Science writer Tibi Puiu reports on new findings that reflect what many today, have begun to suspect:

"Over the past few decades, the number of science and technology research papers published has soared, rising at a rate of nearly 10% each year. In the biomedical field alone, there are more than a million papers pouring into the PubMed database each year, or around two studies per minute...

The new study revealed that the "disruptiveness" of contemporary science has decreased, rendering ever diminishing returns. In this particular context, authors define disruptiveness as the degree to which a study departs from previous literature and renders it obsolete. In other words, a highly disruptive study is one that completely changes the way we think about a particular topic and renders previous research on the subject obsolete."

TIBI PUIU, "IS SCIENCE GOING THROUGH AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS? THERE ARE MORE RESEARCH PAPERS THAN EVER, BUT INNOVATION IS SORELY MISSED" AT ZME SCIENCE - JANUARY 6, 2023

Similarly, Kelsey Piper at Vox tells readers of her Future Perfect newsletter, despite a more than tenfold inflation-adjusted increase in U.S.-government spending on science — and that of many other sources — since 1955, "It feels like we're doing more research and getting less out of it."

A new study comparing observations of large Antarctic icebergs from the 1700s with modern satellite datasets shows the massive icebergs are found in the same areas where they were pinpointed three centuries ago. The study shows that despite their rudimentary tools, the old explorers truly knew their craft, and it confirms that the icebergs have behaved consistently for more than 300 years.

Using primarily the journal records of Captain James Cook's 1772-1775 Antarctic circumnavigation on the HMS Resolution (where he noted the positions of hundreds of icebergs), a trio of researchers from Brigham Young University, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Washington's School of Oceanography made comparisons with the two largest modern datasets available today: the BYU/National Ice Center and Alfred Wegener Institute datasets.

Sweden's state-owned mining company says it has identified more than 1 million tonnes of rare earth minerals in the northern area of Kiruna.

LKAB said on Thursday that the deposit, found next to its iron ore mine, was the largest of rare earth oxides in Europe.

Rare earth minerals are vital to making many high-tech goods. They are used in electric vehicles, wind turbines, portable electronics, microphones and speakers.

A comet from the outer solar system is set to swing through our cosmic neighborhood this month for the first time in 50,000 years, offering skywatchers a glimpse of this celestial object as it nears Earth and the sun in a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

The comet, officially known as C/2022 E3 (ZTF), will make its closest approach to the sun on Thursday and could be bright enough to be seen through telescopes and binoculars.

Comets can be tricky to spot in the night sky, but this cosmic interloper has been steadily brightening as it moves through the inner solar system, which should help people catch a glimpse, according to NASA.

Moscow will launch a rescue vessel to the International Space Station next month to bring home three crew members who are in effect stuck in orbit after their original capsule was hit by a meteoroid.

The docked Soyuz MS-22 sprang a major leak last month, spraying radiator coolant into space and prompting a pair of cosmonauts to abort a planned spacewalk.

While Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, said the strike caused no immediate threat to the crew of the space station, it raised concerns about whether everyone on the orbital outpost could return to Earth in an emergency situation.

Britain is set to join an exclusive club of 10 countries capable of launching rockets into orbit when it sends up the first satellite payload from Spaceport Cornwall on Monday.

Virgin Orbit is scheduled to make its first UK flight shortly before 10pm, in a historic lift-off that could open the door to human spaceflight from British soil.


Unlike vertical launches, the LauncherOne rocket containing nine satellites is attached to a wing of a former Virgin Atlantic 747 passenger plane - dubbed Cosmic Girl.

The largest diamonds in the British Crown Jewels may be pieces of the ancient ocean floor, which have drifted down into the interior of our planet - then come back up again.

The package arrived in a plain cardboard box. It was simply addressed to S Neumann & Co - a mining sales agency in the centre of London - and weighed just over a pound (around 500g). But this was no ordinary cargo.

It was April 1905, and three months earlier, the surface manager at the Premier Mine in South Africa had been completing a routine inspection 18ft (5.4m) underground, when he glimpsed a reflected light in the rough wall above him. He assumed it was a large piece of glass hammered in by colleagues as a practical joke. Just in case, out came his pocket knife, and after some digging... the knife promptly snapped. Eventually the rock was removed successfully, and revealed to be a bona fide diamond - a monster 3,106.75-carat stone, almost the size of a fist. It was not only enormous, but unusually transparent.

The cold weather on both sides of the Atlantic last month seems to have had its effect on temperature, which fell sharply compared with November, lengthening the New Pause to 8 years 4 months, as measured by the satellites designed, built and operated by Dr Roy Spencer and Dr John Christy at the University of Alabama in Huntsville:The graph shows the least-squares linear-regression trend on the monthly global mean lower-troposphere anomalies. The least-squares method was recommended by Professor Jones of the University of East Anglia as a reasonable method of showing the trend on stochastic temperature data.

Recall that the Pause graph does not constitute a prediction: it simply reports the longest period, working back from the present, during which the temperature trend is not positive.

Tonight's moon will be full, so here is a timely question. Many unrelated animals tune their behavior by the lunar cycle. How do they do it, given that sunlight overpowers moonlight?

Researchers in Austria think they have found a clue: a cryptochrome protein that appears to respond to the lunar cycle. Cryptochrome proteins are also implicated in the geomagnetic sense in birds. Whatever they found, it surely must represent only a piece of a biological puzzle. Let them explain in this from the University of Wien:

Many marine organisms, including brown algae, fish, corals, turtles and bristle worms, synchronize their behavior and reproduction with the lunar cycle. For some species, such as the bristle worm Platynereiis dumerilii, lab experiments have shown that moonlight exerts its timing function by entraining an inner monthly calendar, also called circalunar clock. Under these laboratory conditions, mimicking the duration of the full moon is sufficient to entrain these circalunar clocks. However, in natural habitats light conditions can vary considerably. Even the regular interplay of sun- and moon creates highly complex patterns. Organisms using the lunar light for their timing thus need to discriminate between specific moon phases and between sun and moonlight. This ability is not well understood. [Emphasis added.]

The world's first vaccine for honeybees has been approved for use by the US government, raising hopes of a new weapon against diseases that routinely ravage colonies that are relied upon for food pollination.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has granted a conditional license for a vaccine created by Dalan Animal Health, a US biotech company, to help protect honeybees from American foulbrood disease.

"Our vaccine is a breakthrough in protecting honeybees," said Annette Kleiser, chief executive of Dalan Animal Health. "We are ready to change how we care for insects, impacting food production on a global scale."