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Red-light therapy promises to treat everything from acne and hair loss to depression and chronic pain. Many of these claims are overhyped, but evidence suggests it can have healing powers

At least 15 per cent of the Amazon has already been lost, and further destruction could unleash widespread rainforest dieback with as little as 1.5°C of global warming

Kepler and TESS showed us that there's a radius gap in the exoplanet population. There are very few planets between 1.5 and 2 Earth radii, according to the data. But new research shows that the gap may not be as significant as thought.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and a city on Mars is likely going to take even longer to build than Rome itself. At the time of the first Martian colonists, it is likely that the entirety of humanity’s industrial capacity, including the infrastructure to make critical materials like metals, will be based in the Earth-Moon system. While Mars has some iron, it also lacks many of the materials needed to make advanced materials, like boron and molybdenum. To alleviate that resource bottleneck, a new study, available in pre-print on arXiv and led by Serena Suriano and a team of researchers, offers a workaround that seems obvious in theory but difficult in practice - mine the necessary material from Main Belt asteroids.

I’m proffering you a must-watch video, at least if you’re interested in the rise and fall of American academia.

Vanderbilt University, with its emphasis on free speech, academic freedom, and institutional neutrality, is rapidly becoming the University of Chicago of the South—or should I say that The University of Chicago is the Vanderbilt of the North? For Vanderbilt has been transformed since hiring the University of Chicago’s previous Provost, Daniel Diermeier, as its Chancellor (i.e., President).  Diermeier is implementing the Chicago Principles in a big way at Vanderbilt. In fact, he’s doing better than Chicago. For example, when pro-Palestinian protestors illegally occupied a university building in Vanderbilt in 2024, the protestors were removed after 22 hours, with some students arrested and others suspended.

In contrast, when this happened four times at Chicago (i.e., violations of University rules during anti-Israel demonstrations), nothing happened to the students. Some of them, and lik-minded faculty, were arrested after a sit-in in our Admissions Office, but all charges were dropped. Bachelor’s degrees with temporarily withheld here from a few later protestors, but then the degrees were granted soon thereafter. At Chicago, violations of university rules during protests—invariably pro-Palestinian protests—are met with no punishment, which of course simply encourages further rules violations. When inquiring about this laxity, I was told that it would be the worst possible optics if the University police were seen to “lay hands on protestors.”

So here’s a one-hour talk by Chancellor Diermeier at the Heterodox Academy meeting at UC Berkeley (he’s introduced by the UCB Chancellor). The Youtube notes are below.

Centered on the theme “The Value of Viewpoint Diversity: Why It Matters and How to Practice It Well”, this conference offers actionable insights, fosters rich intellectual exchange, and brings together individuals from across the region who are invested in the future of higher education.

Notice that Diermeier speaks without notes, yet the speech is well constructed and logical. Kudos to him. At the beginning he outlines three areas of inquiry, which I’ve put in bold. I’ve also added comments.

Progress

Diermeier argues that there has been progress in free expression of universities: there is now less shouting down of speakers—something he attributes largely to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). To see if he’s right, you can check FIRE’s Campus Deplatforming Database. So far, there have been 98 deplatformings or attempted deplatformings in 2026, and the year isn’t half over. I’m not sure that this isn’t an increase rather than a decrease over previous years. You can count them if you wish.

Diermeier is also glad that institutional neutrality is spreading rapidly: more than 140 schools, he says, have adopted some kind of position of being institutionally neutral—that is, taking no official position on political, moral, or ideological issues unless they have a direct influence on the stated mission of a university.  I was dubious of this figure, but he’s right. Here’s a chart from an article in Free the Inquiry showing the remarkable rise in U.S. and Canadian universities adopting institutional neutrality. Look at the big jump starting in 2024!

And there’s also been some improvements in the UK as reported by Times Higher Education: click to read (h/t Jez):

Finally, Diermeier states that the intrusive and ideologically extreme versions of DEI are becoming less powerful in universities. Here he’s right, too, though that may disappear after Trump goes. Extreme forms of DEI will certainly return if we get a Democratic President—one of the bad side effects of Democrats, especially “progressive” Democrats, gain power.

Principle is the second area of Diermeier’s talk. His topic is the answer to the question, “What is the purpose of a univesity?”  And here he has no doubts, for the purpose is to produce “pathbreaking research and transformative education”—production of knowledge and conveying this knowledge to society via publications or other scholarly outlets.

He goes on to discuss the importance of free speech and emphasizes that it’s not the same thing as academic freedom, a point I’ve made repeatedly. As a private citizen I am free to espouse creationism as much as I want, but I am not free to teach creationism—or other palpable falsehoods—in my biology classes. You can’t say anything you want as a professor teaching classes.

Diermeier takes up the issue of the meeting: “viewpoint diversity”, which many people think is the real kind of diversity that universities should strive for. But he notes that although viewpoint diversity is a worthy goal if it’s meant to buttressfree speech, he’s not clear about what the term really means. Diermeier notes that viewpoint diversity as a desideratum is really the byproduct of a more important goal: preventing the erosion of scholarly standards by political or ideological principles. If that erosion is taking place, as it is in many areas (science is somewhat of an exception, but, as Luana and I showed, the erosion is even affecting biology), then it enforces a conformity that stifles free speech and academic freedom. Thus, if you prevent that kind of erosion and its chilling effect on speech, viewpoint diversity should automatically inrease.

Diermeier then gives several examples of the kind of symptoms we see when academic fields are afflicted with ideological erosion. The symptoms are “citation justice,” “positionality statements,” and “avoidance of trans issues” (he means the fear of academics to even discuss trans issues).  I’ve never heard a college president be so open in opposing these trends, but he’s right.

Politics is Diermeier’s third topic, and this is where he suggests remedies.  He notes that ideology isn’t pervasive in academia, guessing that about 85% of faculty are committed to doing their academic mission—investigating the areas of interest to them, like me working on speciation in fruit flies. But, he says, the other 15% “have political commitments that they consider essential to who they are as scholars.:” Examples of these people, in my view, are Chicago professors like Alireza Doostdar and Eman Abdelhadi, pro-Palestinian scholars who are always spouting off  or demonstrating against Israel. Abdelhadi is reported as saying this:

Abdelhadi. . . . described the University [of Chicago] as “evil” and “a colonial landlord” in her remarks, which centered on the topic of political organizing in one’s community.

“Why would I organize here? I don’t care about this institution. Like I don’t—like fuck the University of Chicago, it’s evil. Like, you know? It’s a colonial landlord. Like, why would I put any of my political energy into this space,” Abdelhadi said at the conference. “And I kind of had a moment of disdain for people who spent a lot of time doing that.”

“The genocide really collapsed that and made me realize two things,” she continued. “One is that, well, my students need me. So, it was like: ‘Oh, I actually have to organize here to take care of my students, who I do care about.’ But I also realized—and I think this is a painful lesson that a lot of us in the Palestine solidarity movement have been learning—is that we don’t have power.”

Despite her criticisms of the University’s role as a “landlord, a healthcare provider, [and] a police force,” she described UChicago as “a place where [she has] access to thousands of people that [she] could potentially organize” politically.

In other words, damn the scholarship; she is here to ideologically convert “thousands of students.”  This is what Diermeier means by the “other 15%.”  He adds that people with such an agenda are mostly on the Left, and yes, that is also correct.

How do we fix this? In the Q&A session beginning 44 minutes in, this is precisely the question that Abby Thompson of UC Davis asks Diermeier, and his answer isn’t completely satisfying: he says that the faculty must organize and stand together against this kind of ideological erosion.  My response is that that’s way easier said than done.

But I’ve gone on too long, and my summary is no substitute for listening to this engaging talk. It’s the best discussion of the state of American universities that I’ve heard since I started teaching:

A new mission promises to 'open the box' on exoplanet science. Scientists and engineers recently released the first engineering images from the Pandora exoplanet survey mission. The pictures represent the first ever images from a NASA Astrophysics Pioneers Program mission. Established in 2020, the program looks to test the feasibility of small low cost missions designed to address key questions in astronomy and astrophysics.

We have more photos!  Today’s batch comes from Leo Glenn, and were taken in New Zealand. Leo (and his friends’ ) captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them:

It’s been a long time since I’ve submitted wildlife photos. I just haven’t taken any recently that I thought were worthy of submission. However, my son, Ossian, and his partner, Emma, are enjoying a semester study abroad program at the University of Otago in Dunedin on the southern island of New Zealand, and they have granted me permission to share some of their photos. All of the photos are on the Otago peninsula.

The birds at the waterline are Variable Oystercatchers, Haematopus unicolor. Photo by Ossian Glenn:

A bull and cow New Zealand Sea Lions, Phocarctos hookeri. Photo by Ossian Glenn.

Juvenile New Zealand Sea Lions enjoying some play time. Photo by Ossian Glenn:

Photo by Ossian Glenn:

Australian Pied Cormorant, Phalacrocorax varius. Photo by Ossian Glenn:

Royal Spoonbill, Platalea regia. Photo by Emma Kulisek:

Northern Royal Albatross, Diomedea sanfordi. Photo by Emma Kulisek. 

South Island Takahe, Porphyrio hochstetteri. Photo by Emma Kulisek:

White-faced Heron, Egretta novaehollandiae, a self-introduced species from Australia. Photo by Emma Kulisek:

Common Redpoll, Acanthis flamea, an introduced species. Photo by Emma Kulisek:

New Zealand Pigeon, Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae. Photo by Emma Kulisek:

New Zealand Bellbird, Anthornis melanura. Photo by Ossian Glenn:

Paradise Shelduck, Tadorna variegata. Photo by Emma Kulisek:

Tui, Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae. Photo by Emma Kulisek:

And a reptile, an Otago Skink, Oligosoma otagense. Photo by Emma Kulisek:

When the slope of a mountain above Tracy Arm fjord, in Alaska, gave way on 10 August 2025, 64 million cubic metres of rock fell into the fjord, causing a 5.4 magnitude seismic event  

As easily predicted, declining measles vaccine rates in the US is leading directly to surging measles cases. In 2025 we saw the highest measles cases, 2288, since 1991, and in 2026 we are on track to exceed this number with 1814 confirmed cases so far (these are confirmed cases). The US is also not getting the worst of it, that would be […]

The post Measles Surging As Vaccine Rates Drop first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

This 2013 book by an Indigenous botanist is a quietly urgent act of healing that forces Western science to look at the world in a different way

Prize-winning young writer Hasset Kifle, 17, explores how the world of super-competitive running is being transformed by so-called “super shoes” – and what cost this will have on the sport

Penn researchers have developed a smarter AI method for solving notoriously difficult inverse equations, which help scientists uncover hidden causes behind observable effects. By introducing “mollifier layers” that smooth noisy data, they’ve made these calculations more stable and far less computationally demanding. This could transform fields like genetics, where understanding how DNA behaves is key to disease research.

A scorching, airless world just 48 light-years away is offering scientists a rare glimpse into the geology of distant planets. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers studied LHS 3844 b—a tidally locked “super-Earth” with a permanent dayside hot enough to melt metal—and discovered it’s a dark, barren rock with no atmosphere.

Creating complex molecules usually requires years of experience and countless decisions, but a new AI system is changing that. Synthegy lets chemists guide synthesis and reaction planning using simple language, while powerful algorithms generate and evaluate possible solutions. The AI doesn’t just compute—it reasons, scoring pathways and explaining which ones make the most sense.

Creating complex molecules usually requires years of experience and countless decisions, but a new AI system is changing that. Synthegy lets chemists guide synthesis and reaction planning using simple language, while powerful algorithms generate and evaluate possible solutions. The AI doesn’t just compute—it reasons, scoring pathways and explaining which ones make the most sense.

Fossils reveal that there were at least two kinds of koala when humans first arrived in Australia, but one died out about 30,000 years ago when the west of the continent dried out

A strange kind of matter that “ticks” forever without energy input has just taken a major leap toward real-world use. Known as a time crystal, this quantum system repeats its motion endlessly—like a clock that never winds down—and scientists have now managed to connect it to an external device for the first time. By linking the time crystal to a tiny mechanical oscillator, researchers showed they can actually control its behavior, opening the door to powerful new technologies.

A strange kind of matter that “ticks” forever without energy input has just taken a major leap toward real-world use. Known as a time crystal, this quantum system repeats its motion endlessly—like a clock that never winds down—and scientists have now managed to connect it to an external device for the first time. By linking the time crystal to a tiny mechanical oscillator, researchers showed they can actually control its behavior, opening the door to powerful new technologies.

Researchers at Stanford have developed a compact optical amplifier that dramatically boosts light signals using very little power. By recycling energy inside a looping resonator, the device achieves strong amplification with minimal noise and wide bandwidth. Its efficiency and small size mean it could run on batteries and be integrated into consumer electronics. This breakthrough could enable faster communications and more powerful optical technologies.

Researchers at Stanford have developed a compact optical amplifier that dramatically boosts light signals using very little power. By recycling energy inside a looping resonator, the device achieves strong amplification with minimal noise and wide bandwidth. Its efficiency and small size mean it could run on batteries and be integrated into consumer electronics. This breakthrough could enable faster communications and more powerful optical technologies.