plans for a one-trillion-yuan ($139bn) fund to support technology start-ups, including those in robotics and artificial intelligence.

The country is already the world’s largest market for industrial robots, official statistics showed, and in April, Beijing held what organisers called the world’s first humanoid robot half-marathon.

The Trump administration has frozen hundreds of science, medical and other federal grants to UCLA worth nearly $200 million, citing the university’s alleged “discrimination” in admissions and failure to “promote a research environment free of antisemitism.”

The decision to pull funding comes after Atty. Gen.Pam Bondi and the Justice Department said this week that UCLA would pay a “heavy price” for acting with “deliberate indifference” to the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli students who complained of antisemitic incidents since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza and campus protests the events spurred last year.

The cancellation of grants is the first large-scale targeted funding claw-back against UCLA under the Trump administration. Until now, the White House has largely focused its attempts to remake higher education on elite East Coast schools such as Columbia, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania. Each has reached deals with the government in recent weeks over issues including admissions, Jewish student life, student discipline, antisemitism training and gender identity in sports.

In a letter to UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk dated Wednesday, the National Science Foundation wrote that it was terminating grants because “the University of California – Los Angeles continues to engage in race discrimination including in its admissions process, and in other areas of student life.”

An estimated 300 NSF grants totaling $180 million have been canceled. About half of the funds were already distributed. Before the letter was released Thursday, researchers were expecting the other half to follow.

In a letter to the university community Thursday, Frenk wrote that the canceled grants are from NSF, NIH and other federal agencies, but he did not give a dollar amount or list the other agencies. A partial list of terminated grants reviewed by The Times added up to roughly $200 million. The list was provided by a source who was not authorized to share the information.

Frenk called the government’s decision “deeply disappointing” and “a loss for Americans across the nation whose work, health, and future depend on the groundbreaking work we do.”

“In its notice to us, the federal government claims antisemitism and bias as the reasons,” Frenk wrote. “This far-reaching penalty of defunding life-saving research does nothing to address any alleged discrimination.”

Spokespersons for the NSF and NIH did not immediately reply to requests for comment Thursday.

The federal government’s decision to cut UCLA off from significant federal funds follows a similar playbook to its dealings with Ivy League institutions.

The Trump administration this spring canceled billions of dollars in federal grants to Harvard, which has sued in federal court to reverse the terminations and stop a Trump move to rescind its ability to host international students. Harvard is separately in negotiations with the White House to end the legal fight.

Columbia University this month agreed to pay more than $200 million to the federal government to resolve investigations over alleged antisemitism amid its response to 2024 pro-Palestinian protests. On Wednesday, Brown University also came to a $50-million agreement with the White House. The Brown payment will go toward Rhode Island workforce development programs.

The Department of Justice said this week that it had found UCLA guilty of violating the civil rights of Jewish and Israeli students. The department also indicated that it wanted to the university to enter into negotiations to avoid a federal lawsuit.

The department gave UCLA a Tuesday deadline to communicate its desire to negotiate. If not, the DOJ said, it was ready to sue by Sept. 2.

The University of California, in a statement, was unclear on whether it would settle or go to court.

“UCLA has addressed and will continue to address the issues raised in [the] Department of Justice notice,” Stett Holbrook, associate director of Strategic and Critical Communications, wrote in a statement Wednesday. He cited a $6.45-million settlement the university reached with Jewish students who had sued over claims that the 2024 encampment had discriminated against them.

“We have cooperated fully with the Department of Justice’s investigation and are reviewing its findings closely,” Holbrook wrote.

In his Thursday letter, Frenk shot back against the cuts.

“Let me be clear: Federal research grants are not handouts. Our researchers compete fiercely for these grants, proposing work that the government itself deems vital to the country’s health, safety and economic future,” he wrote.

“Grants lead to medical breakthroughs, economic advancement, improved national security and global competitiveness — these are national priorities,” Frenk wrote, adding that “we are actively evaluating our best course of action. We will be in constant communication as decisions move forward.”

An estimated 650 companies from 60 countries have gathered at the China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has called China’s open-source artificial intelligence a “catalyst for global progress” and says it is “revolutionising” supply chains.

In a speech during Wednesday’s opening ceremony of the China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing, Huang – whose firm last week became the first to touch $4 trillion in market value – hailed China’s role in pioneering AI, describing Chinese AI startup DeepSeek as “giving every country and industry a chance to join the AI revolution”.

Huang made the comments a day after Nvidia announced it will resume sales of its H20 AI chips to China after the United States government pledged to remove licensing restrictions that had halted exports.

“AI is transforming every industry from scientific research and healthcare to energy, transportation and logistics,” said Huang, who also praised China’s “super-fast” innovation, powered by its “researchers, developers and entrepreneurs”.

The California-based company produces some of the world’s most advanced semiconductors but cannot ship its most cutting-edge chips to China due to Washington’s concerns that Beijing could use them to enhance its military capabilities.

Nvidia developed the H20 – a less powerful version of its AI processing units – specifically for export to China. However, that plan stalled when US President Donald Trump’s administration tightened export licensing requirements in April.

“Huang says he’s now free to sell to the Chinese market thanks to negotiations with China on trade,” Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu said, reporting from Beijing. “The Trump administration has confirmed that in exchange for rare earths, it will allow the chip to now be sold into China.”

“The US government has assured Nvidia that licenses will be granted, and Nvidia hopes to start deliveries soon,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that it was “filing applications to sell the Nvidia H20 GPU again”.

Nvidia has also announced it is developing a new chip for Chinese clients called the RTX Pro GPU, which would also be compliant with US export restrictions.

The announcement from Nvidia boosted tech firm stocks around the world with Wall Street’s Nasdaq Composite index rising to another record high and stocks in Hong Kong also rallying.

The tightened US export curbs were imposed as China’s economy wavers. Domestic consumers are reluctant to spend, and a prolonged property sector crisis is weighing on growth.

President Xi Jinping has called for greater self-reliance in the face of increasing external uncertainty.

“China is really fashioning itself as a champion for free trade and this global supply chain expo is about positioning China as a crucial part of that global logistic infrastructure,” Yu said. “Beijing is trying to make a statement, and that statement is unlike the Trump administration would have the world believe – China is not replaceable” as evidenced by the roughly 650 companies from 60 countries represented at the expo.

When AI data centers come to town, companies promise jobs and opportunities. In one drought-stricken community in Brazil, residents are weighing the choices. How do communities balance the economic boost and environmental cost of hosting water-reliant data centers?

WASHINGTON, July 1 (UPI) — The Trump administration has quietly shut down a major federal website that hosted congressionally mandated national climate assessments, which were the U.S. government’s preeminent reports on climate change impacts, risks and responses.

The disappearance Monday of the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s website marked an unexpected loss in public access to the most crucial source for climate-related science.

Also missing was access to previous National Climate Assessments, which are robust scientific evaluations used by lawmakers, scientists and the public to understand and mitigate climate change trends.

Climate scientists condemned the missing access to the vital climate science information, which offered guidance to communities on the climate risks they face, as well as how to plan for and safeguard residents from climate-related disasters like floods and wildfires.

Rachel Brittin, the former deputy director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s external affairs office, said the removal of the website “silences scientists” and “blinds decision-makers.”

“Americans deserve facts — not censorship — when it comes to preparing for a changing world,” Brittin, who served during the current Trump administration, said in a statement to Medill News Service.

Patrick Gonzalez, a climate change scientist at UC Berkeley and co-author of the third and fourth National Climate Assessments, criticized the Trump administration for “suppressing the science of human-caused climate change because they are afraid of the facts, which disprove their erroneous opinions.”

None of the five previous iterations of the assessment was available through the Global Change Research Program website as of Tuesday afternoon. Clicking on the 2023 Fifth National Climate Assessment produced an error message.

Archived versions of the assessments were buried deep in the Environmental Protection Agency website, but only via the agency’s search engine. They also could also be accessed through the Wayback Machine, a non-profit Internet archive.

Some climate scientists downloaded copies of past assessments and uploaded them to their own websites after the site went dark.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment concerning whether the assessments would be available again online.

In 1990, Congress passed the Global Change Research Act, which mandated the federal government to create the Global Change Research Program and require a report every four years on the current state of global climate change.

The National Climate Assessment qualified as a Highly Influential Scientific Assessment, which Congress mandated in 2005 be publicly accessible.

President Donald Trump targeted the Global Change Research Program in the past. Trump removed Michael Kuperberg, the former executive director of the program, from the position in November 2020.

Former President Joe Biden reinstated Kuperberg as head of the program in July 2021, where he oversaw the fourth and fifth editions of the National Climate Assessment.

In April, scientists working on the Sixth National Climate Assessment were relieved from their duties. In the dismissal email, the administration said “the scope of the [National Climate Assessment] is currently being re-evaluated.”

On June 23, the Trump administration released a memorandum directing federal agencies to incorporate “Gold Standard Science” tenets into their research. In an executive order in May, Trump decreed that science must be “reproducible” and “skeptical of its findings and assumptions,” among other descriptors.

The administration referenced the memorandum to justify deleting climate.gov, another high-traffic federal website for climate change information. Climate.gov redirected users to the NOAA website as of June 24.

In the same executive order, Trump said previous administrations “promoted scientific information in a highly misleading manner.”

The executive order also said that federal decision-making under this standard would use the “most credible, reliable and impartial scientific evidence available.”

Researchers at Stanford University recently tested out some of the more popular AI tools on the market, from companies like OpenAI and Character.ai, and tested how they did at simulating therapy.

The researchers found that when they imitated someone who had suicidal intentions, these tools were more than unhelpful — they failed to notice they were helping that person plan their own death.

“[AI] systems are being used as companions, thought-partners, confidants, coaches, and therapists,” says Nicholas Haber, an assistant professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and senior author of the new study. “These aren’t niche uses – this is happening at scale.”

AI is becoming more and more ingrained in people’s lives and is being deployed in scientific research in areas as wide-ranging as cancer and climate change. There is also some debate that it could cause the end of humanity.

As this technology continues to be adopted for different purposes, a major question that remains is how it will begin to affect the human mind. People regularly interacting with AI is such a new phenomena that there has not been enough time for scientists to thoroughly study how it might be affecting human psychology. Psychology experts, however, have many concerns about its potential impact.

One concerning instance of how this is playing out can be seen on the popular community network Reddit. According to 404 Media, some users have been banned from an AI-focused subreddit recently because they have started to believe that AI is god-like or that it is making them god-like.

“This looks like someone with issues with cognitive functioning or delusional tendencies associated with mania or schizophrenia interacting with large language models,” says Johannes Eichstaedt, an assistant professor in psychology at Stanford University. “With schizophrenia, people might make absurd statements about the world, and these LLMs are a little too sycophantic. You have these confirmatory interactions between psychopathology and large language models.”

Because the developers of these AI tools want people to enjoy using them and continue to use them, they’ve been programmed in a way that makes them tend to agree with the user. While these tools might correct some factual mistakes the user might make, they try to present as friendly and affirming. This can be problematic if the person using the tool is spiralling or going down a rabbit hole.

“It can fuel thoughts that are not accurate or not based in reality,” says Regan Gurung, social psychologist at Oregon State University. “The problem with AI — these large language models that are mirroring human talk — is that they’re reinforcing. They give people what the programme thinks should follow next. That’s where it gets problematic.”

As with social media, AI may also make matters worse for people suffering from common mental health issues like anxiety or depression. This may become even more apparent as AI continues to become more integrated in different aspects of our lives.

“If you’re coming to an interaction with mental health concerns, then you might find that those concerns will actually be accelerated,” says Stephen Aguilar, an associate professor of education at the University of Southern California.

Need for more research

There’s also the issue of how AI could impact learning or memory. A student who uses AI to write every paper for school is not going to learn as much as one that does not. However, even using AI lightly could reduce some information retention, and using AI for daily activities could reduce how much people are aware of what they’re doing in a given moment.

“What we are seeing is there is the possibility that people can become cognitively lazy,” Aguilar says. “If you ask a question and get an answer, your next step should be to interrogate that answer, but that additional step often isn’t taken. You get an atrophy of critical thinking.”

Lots of people use Google Maps to get around their town or city. Many have found that it has made them less aware of where they’re going or how to get there compared to when they had to pay close attention to their route. Similar issues could arise for people with AI being used so often.

The experts studying these effects say more research is needed to address these concerns. Eichstaedt said psychology experts should start doing this kind of research now, before AI starts doing harm in unexpected ways so that people can be prepared and try to address each concern that arises. People also need to be educated on what AI can do well and what it cannot do well.

“We need more research,” says Aguilar. “And everyone should have a working understanding of what large language models are.”

When it comes to vaccines, virtually nothing that comes out of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s mouth is true.

The man in charge of the nation’s health and well being is impervious to science, expertise and knowledge. His brand of arrogance is not just dangerous, it is lethal. Undermining trust in vaccines, he will have the blood of children around the world on his hands.

Scratch that.

He already does, as he presides over the second largest measles outbreak in this country since the disease was declared “eliminated” a quarter century ago.

“Vaccines have become a divisive issue in American politics,” Kennedy wrote the other day in a Wall Street Journal essay, “but there is one thing all parties can agree on: The U.S. faces a crisis of public trust.”

The lack of self-awareness would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.

Over the past two decades or so, Kennedy has done more than almost any other American to destroy the public’s trust in vaccines and science. And now he’s bemoaning the very thing he has helped cause.

Earlier this month, Kennedy fired the 17 medical and public health experts of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — qualified doctors and public health experts — and replaced them with a group of (mostly) anti-vaxxers in order to pursue his relentless, ascientific crusade.

On Thursday, at its first meeting, his newly reconstituted council voted to ban the preservative thimerosal from the few remaining vaccines that contain it, despite many studies showing that thimerosal is safe. On that point, even the Food and Drug Administration website is blunt: “A robust body of peer-reviewed scientific studies conducted in the U.S. and other countries support the safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines.”

“If you searched the world wide, you could not find a less suitable person to be leading healthcare efforts in the United States or the world,” psychiatrist Allen Frances told NPR on Thursday. Frances, who chaired the task force that changed how the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, defines autism, published an essay in the New York Times on Monday explaining why the incidence of autism has increased but is neither an epidemic nor related to vaccines.

“The rapid rise in autism cases is not because of vaccines or environmental toxins,” Frances wrote, “but is rather the result of changes in the way that autism is defined and assessed — changes that I helped put into place.”

But Kennedy is not one to let the facts stand in the way of his cockamamie theories. Manufacturers long ago removed thimerosal from childhood vaccines because of unfounded fears it contained mercury that could accumulate in the brain and unfounded fears about a relationship between mercury and autism.

That did not stop one of Kennedy’s new council members, Lyn Redwood, who once led Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group founded by Kennedy, from declaring a victory for children.

“Removing a known neurotoxin from being injected into our most vulnerable population is a good place to start with making America healthy again,” Redwood told the committee.

Autism rates, by the way, have continued to climb despite the thimerosal ban. But fear not, gullible Americans, Kennedy has promised to pinpoint a cause for the complex condition by September!

Like his boss, Kennedy just makes stuff up.

On Wednesday, he halted a $1-billion American commitment to Gavi, an organization that provides vaccines to millions of children around the world, wrongly accusing the group of failing to investigate adverse reactions to the diptheria vaccine.

“This is utterly disastrous for children around the world and for public health,” Atul Gawande, a surgeon who worked in the Biden administration, told the New York Times.

Unilaterally, and contrary to the evidence, Kennedy decided to abandon the CDC recommendation that healthy pregnant women receive COVID vaccines. But an unvaccinated pregnant woman’s COVID infection can lead to serious health problems for her newborn. In fact, a study last year found that babies born to such mothers had “unusually high rates” of respiratory distress at or just after birth. According to the CDC, nearly 90% of babies who were hospitalized for COVID-19 had unvaccinated mothers. Also, vaccinated moms can pass protective antibodies to their fetuses, who will not be able to get a COVID shot until they are 6 months old.

What else? Oh yes: Kennedy once told podcaster Joe Rogan that the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic was “vaccine-induced flu” even though no flu vaccine existed at the time.

He also told Rogan that a 2003 study by physician scientist Michael Pichichero, an expert on the use of thimerosal in vaccines, involved feeding babies 6 months old and younger mercury-contaminated tuna sandwiches, and that 64 days later, the mercury was still in their system. “Who would do that?” Kennedy demanded.

Well, no one.

In the study, 40 babies were injected with vaccines containing thimerosal, while a control group of 21 babies got shots that did not contain the preservative. None was fed tuna. Ethylmercury, the form of mercury in thimerosal, the researchers concluded, “seems to be eliminated from blood rapidly via the stools.” (BTW, the mercury found in fish is methylmercury, a different chemical, which can damage the brain and nervous system. In a 2012 deposition for his divorce, which was revealed last year, Kennedy said he suffered memory loss and brain fog from mercury poisoning caused by eating too much tuna fish. He also revealed he has a dead worm in his brain.)

Kennedy’s tuna sandwich anecdote on Rogan’s podcast was “a ChatGPT-level of hallucination,” said Morgan McSweeney, a.k.a. “Dr. Noc,” a scientist with a doctorate in pharmaceutical sciences, focusing on immunology and antibodies. McSweeney debunks the idiotic medical claims of non-scientists like Kennedy in his popular social media videos.

Speaking of AI hallucinations, on Tuesday, at a congressional committee hearing, Kennedy was questioned about inaccuracies, misinformation and made up research and citations for nonexistent studies in the first report from his Make America Healthy Again Commission.

The report focused on how American children are being harmed by their poor diets, exposure to environmental toxins and, predictably, over-vaccination. It was immediately savaged by experts. “This is not an evidence-based report, and for all practical purposes, it should be junked at this point,” Georges C. Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Assn. told the Washington Post.

If Kennedy was sincere about improving the health of American children he would focus on combating real scourges like gun violence, drug overdoses, depression, poverty and lack of access to preventive healthcare. He would be fighting the proposed cuts to Medicaid tooth and nail.

Do you suppose he even knows that over the past 50 years, the lives of an estimated 154 million children have been saved by vaccines?

Or that he cares?

@rabcarian.bsky.social
@rabcarian

New Delhi, India – Getting into one of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) schools was supposed to be the end of the financial woes for Paras* and his family. Instead, things have only worsened due to the federal government’s long delays in dispensing Paras’s monthly fellowship allowance of 37,000 rupees ($435).

At the IIT, Paras is a research fellow, looking into solutions to a global public health crisis created by the spread of infectious diseases. His fellowship comes from the INSPIRE scheme, funded by India’s Department of Science and Technology (DST).

But delays in the scheme’s payment have meant that Paras was not able to pay the instalments on the laptop he bought for his research in 2022. His credit score plummeted, and his savings plans crashed.

Paras’s parents are farmers in a drought-affected region of western India, and their income depends on a harvest that often fails. So, he has resorted to borrowing money from friends, including as recently as between August and December, he told Al Jazeera.

Paras is not alone. Al Jazeera spoke to nearly a dozen current and former fellows enrolled in top institutes across India under the Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) programme. The interviewees studied at institutions such as the IIT, a network of engineering and technology schools across the country, and the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, another network.

All had gone from three to as long as nine months without a stipend.

The funding delays and procedural lapses have marred the fellowship and impaired their research capacity, they said.

Many researchers recently took to social media to complain, tagging Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Minister of Science and Technology Jitendra Singh.

“For over a year now, many of us who are pursuing PhDs under DST-funded fellowships have not received our stipends,” Sayali Atkare, an INSPIRE fellow, wrote on LinkedIn. “This has pushed many young researchers into severe financial and emotional stress.”

Last year, India ranked 39th in the Global Innovation Index of 133 countries, up one spot from the year prior. It leads lower-middle-income countries like Vietnam and the Philippines in innovation. China leads upper-middle-income countries and is followed by Malaysia and Turkiye.

The federal government termed the ranking an “impressive leap” in a news release. It said that India’s “growing innovation potential has been supported by government initiatives that prioritise technological advancement, ease of doing business, and entrepreneurship”.

At a federal government conference in April, Modi boasted of India’s growing research acumen. Under his leadership in the past decade, the government has doubled its gross spending on research and development from 600 billion rupees ($7.05bn) to more than 1,250 billion rupees ($14.7bn), while the number of patents filed has more than doubled – from 40,000 to more than 80,000.

The numerous steps taken by the government – like doubling of expenditure on R&D (research and development), doubling of patents filed in India, creation of state-of-the-art research parks and research fellowships and facilities – ensure “that talented individuals face no obstacles in advancing their careers”, Modi said.>

However, an analysis of government documents, budgets and interviews with researchers reveals that the government is more focused on commercial research, primarily product development led by start-ups and big corporations. It is offering little funding for research conducted at the country’s premier universities.

For instance, in the current financial year, 70 percent of the Science and Technology Department’s annual budget has been allocated to a scheme under which interest-free loans are provided to private companies conducting research in sunrise domains, such as semiconductors.

At the same time, the government has made misleading statements about its investments in the country’s research institutes, including with schemes like the INSPIRE fellowship, where funds have actually been cut instead of being increased as touted by the government.

Poor pay, funding delays

The INSPIRE scheme offers PhD and faculty fellowships to “attract, attach, retain and nourish talented young scientific Human Resource for strengthening the R&D foundation and base”.

The fellowships are offered to top-ranking postgraduate students and doctoral researchers to conduct research in areas from agriculture, biochemistry, neuroscience and cancer biology to climate science, renewable energy and nanotechnology.

Under the scheme, PhD fellows are to receive 37,000 rupees ($435.14) to 42,000 rupees ($493.94) per month for living expenses and 20,000 rupees ($235.21) annually for research-related costs, such as paying for equipment or work-related travel.

Faculty fellows are offered teaching positions with a monthly salary of 125,000 rupees ($1,470) and an annual research grant of 700,000 rupees ($8,232).

In the year 2024-25, 653 fellows were enrolled in the PhD fellowship, and 85 in the faculty fellowship programme.

“I couldn’t attend an important annual meeting in our field because it required travel, and I was not sure if I would get my allowance,” a faculty fellow at an institute in eastern India said. He has not received his payments since September 2024.

Atkare, the PhD student who wrote about the government’s failure on LinkedIn, also wrote, “We’ve made endless phone calls, written countless emails – most of which go unanswered or are met with vague responses. Some officials even respond rudely.”

Another INSPIRE PhD fellow told us of a running joke: “If they pick up the phone, you can buy a lottery ticket that day. It’s your lucky day.”

In May, DST Secretary Abhay Karandikar accepted that there were funding delays and said that they would soon be resolved.

Karandikar told the Hindu newspaper that he was “aware” of the disbursement crisis but said that from June 2025, all scholars would get their money on time. “All problems have been addressed. I don’t foresee any issue in the future,” he said.

Al Jazeera requested a comment from the science and technology minister, the DST secretary and the head of the department’s wing that implements the INSPIRE scheme, but has not received a response.

Dodgy math

In January, the federal government folded three R&D-related schemes to start Vigyan Dhara or “the flow of science” to ensure “efficiency in fund utilisation”. The INSPIRE scheme had been funded under one of those schemes.

But instead of efficiency, there has been chaos.

Under Vigyan Dhara, DST asked institutes to set up new bank accounts, leading to delays in payments for INSPIRE fellowships.

New Delhi also said that it had “significantly increased” funding for the Vigyan Dhara scheme, from 3.30 billion rupees ($38.39m) in the last financial year to 14.25 billion rupees ($167.58m) in the current financial year.

However, that math was incomplete. The 3.30 billion rupees ($38.39m) is what the government earmarked for the scheme, which was only launched in the last quarter of the fiscal year. The budget for the full fiscal year of the three schemes that Vigyan Dhara replaced amounted to 18.27 billion rupees ($214.93m). So, in effect, the current budget saw a 22 percent decrease in allocation from 18.27 billion rupees to 14.25 billion rupees ($167.58m).

Overall, the budget for Vigyan Dhara’s constituent schemes reduced 67.5 percent from 43.89 billion rupees ($513.2m) in financial year 2016-17 to 14.25 billion rupees ($167.6m) in financial year 2025-26.

DST officials did not respond to Al Jazeera’s query requesting clarification of Vigyan Dhara’s budgetary allocations.

Commercialisation of research

On the other hand, the Indian government earmarked 200 billion rupees ($2.35bn) for the new Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) scheme targeting the private sector.

This money is part of a larger 1-trillion-rupee ($11.76bn) corpus previously announced by India’s finance minister to provide long-term financing at low or no interest rates.

These changes in schemes are intended to make India a “product nation”, get more patents filed in India, and curb the brain drain, as Union Minister Aswini Vaishnaw and DST officials explain in different videos.

But the plight of the researchers at state-run organisations remains unaddressed.

“The government throws around big terms, but those toiling in laboratories are suffering,” said Lal Chandra Vishwakarma, president of All-India Research Scholars Association.

“Stipends should be similar to salaries of central government employees. Fellows should get their money every month without fail,” he said.

In the current scenario, most fellows Al Jazeera spoke to said that they would prefer a fellowship abroad.

“It’s not just about funds but the ease of research, which is much better in Europe and [the United States]. We get so much staff support there. In India, you get none of that,” said a professor at an IIT, who supervises an INSPIRE PhD fellow who faced funding issues.

While the private sector is being heavily financed, researchers told us they downplay their funding costs as that improves their chances of landing government research projects.

“Cutting-edge research is so fast; if we lose the first few years due to cost-cutting, we are behind our colleagues abroad,” the IIT professor said.

“Once we submit necessary documents, like annual progress reports, DST takes at least three months to release the next instalment. It’s usual,” said a PhD fellow who is a theoretical mathematician.

“Right now, I would say only people with privilege [and high-income backgrounds] should be in academia. Not because that’s how it should be, but because for others, it’s just so hard,” the IIT professor said.

*Al Jazeera has changed names to protect the identity of interviewees.

BOSTON — A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from making drastic cuts to research funding provided by the National Science Foundation.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston on Friday struck down a policy change that could have stripped universities of tens of millions of dollars in research funding. The universities argued that the move threatened crucial work in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, semiconductors and other technology fields.

Talwani said the change, announced by the NSF in May, was arbitrary, capricious and contrary to law.

An email Saturday to the National Science Foundation was not immediately returned.

At issue are “indirect” costs, expenses such as building maintenance and computer systems that aren’t linked directly to a specific project. Currently, the National Science Foundation determines each grant recipient’s indirect costs individually and is supposed to cover actual expenses.

The Trump administration has dismissed indirect expenses as “overhead” and capped them for future awards by the National Science Foundation to universities at 15% of the funding for direct research costs.

The University of California, one of the plaintiffs, estimated the change would cost it nearly $100 million a year.

Judges have blocked similar caps that the Trump administration placed on grants by the Energy Department and the National Institutes of Health.