researcher

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Penn Gave Nobel-Winner Ultimatum: Leave, or Take Pay Cut

Katalin Kariko didn't leave, keeping up her dogged research that led to COVID vaccines

(Newser) - Hungarian researcher Katalin Kariko looks pretty good on paper these days: She co-pioneered mRNA research at the University of Pennsylvania that led to COVID vaccines that helped save millions of lives worldwide during the pandemic; as of last week she has a Nobel for her trouble ; and, just as icing...

Wuhan's Only Foreign Virologist Speaks Out

Danielle Anderson says 'lab leak' theory unlikely given lab's strict rules

(Newser) - The only foreign scientist to conduct research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology's BSL-4 lab says people have the wrong impression of it as likely to enable the escape of a deadly virus. The "lab leak" theory on the coronavirus has not been proven, though a report claimed...

Facing 9 Years in an Iranian Prison, He Made a Run for It

It was 'very cold, very long, very dark, and very scary,' says UK-Iranian academic Kameel Ahmady of escape

(Newser) - A British-Iranian anthropologist facing almost a decade in an Iranian prison after speaking out against female genital mutilation and child marriage has made a daring escape. Kameel Ahmady tells the BBC he fled across Iran's mountainous border on foot upon learning his fate was as good as sealed. Ahmady,...

Scientist Retracts Groundbreaking Stem Cell Study

Haruko Obokata retracts her research but denies misconduct

(Newser) - A few months ago, Haruko Obokata appeared to be one of Japan's most promising young scientists. Her mind-blowing research on stem cells in mice, which apparently showed the cells could be made swiftly by dripping blood cells into acid, had just been published in the coveted scientific journal Nature....

'Uhs' and 'Ums': Among the Verbal Tics of Psychopaths

They interrupt speech to mask their madness: study

(Newser) - Know someone who uses "uh" and "um" a lot, and cause-and-effect conjunctions like "because" and "so that"? Well, not to exaggerate, but your friend may be a psychopath. Researchers recently interviewed 52 convicted murderers in an effort to suss out the linguistic tendencies of psychopaths—...

Stem Cell 'Spare Parts' May Await Newborns

Doctors awaiting FDA 'green light'

(Newser) - Babies with congenital defects may soon have stem cell treatments waiting for them the moment they're born, New Scientist reports. Pending FDA approval, researchers say they're ready to extract cells from a mother's amniotic fluid, grow needed "spare parts," and patch up the baby when...

Huge Hidden River Found Under Amazon

Rio Hamza is up to hundreds of times wider

(Newser) - Thought the Amazon river was impressive, covering more than 4 million square miles in South America? Try the hidden river beneath it, which apparently equals the Amazon in length and is up to hundreds of times wider. Dubbed the Rio Hamza (after the head of the Brazilian team that found...

Historian Faked Date on Key Lincoln Artifact

Researcher 'rewrote history,' says archivist

(Newser) - An Abraham Lincoln researcher has confessed to changing the date on a Lincoln document, effectively altering history for his own gain, AOL News reports. Thomas Lowry changed the date from April 14, 1864, to 1865—the date of Lincoln's assassination—so that it would seem he’d discovered one of...

Early, Chronic Stoners Always in a Haze: Study

Heavy tokers score lower on cognitive tests

(Newser) - Stoners who start smoking pot heavily before the age of 16 score significantly lower on cognitive tests than their non-toking counterparts—and worse than those who become stoners later in life, according to researchers. The average age of those studied was 22, and researchers defined a chronic marijuana user as...

Female Baseball Researcher Finally Gets Her Due

Dorothy Jane Mills' husband got all the credit for their work

(Newser) - Dorothy Jane Mills did much of the research and writing for a seminal three-volume history of baseball, but her husband got all the credit in 1960. It gets worse: Last week, the Society for American Baseball Research inducted her late husband, Harold Seymour, into its hall of fame—and not...

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