Month: July 2025
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US Science News July 2025
It’s time to check in on what’s been happening with science funding over the past month. Is the pendulum is starting to slowly swing back? https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-will-reinstate-900-grants-response-court-order Last few days https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02221-6 https://www.science.org/content/article/congressional-spending-panels-continue-push-back-against-proposed-trump-research-cuts We await the house’s vote to see how this develops 7/16/25 NIH wants to fade out animal models Animal models are definitely tech. Last…
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Robots bring fossils to life
Genetic engineering is not the only way to bring an extinct animal back to life. A very Philip K. Dick-like method being investigated… Robots! A team of researchers from EPFL and Humboldt University paired up to recreate the gait of an extinct animal based on 300 million year old footprints. It was published in Nature…
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A Colossal bird
What do Jurassic Park and Lord of the Rings have in common? A Colossally bad handle on genetic engineering. What has Colossal done now? In their latest press stunt, Colossal Biosciences claims they want to bring back the extinct giant Moa, a huge bird endemic to New Zealand. That is, until it was likely hunted to…
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Biodegradable robots
Sadly, robots are not immortal, and there’s some surprising reasons why they shouldn’t be, beyond the obvious hedge against them taking over. Why do we need biodegradable robots? What do you imagine when you think of a robot? Something shiny, metal and chrome? Well, that view may be changing. Researchers have been working on soft…
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Gaming Seals
If I told you scientists taught seals to play video games, that might be enough to satisfy you. I mean, who doesn’t want video-game-playing Seals? But let me explain why you’d want to do this beyond just entertaining us and the seals… Seals play an ocean simulation video game in an experiment to understand how…
Nicole Ackermans, CVN lab 