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    Americans Have Regained Modest Trust in Scientists, Survey Finds

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    A sharp partisan divide remains over how involved researchers should be in policy decisions.For the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the public’s trust in scientists has improved, according to a survey published Thursday by the Pew Research Center.About 76 percent of Americans say they have confidence that scientists act in the public’s best interest, a modest but significant improvement from last year but about 10 points lower than the figure before the pandemic.This year’s uptick was driven largely by a slight increase in trust among Republicans, a group that also experienced the steepest drop in confidence during the pandemic, said Alec Tyson, a Pew researcher and the report’s lead author.Still, the roughly 9,500 Americans surveyed were divided over whether scientists should play a role in policy decisions — a particularly timely issue now, as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to appoint leaders of the country’s science and health agencies.About half of the survey respondents said experts should take “an active role” in policy debates about scientific issues, like childhood vaccines and climate change, while the other half said they should focus instead on “establishing sound scientific facts.”Respondents were largely split along partisan lines: 67 percent of Democrats believed scientists should be involved in policy debates, compared with just 35 percent of Republicans.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What Trump 2.0 Means for Tech + A.I. Made Me Basic + HatGPT!

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      Listen to and follow ‘Hard Fork’Apple | Spotify | Amazon | YouTube | iHeartRadioKevin Roose and Rachel Cohn and Dan PowellElisheba IttoopPat McCusker and As of this week, we have a new president-elect. We discuss how the incoming administration’s approach to technology will affect Elon Musk, a TikTok ban, Big Tech’s antitrust challenges and the speed of A.I. progress. Then, Kashmir Hill, a technology reporter for The Times, joins to discuss her weeklong experiment of letting A.I. make every decision in her life. And finally, we play a round of election-free HatGPT!Guest:Kashmir Hill, technology reporter for The New York Times.Additional Reading:What a Trump Victory Means for TechI Took a ‘Decision Holiday’ and Put A.I. in Charge of My LifeAn ‘Interview’ With a Dead Luminary Exposes the Pitfalls of A.I.Meta’s Plan for Nuclear-Powered A.I. Data Center Thwarted by Rare BeesFired Employee Allegedly Hacked Disney World’s Menu System to Alter Peanut Allergy InformationPhoto Illustration by The New York Times; Photos: Doug Mills/The New York Times (Trump); Getty Images (emojis)Credits“Hard Fork” is hosted by More

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      82 American Nobel Prize Winners Endorse Kamala Harris

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      More than 80 American Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry, medicine and economics have signed an open letter endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for president.“This is the most consequential presidential election in a long time, perhaps ever, for the future of science and the United States,” reads the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. “We, the undersigned, strongly support Harris.”The letter praises Ms. Harris for understanding that “the enormous increases in living standards and life expectancies over the past two centuries are largely the result of advances in science and technology.” Former President Donald Trump, by contrast, would “jeopardize any advancements in our standards of living, slow the progress of science and technology and impede our responses to climate change,” the letter said.Eighty-two Nobel laureates — from a physicist who helped discover leftover light from the Big Bang to an immunologist who paved the way for one type of Covid-19 vaccine — have signed the letter. The laureates include the molecular biologist Gary Ruvkun, the chemist David Baker, the physicist John Hopfield and the economist Daron Acemoglu, all of whom won Nobels this month.Read the Letter from Nobel Laureates Endorsing Kamala Harris for PresidentMore than 80 American Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry, medicine and economics have signed an open letter endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for president.Read Document 4 pagesJoseph Stiglitz, an economist at Columbia University who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001, drafted the endorsement. He said he was motivated by the “enormous cuts in science budgets” Mr. Trump proposed during his presidency, as well as what Dr. Stiglitz described as the former president’s “anti-science” and “anti-university” stances.While in office, Mr. Trump proposed a budget that would have led to a severe loss of funds for federal health and science agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency. On the campaign trail this year, Mr. Trump has suggested shutting down the Department of Education.“I hope it’s a wake-up call for people,” Dr. Stiglitz said of the letter. “A consequence of this election is the really profound impact that his agenda has on science and technology.”The letter also praised Ms. Harris’s recognition of the role that immigrants play in advancing science and technology, both nationally and on a global scale. Immigration has been a key issue in this year’s election, with both candidates promising a stricter approach than their prior presidential campaigns.Many scientists are inclined to “stick to their knitting,” Dr. Stiglitz said — focusing on their research rather than politics, and on knowledge for knowledge’s sake instead of the real-world applications that result from it.“But they’ve recognized this is a moment where you can’t be silent,” he said. More

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      In Silicon Valley, a Rogue Plan to Alter the Climate

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      SARATOGA, Calif. — A silver Winnebago pulled up to a self storage warehouse on the outskirts of a Silicon Valley suburb and three renegade climate entrepreneurs piled out, all mohawks, mustaches and camouflage shorts.Working swiftly, the men unlocked a storage unit crammed with drones and canisters of pressurized gas. Using a dolly, they wheeled out four tanks containing sulfur dioxide and helium, and stacked them on the floor of the camper van. Then, almost as quickly as they arrived, they were on the road, headed for the golden hills near the Pacific Ocean.With their jury-rigged equipment and the confidence that comes with having raised more than $1 million in venture capital, they were executing a plan to release pollutants into the sky, all in the name of combating global warming.“We’re stealth,” said Luke Iseman, one of the co-founders of Make Sunsets, delighting in their anonymity as he rode in the back. “This looks like just another R.V.”Make Sunsets is one of the most unusual start-ups in a region brimming with wild ideas. Iseman, 41, and his co-founder, Andrew Song, 38, claim that by releasing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, they can reflect some of the sun’s energy back into space, thereby cooling the planet.It’s a gutsy undertaking, yet it has at least a partial grounding in science. For 50 years, climate scientists have suggested that releasing aerosols into the stratosphere could act as a buffer and reduce the heat from the sun. Volcanic eruptions have temporarily cooled the planet this way in the past, but no one has attempted to intentionally replicate the effect at scale.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Science of Dogs

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      We explore a boom in research into our furry friends. My career as a science journalist began with a story on canine genetics. It was the summer of 2004, and a female boxer named Tasha had just become the first dog in the world to have her complete genome sequenced. It was a major advance for an animal that, though beloved by humans, had been overlooked by many scientists.Over the two decades since, I have seen dogs transform from an academic afterthought to the new “it” animal for scientific research. In the United States alone, tens of thousands of dogs are now enrolled in large, ongoing studies. Canine scientists are investigating topics as varied as cancer, communication, longevity, emotion, retrieving behavior, the gut microbiome, the health effects of pollution and “doggy dementia.”The research has the potential to give dogs happier, healthier and longer lives — and improve human well-being, too, as I report in a story published this morning. In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain why dogs have become such popular scientific subjects.Big dog dataFirst, an important clarification: Dogs have long been the subject of invasive medical experiments, similar to lab rats and monkeys. That’s not the research I’m discussing here. The studies that have exploded in popularity involve pets. They require the enthusiastic participation of owners, who are collecting canine saliva samples, submitting veterinary records and answering survey questions about their furry friends.One reason these studies have become more common: Scientists realized that dogs were interesting and unique subjects. Our canine companions have social skills that even great apes lack, for instance, and they happen to be the most physically diverse mammal species on the planet. (Consider the difference between a Chihuahua and a Great Dane.) Dogs also share our homes and get many of the same diseases that people do, making them good models for human health.“Most of the questions that we have in science are not questions about what happens to animals living in sterile environments,” said Evan MacLean, the director of the Arizona Canine Cognition Center at the University of Arizona. “They’re questions about real organisms in the real world shared with humans. And dogs are a really, really good proxy for that in ways that other animals aren’t.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Your Hologram Doctor Will See You Now

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      A Texas hospital is experimenting with hologram technology for doctors to see patients. Some health care experts wonder if it’s beneficial.A patient walks into a hospital room, sits down and starts talking to a doctor. Only in this case, the doctor is a hologram.It might sound like science fiction, but it is the reality for some patients at Crescent Regional Hospital in Lancaster, Texas.In May, the hospital group began offering patients the ability to see their doctor remotely as a hologram through a partnership with Holoconnects, a digital technology firm based in the Netherlands.Each Holobox — the company’s name for its 440-pound, 7-foot-tall device that displays on a screen a highly realistic, 3-D live video of a person — costs $42,000, with an additional annual service fee of $1,900.The high-quality image gives the patient the feeling that a doctor is sitting inside the box, when in reality the doctor is miles away looking into cameras and displays showing the patient.The system allows the patient and doctor to have a telehealth visit in real time that feels more like an in-person conversation. For now, the service is used mostly for pre- and postoperative visits.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Global Push Fixed the Ozone Hole. Satellites Could Threaten It.

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      A sharp increase in hardware orbiting Earth could mean more harmful metals lingering in the atmosphere, according to a new study.Low-Earth orbit, a layer of superhighway that wraps around Earth’s thermosphere some 200 to 600 miles above our heads, is newly congested.Yet no one knows how the vast increase in satellites orbiting Earth will affect the atmosphere, and therefore life down below. With the rush to send up more and more satellites, a new study proposes that the hole in the ozone layer, a problem scientists thought they had solved decades ago, could make a comeback.“Up until a few years ago, this was not a research area at all,” Martin Ross, an atmospheric scientist at Aerospace Corporation, said of the study, which looked at how a potential increase in man-made metal particles could eat away at Earth’s protective layer.Ever since Sputnik, the first man-made space satellite, was launched in 1957, scientists have thought that when satellites re-enter our atmosphere at the end of their lives, their vaporization has little impact. But new satellites — much more advanced, but also smaller, cheaper and more disposable than previous satellites — have a turnover that resembles fast fashion, said the lead author of the study, José Pedro Ferreira, a doctoral candidate in astronautical engineering at the University of Southern California.Almost 20 percent of all satellites ever launched have re-entered Earth’s atmosphere in the last half-decade, burning up in superfast, superhot blazes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Solar Storm Lights Up the Night Sky

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      People in Britain marveled at the unusual and spectacular sight of the northern lights on Friday night, the consequence of a severe solar storm that was brewing and was expected to continue over the coming days.The northern lights — also known as aurora borealis — usually don’t reach this far south. They are most often seen in higher latitudes closer to the North Pole. People in other European countries, including Denmark and Germany, also reported seeing the lights.Onlookers marveled at the sight, posting their surprise, delight and sometimes shock on social media. As one user wrote: “Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely over Edinburgh?”Another onlooker posted, “It really is gorgeous though.”The northern lights also made appearances in North America, with some people reporting sightings in Maine on Friday night. They occur when the sun expels material from its surface.The current solar storm is caused by a cluster of sunspots — dark, cool regions on the solar surface. The cluster is flaring and ejecting material every six to 12 hours.Earlier Friday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center issued a rare warning about the solar outburst, because it could disrupt communications and even power grids.Adam Vaughan/EPA, via ShutterstockThe lights were visible in Britain, in locations including Crosby Beach near Liverpool, where they could be seen behind Antony Gormley’s “Another Place” sculpture.Owen Humphreys/PA Images, via Getty ImagesThe northern lights cast a glow on a lighthouse in Whitley Bay, England.Patrick Pleul/picture alliance, via Getty ImagesThe northern lights glowing in the sky in the Oder-Spree district in Brandenburg State, Germany. More

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      National Academy Asks Court to Strip Sackler Name From Endowment

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      Millions in Sackler donations sat dormant, rising in value as the opioid epidemic raged and as other institutions distanced themselves from the makers of a notorious painkiller.The National Academy of Sciences is asking a court to allow it to repurpose about $30 million in donations from the wealthy Sackler family, who controlled the company at the center of the opioid epidemic, and to remove the family name from the endowment funds.The petition filed by the Academy in Superior Court in Washington, D.C., Thursday aims to modify the terms of the donations so the institution can use them for scientific studies, projects and educational activities.The move follows a report in The New York Times last year that examined donations from several Sackler members, including an executive of Purdue Pharma, which produced the painkiller OxyContin that has long been blamed for fueling the opioid crisis that has claimed thousands of lives.“The notoriety of the Sackler name has made it impossible for the Academy to carry out the purposes for which it originally accepted the funds,” Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences, said in a statement released on Thursday.Daniel S. Connolly, a spokesman for the Raymond Sackler family, said it supported the National Academies in “using the funds as they see fit” and would have supported the change.“We would have said yes if we’d been asked, just as we will still say yes despite this unnecessary court filing and false assertions about us,” Mr. Connolly said in a statement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More