“The U.S. National Science Foundation and the Institute for Progress (IFP), with its Metascience Working Group, today announced an agreement to design and execute experiments to explore how the agency funds and supports research and innovation. Over the course of the collaboration, IFP will consult with NSF on the current funding mechanisms and review processes used by the agency to decide which proposals to award and will propose tests for different ways to fund high-risk and high-reward proposals. IFP will then help develop tests of different mechanisms of interest to NSF staff, as well as potential analyses of NSF data to measure the outputs of NSF funding.” (National Science Foundation)

“Scientists at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, have printed living neural networks composed of rat brain cells that seem to mature and communicate like real brains do. Researchers want to create mini-brains partly because they could someday offer a viable alternative to animal testing in drug trials and studies of basic brain function. Rather than testing new drugs on thousands of animals, pharmaceutical companies could apply them to 3D-printed mini-brains—in theory. There are still complexities to iron out before this moves from proof of concept to standard lab practice.” (WIRED)

Nobel in Physics

“In the world of electrons, changes occur in a few tenths of an attosecond – an attosecond is so short that there are as many in one second as there have been seconds since the birth of the universe. The laureates’ experiments have produced pulses of light so short that they are measured in attoseconds, thus demonstrating that these pulses can be used to provide images of processes inside atoms and molecules. The laureates’ contributions have enabled the investigation of processes that are so rapid they were previously impossible to follow.” 

Nobel in Chemistry

“The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2023 rewards the discovery and development of quantum dots, nanoparticles so tiny that their size determines their properties. These smallest components of nanotechnology now spread their light from televisions and LED lamps, and can also guide surgeons when they remove tumour tissue, among many other things.”