Science philanthropy is rising in Brazil ― upending a long tradition - Nature

Skip to contentOct 14, 2026As a former varsity gymnast and coach, the daughter of an Olympic hurdler and a scholar devoted to the treatment of women in sport, Gretchen Kerr has been waiting a long time for women athletes to get the attention they deserve. That’s why, when the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education hosted a public symposium featuring a researcher and representatives from the new professional leagues in women’s basketball, hockey and soccer, the dean got emotional. “I couldn’t believe how many young girls were in the audience,” she recalls. “I just wanted to cry because you could see this next generation blossoming, looking at these amazing women who are paving the way, and of course, standing on the shoulders of many who came before them – without the recognition.” Our women’s teams are newer … and the number of people to elicit support from is substantially smaller. But what could be a better time to change this? The faculty’s newly established Tanenbaum Knowledge Translation Chair for Science in Women’s Sport will advance much-needed research and bring greater attention to a long-neglected area, Kerr says.

Most rock stars are happy to master one instrument. Yoshiki built an international career playing two that couldn’t be more different, pounding through heavy metal songs behind a drum kit and sitting at a grand piano to perform sweeping classical compositions. Now the founder of X Japan has made history as the first Asian recipient of the Entertainment Community Fund Medal of Honor, recognizing a career that has carried Japanese rock onto international stages while turning musical success into meaningful support for people in need. The honour, presented at the Entertainment Community Fund’s annual gala in New York City, recognizes individuals whose contributions have enriched the global arts community. Its history stretches back to 1910, when the inaugural medal was presented to U. S. President William Howard Taft.

The spacecraft delivered materials and equipment for new research studies to the station.

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.