‘Brain-eating amoeba’ appears to love crawling into narrow spaces - Science | AAAS

October 14, 20262 min read Add Us On GoogleAdd SciAmThe proposed change to how the National Institutes of Health handles grant applications has been criticized by scientists as reducing transparencyBy Adam Kovac edited by Claire Cameron Shutterstock/DCStockPhotographyJoin Our Community of Science Lovers! Members of the public who tried to submit their views on a proposed change to the National Institutes of Health’s grant funding system say they found themselves locked out after the system shut down ahead of schedule. The proposed change has been criticized as potentially reducing transparency. It seeks to revise how grant application scores—averaged measures of a research project's predicted outcomes—are communicated to both funding applicants and NIH program officers. Under the change, applications would be sorted into three broad categories of merit, while their overall score, as determined by a panel of experts, would remain a secret. Some researchers have said this could open up the grant approval process to undue political influence. On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing.

Mud from a fjord shows an Atlantic air pattern brought wetter, colder spells to southern Greenland, a clue to how its ice may fare. Greenland’s ice is shrinking as the planet warms. But in the island’s southwest, rainfall and snowfall have been influenced by the same North Atlantic air-pressure pattern for at least 5,000 years. When that pattern tipped one way, the region turned wetter and colder. The record comes from mud on the floor of a Greenland fjord, and it suggests snowfall, not only temperature, shaped how the area’s ice grew and shrank. It doesn’t yet show how glaciers there will respond to the warming ahead. Johan Faust, a researcher at MARUM, the Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen in Germany, led the work with colleagues in Germany, Norway, Denmark and Canada. A seesaw in the airThe pattern is called the North Atlantic Oscillation. It’s the difference in air pressure between a low that sits near Iceland and a high near the Azores, and it’s strongest in winter. When that difference is large, the pattern is in its positive phase. Northwestern Europe and southwestern Greenland both get more rain and snow.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher Isaiah Santistevan led the development of three-dimensional simulations exploring how a nuclear device could deflect or disrupt an asteroid threatening Earth. Credit: Blaise Douros/LLNL Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers are developing three-dimensional simulations to examine how a nuclear device could be used to deflect or potentially disrupt an asteroid threatening Earth.