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Roger Guillemin identified the molecules in the brain that control the production of hormones in endocrine glands such as the pituitary and thyroid. His work led to a torrent of advances in neuroendocrinology, with far-reaching effects on studies of metabolism, reproduction and growth. For his discoveries on peptide-hormone production in the brain, Guillemin shared the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Andrew Schally and Rosalyn Yalow. He has died at the age of 100.
In the autumn of 1969, after analysing millions of sheep brains for more than a decade, Guillemin and his colleagues determined the structure of thyrotropin-releasing factor (TRF). This small peptide is produced in the hypothalamus, a small region at the base of the brain, and is transported to the anterior lobe of the nearby pituitary gland, where it triggers the release of the hormone thyrotropin. Thyrotropin, in turn, stimulates the thyroid gland to produce the hormone thyroxine, which regulates metabolic activity in nearly every tissue of the body. More than two dozen drugs use such hypothalamic hormones to treat endocrine disorders and cancers, and the worldwide market for these drugs is worth several billion dollars.
Guillemin was born in Dijon, France, and came of age at the end of the Second World War. He graduated from medical school in the University of Lyon, France, in 1949 and worked as a country doctor in the small commune of Saint-Seine-l’Abbaye in Burgundy. He found the work satisfying but intellectually limiting, noting that “in those days I could take care of all my patients with three prescriptions, including aspirin”. Fascinated by how the brain and pituitary gland control the body’s response to stress, he attended lectures in Paris by the Hungarian–Canadian endocrinologist Hans Selye, after which Selye accepted Guillemin’s request to spend a year doing research in his laboratory at the University of Montreal, Canada.
The consciousness wars: can scientists ever agree on how the mind works?
This turned into a four-year project, for which Guillemin was awarded a PhD in 1953. His studies with Selye were impactful, but it was meeting the UK physiologist Geoffrey Harris in Canada that would shape Guillemin’s subsequent science. Harris argued that the hypothalamus controls the anterior pituitary not through nerve signals, but rather through blood-borne factors that reach the pituitary through the capillaries of an interconnecting stalk. Recruited to the faculty of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, Guillemin decided to tackle Harris’s hypothesis head on. His initial aim was to purify and determine the structure of corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), the hypothalamic hormone that stimulates the anterior pituitary to produce adrenocorticotropic hormone, the driver of the stress response described by Seyle. Progress towards this goal was slow, so Guillemin turned his attention to other putative releasing factors, including TRF.
The scale of his efforts at purification in the late 1950s and 1960s was enormous. These releasing factors were peptides — short chains of amino acids — present in only tiny amounts in the hypothalamus. Together with the fact that the hypothalamus is itself a small part of the brain, this meant that purification began with extracts prepared from millions of sheep hypothalami obtained from slaughterhouses. Peptides were separated on 3-metre-tall chromatography columns that extended through the lab’s ceiling. One set of columns was packed with the then-new resin Sephadex, released by the Stockholm-based biotechnology company Pharmacia in 1959. Guillemin sent a postdoc in his lab, Andrew Schally, that year to Sweden to procure much of the world’s supply of Sephadex.
Schally, who had worked on releasing factors for his PhD, joined the expanding team in Houston in 1957. He chafed under Guillemin’s leadership, however, viewing his years in Houston as a struggle in which he and Guillemin had a “very bitter, unpleasant relationship”. Guillemin suggested that Schally should move on, and himself accepted a simultaneous appointment at the Collège de France in Paris in 1960. Schally established his own competing research operation at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. Guillemin and Schally would remain competitors for more than two decades, a state of affairs not changed by their shared Nobel Prize.
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The Houston and New Orleans teams succeeded in purifying TRF and determining its amino-acid sequence at around the same time. Immediately thereafter, Guillemin moved his lab to the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. There, his team identified a raft of hypothalamic releasing factors, now referred to as hormones. These included gonadotropin-releasing hormone, which drives the release of hormones that stimulate the reproductive organs; somatostatin, which inhibits the release of growth hormones; and growth-hormone-releasing hormone. In 1981, a Salk Institute team headed by US endocrinologist Wylie Vale, who was a student of Guillemin, finally purified and sequenced the elusive CRF, Selye’s obsession and Guillemin’s initial target from the 1950s. Drugs built on these discoveries have proved to be among the farthest-reaching medical translations of research from the institute.
Guillemin was the recipient of multiple honours and awards as well as the Nobel Prize. He was a connoisseur of the wines of Burgundy, and during his tenure as president of the Salk Institute in 2007–09, white wine was served at lunchtime faculty meetings. Roger lived an art- and music-filled life, and was close to the artists Françoise Gilot and Niki de Saint Phalle. He cherished his ties to family, students, postdocs, colleagues and friends. He leaves a vibrant scientific legacy.
Apple has reversed course on its decision to ban Epic Games’ developer account after it emerged European Union officials were looking into the issue. The about turn means that Epic will be able to bring its own app store to iPhones and iPads in the EU. The publisher will also be able to more easily bring Fortnite back to those devices in the bloc, nearly four years after Apple kicked the game out of the App Store over an in-app purchases battle (a decision that spurred a drawn-out legal tussle between the two sides).
“Following conversations with Epic, they have committed to follow the rules, including our DMA [Digital Markets Act] policies,” an Apple spokesperson told Engadget. “As a result, Epic Sweden AB has been permitted to re-sign the developer agreement and accepted into the Apple Developer Program.”
“Apple has told us and committed to the European Commission that they will reinstate our developer account,” Epic wrote in an updated blog post. “This sends a strong signal to developers that the European Commission will act swiftly to enforce the Digital Markets Act and hold gatekeepers accountable. We are moving forward as planned to launch the Epic Games Store and bring Fortnite back to iOS in Europe. Onward!”
Apple killed Epic’s developer account earlier this week, claiming that Epic was unlikely to abide by the related contractual agreements. Its lawyers described Epic as “verifiably untrustworthy.”
The sudden about face surely has nothing to do with reports that EU regulators planned to question Apple over the ban. Epic claimed the decision was a “serious violation of the DMA.” Under that law, which just came into effect, Apple is required to allow third-party app stores on iOS in the EU. However, Apple is still forcing companies that want to have their own app marketplace on iPhone to abide by its rules.
Also this week, the EU fined Apple almost $2 billion for suppressing third-party music streaming apps on the App Store by preventing them from telling users that they could subscribe to their services elsewhere for a lower cost than if they signed up through iOS. This was the first fine the EU has given Apple, and the bloc’s third-largest financial penalty ever. Apple is appealing the fine.
Given the even heftier penalties that companies face for failing to comply with the DMA — up to 10 percent of their annual revenue — and the EU showing it’s ready to wield its power when necessary, it’s not too surprising that Apple backed down from its latest scrap with Epic. Indeed, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said Apple backtracked after “a swift inquiry by the European Commission.”
We’re approaching that time of the year that everyone dreads – the switch to Daylight Savings Time and the loss of a precious hour in bed that comes with it – and naturally people are asking whether it’s time to ditch daylight savings.
As my learned colleague explains in the article linked above, there’s a whole stack of evidence to suggest that changing the clocks back and forth every year is a truly terrible idea, and the people seem to agree with the experts, with most in favor of sticking to a year-round standard time.
Sounds like a done deal, right? Sadly I’m here to tell you why it’s not going to happen. At least, not any time soon.
Permanent DST in the USA
Here’s the thing: the USA has already tried shifting to permanent DST, and it didn’t work out so well. Back in January 1974, President Richard Nixon enacted year-round DST as a two-year energy-saving experiment in response to the 1973 oil crisis. It was a popular move at first, with 79 per cent of Americans supporting it when surveyed in December 1973.
It didn’t take very long for the public mood to change, however; by February 1974 only 42 per cent were still in favor of the switch. The main reason? The increased danger of traffic accidents involving children going to school on dark winter mornings. The two-year experiment only lasted until October 1974, when the clocks went back as usual.
British Standard Time
The same concerns brought about the end of a similar experiment in the UK a few years earlier. Between 1968 and 1971 the British government introduced British Standard Time, time-shifting the whole country to DST all year round. The move resulted in an increase in road casualties in the morning, but it also transpired that there was a much greater decrease in evening road casualties. This decrease was skewed, however, by the introduction of new laws on drink-driving around the same time.
Ultimately it was the small increase in children getting injured on their way to school that led to the end of this experiment. However, the switch to darker winter mornings also made life harder for farmers and other workers who relied more on daylight to do their jobs effectively.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Despite this, even in mid-winter half of the population was in favor of remaining on BST; that said, in Scotland 61 per cent wanted to go back to GMT. And this raises an important point: how hard you’re hit by permanent DST depends on just how far north (or south) you are.
For people in the north of Scotland during the British Standard Time experiment, in the middle of winter the sun wasn’t rising until 10am, which is a horribly late start to the day. Where I live in the West of England, the sunrise would have been 9.15am, and I don’t think having an extra hour of daylight while at work would have been much of a compensation.
And I have to say, in the US you have it pretty easy by comparison (except perhaps in Alaska. Sorry, Alaska), because you’re a lot further south. Even then, you’d still be looking at kids having to walk to school on dark winter mornings in most states (even Florida), and even if the overall result was fewer road accidents in total, an uptick in accidents involving children because of a switch to permanent DST would be a hard pill to swallow.
Keep changing the clocks
Obviously I’m talking about switches to DST here, while many are arguing instead for a move to standard time year-round. That has its own drawbacks, though: the sun setting earlier, meaning winter evenings are as dark and long as ever, and rising earlier in the mornings, which would mean a much greater need for blackout curtains in the summer months.
An eventual switch to permanent DST or standard time isn’t an impossibility – more of the world has abandoned it than currently uses it, and there’s a whole swathe of equatorial countries that have never had the need for DST – but the potential risks involved in switching mean that despite the clear benefits, there’s not much appetite for actually doing it.
(Image credit: Getty/pcess609)
Numerous states have voted in favor of permanent DST, but switching hinges on Congress changing federal law to allow them to do this. However while the Sunshine Protection Act for permanent DST passed the Senate in 2022, it failed in the House; it was reintroduced in 2023 but hasn’t made any progress. And it doesn’t help that while there’s a definite mood for a single year-round time, there’s disagreement over whether that time should be daylight savings or standard time, which is proving to be a major hurdle for the Sunshine Protection Act. Ultimately it’s a lot easier to muddle along with what we have, than to effect a change that’ll be unpopular with some.
mRNA vaccines developed against the spike glycoprotein of severe acute respiratory syndrome type 2 coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), displayed remarkable efficiency in combating coronavirus 19 (COVID-19). These vaccines work by triggering both cellular and humoral immune responses against the spike protein of the virus. Cellular immunity may play a more protective role than humoral immunity to variants of concerns (VOC) against SARS-CoV-2, as it targets the conserved regions of spike protein and possibly cross-reacts with other variants.
Since a single spike epitope is recognized by multiple T-cell clones, the mRNA vaccination-induced T-cell response may consist of multiple spike-reactive clones. Thus, it is important to understand the mechanism of mRNA vaccination-induced cellular immune response. However, to address this clonal-resolution analysis on T-cell responses to mRNA vaccination has not been performed yet.
To bridge this gap, a team of researchers, led by Associate Professor Satoshi Ueha, including Professor Kouji Matsushima from the Tokyo University of Science (TUS), Japan, Mr. Hiroyasu Aoki from the University of Tokyo, and Professor Toshihiro Ito from Nara Medical University, aimed to develop a kinetic profile of spike-reactive T-cell clones during repetitive mRNA vaccination. For this, they performed a longitudinal TCR sequencing on peripheral T cells of 38 participants who had received the Pfizer vaccine from before the vaccine to after the third vaccination and then analyzed the single-cell gene expression and epitope specificity of the clonotypes.
Their findings, published in Cell Reports on March 7, 2024, revealed that while the primary T-cell response of naïve T cells generally peaked 10-18 days after the first shot, expansion of “early responders” was detected on day 7 after the first shot, suggesting that these early responders contain memory T cells against common cold coronaviruses. They also found a “main responder” that expanded after the second shot and did not expand early after the first shot and a “third responder” that appeared and expanded only after the third shot.
By longitudinally tracking the total frequency of each response pattern, it was observed that, after the second shot, a shift among the clonotypes occurred, wherein the major population changed from early responders to main responders, suggestive of a shift in clonal dominance. A similar shift of responding clones was also observed in CD4+ T cells.
Expanding upon the research process, Prof. Ueha says, “We next analyzed the phenotype of main responders after the second and the third vaccination. The results showed that the main responders after the second and third shots mostly consist of effector-memory T cells (TEM), with more terminally differentiated effector memory-like phenotype after the third shot.”
The researchers then examined the repertoire changes of main responders, revealing that the expansion of main responders, which occurred after the second shot, diminished following the third shot, and the clonal diversity decreased and was partially replaced by the third responders. This may potentially mean that the third vaccination selected better-responding clones.
Due to the vaccination-induced shift in immunodominance of spike epitopes, the study supports the inter-epitope shift model. In addition, there were intra-epitope shifts of vaccine-responding clonotypes within spike epitopes.
Prof. Ueha explains the significance of these results, “Our analysis suggests that T cells can “re-write” themselves and reshape their memory populations after successive vaccinations. This re-writability not only maintains the number of memory T cells but also maintains diversity that can respond to different variants of pathogens. Moreover, by tuning the replacement of memory cells, more effective vaccines can be developed that can also be tailored to an individual’s unique immune response.”
Overall, this study provides important insights into mRNA vaccine-induced T-cell responses, which will be crucial for developing next-generation vaccines for more effective and broad protection against viruses.
In 2020, Ranga Dias was an up-and-coming star of the physics world. A researcher at the University of Rochester in New York, Dias achieved widespread recognition for his claim to have discovered the first room-temperature superconductor, a material that conducts electricity without resistance at ambient temperatures. Dias published that finding in a landmark Nature paper1.
Nearly two years later, that paper was retracted. But not long after, Dias announced an even bigger result, also published in Nature: another room-temperature superconductor2. Unlike the previous material, the latest one supposedly worked at relatively modest pressures, raising the enticing possibility of applications such as superconducting magnets for medical imaging and powerful computer chips.
Most superconductors operate at extremely low temperatures, below 77 kelvin (−196 °C). So achieving superconductivity at room temperature (about 293 K, or 20 °C) would be a “remarkable phenomenon”, says Peter Armitage, a condensed-matter researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
But Dias is now infamous for the scandal that surrounds his work. Nature has since retracted his second paper2 and many other research groups have tried and failed to replicate Dias’s superconductivity results. Some researchers say the debacle has caused serious harm. The scandal “has damaged careers of young scientists — either in the field, or thinking to go into the field”, says Paul Canfield, a physicist at Iowa State University in Ames.
Why a blockbuster superconductivity claim met a wall of scepticism
Previous reporting by The Wall Street Journal, Science and Nature’s news team has documented allegations that Dias manipulated data, plagiarized substantial portions of his thesis and attempted to obstruct the investigation of another paper by fabricating data.
Three previous investigations into Dias’s superconductivity work by the University of Rochester did not find evidence of misconduct. But last summer, the university launched a fourth investigation, led by experts external to the university. In August 2023, Dias was stripped of his students and laboratories. That fourth investigation is now complete and, according to a university spokesperson, the external experts confirmed that there were “data reliability concerns” in Dias’s papers.
Now, Nature’s news team reveals new details about how the scandal unfolded.
The news team interviewed several of Dias’s former graduate students, who were co-authors of his superconductivity research. The individuals requested anonymity because they were concerned about the negative impact on their careers. Nature’s news team verified student claims with corroborating documents; where it could not do so, the news team relied on the fact that multiple, independent student accounts were in agreement.
The news team also obtained documents relevant to the acceptance of the two Nature papers and their subsequent retractions. (Nature’s news and journal teams are editorially independent.)
The investigation unearths fresh details about how Dias distorted the evidence for room-temperature superconductivity — and indicates that he concealed information from his students, manipulated them and shut them out of key steps in the research process. The investigation also reveals, for the first time, what happened during the peer-review process for Dias’s second Nature paper on superconductivity. Dias did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Together, the evidence raises questions about why the problems in Dias’s lab did not prompt stronger action, and sooner, by his collaborators, by Nature’s journal team and by his university.
Zero resistance
Dias came to the University of Rochester in 2017, fresh from a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he worked under physicist Isaac Silvera. “He’s not only a very talented scientist, but he’s an honest person,” Silvera told Nature’s news team.
Once Dias settled at Rochester, he pursued high-temperature superconductivity. Three years earlier, the field had been electrified when researchers in Germany discovered superconductivity in a form of hydrogen sulfide with the formula H3S at 203 K (−70 °C) and at extremely high pressures3. This was a much higher temperature than any superconductor had achieved before, which gave researchers hope that room-temperature superconductivity could be around the corner.
Dias proposed that adding carbon to H3S might lead to superconductivity at even higher temperatures.
Ranga Dias at the University of Rochester, New York.Credit: Lauren Petracca/New York Times/Redux/eyevine
His former graduate students say they synthesized samples of carbon, sulfur and hydrogen (CSH), but did not take measurements of electrical resistance or magnetic susceptibility that showed superconductivity. When a superconducting material is cooled past a critical temperature, its electrical resistance drops sharply to zero, and the material displays a similarly sharp change in its magnetic properties, called the Meissner effect. Students say they did not observe these key signs of superconductivity in CSH.
Because of this, students say they were shocked when Dias sent them a manuscript on 21 July 2020 announcing the discovery of room-temperature superconductivity in CSH. E-mails seen by the news team show that the students had little time to review the manuscript: Dias sent out a draft at 5.13 p.m. and submitted the paper to Nature at 8.26 p.m. the same evening.
When the students asked Dias about the stunning new data, they say, he told them he had taken all the resistance and magnetic-susceptibility data before coming to Rochester. The news team obtained e-mails that show Dias had been making similar claims since 2014. In the e-mails, Dias says he has observed a sulfur-based superconductor with a temperature above 120 K — which is relatively high, but far from room temperature. The students recall that they felt odd about Dias’s explanation but did not suspect misconduct at the time. As relatively inexperienced graduate students, they say, they trusted their adviser.
During peer review, however, Dias’s claims about CSH met more resistance. Nature’s news team obtained the reports of all three referees who reviewed the manuscript. Two of the referees were concerned over a lack of information about the chemical structure of CSH. After three rounds of review, only one referee supported publication.
The news team showed five superconductivity specialists these reports. They shared some of the referees’ concerns but say it was not unreasonable for the Nature editors to have accepted the paper, given the strongly positive report from one referee and what was known at the time.
The paper was published on 14 October 2020 to fanfare. Dias and a co-author, Ashkan Salamat, a physicist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), also announced their new venture: Unearthly Materials, a Rochester-based company established to develop superconductors that operate at ambient temperatures and pressures.
At the time, students say, they trusted Dias’s explanations of where the resistance and magnetic-susceptibility data came from. Now, however, they no longer believe the result, or Dias’s explanation for the data. “I don’t think any of the other data was collected,” one student says.
Matters arise
Soon after the CSH paper was published, Jorge Hirsch, a condensed-matter theorist at the University of California, San Diego, began pressing Dias to release the raw magnetic-susceptibility data, which were not included in the paper. More than a year later, Dias and Salamat finally made the raw data public.
In January 2022, Hirsch and Dirk van der Marel, a retired professor at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, posted an analysis of the raw data on the preprint server arXiv4. They reported that the data points were separated by suspiciously regular intervals — each exactly a multiple of 0.16555 nanovolts. Hirsch and van der Marel stated that this feature was evidence of data manipulation.
Dias’s team used laser spectroscopy to measure the pressure of samples in diamond anvil cells.Credit: Lauren Petracca/New York Times/Redux/eyevine
Dias and Salamat responded in an arXiv preprint, arguing that the voltage intervals were simply a result of a background subtraction5 (the preprint was subsequently withdrawn by arXiv administrators). In high-pressure experiments, the signal of a sample’s superconductivity — a drop in voltage — can be drowned out by background noise. Researchers sometimes subtract this background, but the CSH paper did not mention the technique.
Questions about the data prompted Nature’s journal team to look further. In response to the concerns from Hirsch and van der Marel, editors at Nature asked four new referees to participate in a post-publication review of the CSH paper, which, like most peer review, was confidential.
Now, Nature’s news team has obtained the reports, which show that two of the anonymous referees found no evidence of misconduct. But two other reviewers, whom the news team can identify as physicists Brad Ramshaw at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and James Hamlin at the University of Florida in Gainesville, found serious problems with the paper.
In particular, Hamlin found evidence that led him to conclude the raw data had been altered. Nature applied an editor’s note to the CSH paper on 15 February 2022, alerting readers to concerns about the data.
On 4 March 2022, Dias and Salamat sent a rebuttal to the referees, denying data manipulation. But the rebuttal, seen by the news team, does not provide an explanation for the issues that Hamlin and Ramshaw found in the raw magnetic-susceptibility data. “I don’t know of any reasonable way this could come about,” Ramshaw wrote in a 13 March e-mail to Nature’s manuscript team in response to the rebuttal. “The simplest conclusion would be that these data sets are all generated by hand and not actually measured.”
On 27 March 2022, Hamlin sent Nature’s journal team his response to the rebuttal, which proposed an explanation for the odd data: rather than deriving the published data from raw data, Dias had added noise to the published data to generate a set of ‘raw’ data.
To assess the evidence for data fabrication, Nature’s news team last month asked two superconductivity specialists to review the post-publication reports. They said that Hamlin’s analysis gives credence to claims of misconduct.
In July 2022, using a different analysis, van der Marel and Hirsch independently came to the same conclusion and posted their findings on arXiv as an update to their original preprint. In it, they state that the raw data must have been constructed from the published data6.
Why superconductor research is in a ‘golden age’ — despite controversy
In light of these concerns, Nature started the process of retracting the CSH paper. On 11 August, Nature editors sent an e-mail to all the co-authors asking them whether they agreed to the retraction. Students who spoke to the news team say that they were surprised by this, because Dias had kept them out of the loop about the post-publication review process. They remained unaware of any of the referees’ findings, including that there was evidence for data fabrication.
Nature retracted the CSH paper on 26 September 2022, with a notice that states “issues undermine confidence in the published magnetic susceptibility data as a whole, and we are accordingly retracting the paper”. Karl Ziemelis, Nature’s chief applied and physical sciences editor, says the journal’s investigation ceased as soon as the editors lost confidence in the paper, which “did leave other technical concerns unresolved”.
The retraction does not state what Hamlin and Ramshaw found in the post-publication review process instigated by Nature: that the raw data were probably fabricated. Felicitas Heβelmann, a specialist in retractions at the Humboldt University of Berlin, says misconduct is difficult to prove, so journals often avoid laying blame on authors in retractions. “A lot of retractions use very vague language,” she says.
Publicly, Dias continued to insist that CSH was legitimate and that the retraction was simply down to an obscure technical disagreement.
As Nature journal editors were investigating the CSH paper, the University of Rochester conducted two investigations into Dias’s work; a separate one followed the retraction. One of the university’s inquiries was in response to an anonymous report, which included some of the evidence indicating possible data fabrication that surfaced during Nature’s post-publication review.
The university told Nature’s news team that the three investigations regarding the CSH study did not find evidence of misconduct.
A spokesperson for Nature says that the journal took the university’s conclusions into account during its deliberations, but still decided to retract the paper.
The lack of industry-wide standards for investigating misconduct leaves it unclear whether the responsibility to investigate lands more on journals or on institutions. Ziemelis says: “Allegations of possible misconduct are outside the remit of peer review and more appropriately investigated by the host institution.”
Heβelmann says the responsibility to investigate can “vary from case to case”, but that there is a trend of more journals investigating misconduct, regardless of institutional action.
Funding agencies can also investigate alleged misconduct. In this case, Dias has received funding from both the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DoE). The DoE did not respond to questions from Nature’s news team about Dias’s grant. The NSF declined to say whether it is investigating Dias, but it noted that awards can be terminated and suspended in response to an investigation.
The students who spoke to Nature’s news team say that none of them were interviewed in the three investigations of the CSH work by the university, which they were not aware of at the time. “We were hoping someone would come talk to us,” one student says. “It never happened.”
A new claim
By the time the CSH paper came under scrutiny by Nature journal editors in early 2022, Dias’s graduate students were starting to grow concerned. In summer 2021, Dias had tasked them with investigating a compound of lutetium and hydrogen (LuH), which he thought might be a high-temperature superconductor.
They began testing commercially purchased samples of LuH and, before long, a student measured the resistance dropping to zero at a temperature of around 300 K (27 °C). Dias concluded the material was a room-temperature superconductor, even though there was extremely little evidence, several students told Nature. “Ranga was convinced,” one student says.
Physicist James Hamlin raised concerns about data reported by the Rochester group.Credit: Zach Stovall for Nature
But the measurements were plagued by systematic errors, which students say they shared with Dias. “I was very, very concerned that one of the probes touching the sample was broken,” one student says. “We could be measuring something that looks like a superconducting drop, but be fooling ourselves.” Although students did see resistance drops in a few other samples, there was no consistency across samples, or even for repeated measurements of a single sample, they told Nature’s news team.
Students were also worried about the accuracy of other measurements. During elemental analysis of a sample, they detected trace amounts of nitrogen. Dias concluded that the samples included the element — and the resulting paper refers to nitrogen-doped lutetium hydride. But further analysis, performed after the paper was submitted, indicated that nitrogen was not incorporated into the LuH. “Ranga ignored what I was saying,” one student says.
Because they were not consulted on the CSH paper, the students say they wanted to make sure they were included in the process of writing the LuH paper. According to the students, Dias initially agreed to involve them. “Then, one day, he sends us an e-mail and says, ‘Here’s the paper. I’m gonna submit it,’” one student says.
E-mails seen by Nature’s news team corroborate the timeline. Dias sent out the first draft of the LuH paper in an e-mail at 2.09 a.m. on 25 April 2022. “Please send me your comments by 10.30 AM,” Dias wrote. “I am submitting it today.” The manuscript they received did not contain any figures, making it difficult to assess. The students convinced Dias to hold off on submitting until the next day, when they could discuss it in person.
One student was upset enough by the meeting that they wrote a memorandum of the events four days afterwards. The memo gives details of how students raised concerns and Dias dismissed them. Students worried that the draft was misleading, because it included a description of how to synthesize LuH; in reality, all the measurements were taken on commercially bought samples of LuH. “Ranga responded by pointing out that it was never explicitly mentioned that we synthesized the sample so technically he was not lying,” the student wrote.
The students say they also raised concerns about the pressure data reported in the draft. “None of those pressure points correspond to anything that we actually measured,” one student says. According to the memo, Dias dismissed their concerns by saying: “Pressure is a joke.”
Students say that Dias gave them an ultimatum: remove their names, or let him send the draft. Despite their worries, the students say they had no choice but to acquiesce. “I just remember being very intimidated,” one student says. The student says they regret not speaking up more to Dias. “But it’s scary at the time. What if I do and he makes the rest of my life miserable?”
Dias made some changes that the students requested, but ignored others; the submitted manuscript contained a description of a synthesis procedure that had not been used. He sent the LuH manuscript to Nature that evening.
Paper problems
After Nature published the LuH paper in March 2023, many scientists were critical of the journal’s decision, given the rumours of misconduct surrounding the retracted CSH paper. They wanted to know on what basis Nature had decided to accept it. (In the case of both papers, neither the peer-review reports nor the referees’ identities were revealed.) Nature’s news team obtained those reviews and can, for the first time, reveal what happened during the review process for the LuH paper. Nature editors received the manuscript in April 2022 (about a month after Nature received the CSH post-publication review reports) and sent it out to four referees.
Physicist Brad Ramshaw, together with James Hamlin, investigated data questions surrounding Dias’s superconductivity research.Credit: Kim Modic
All four referees agreed that the findings, if true, were highly significant. But they emphasized caution in accepting the manuscript, because of the extraordinary nature of the claims. Referee 4 wrote that the journal should be careful with such extraordinary claims to avoid another “Schön affair”, referring to the extensive data fabrication by German physicist Jan Hendrik Schön, which has become a cautionary tale in physics and led to dozens of papers being retracted, seven of them in Nature. Referees 2 and 3 also expressed concern about the results because of the CSH paper, which at the time bore an editor’s note of concern but had not yet been retracted. Referees raised a plethora of issues, from a lack of details about the synthesis procedure to unexplainable features in the data.
Although Dias and Salamat managed to assuage some of those concerns, referees said the authors’ responses were “not satisfactory” and the manuscript went through five stages of review. In the end, only one referee said there was solid proof of superconductivity, and another gave qualified support for publication. The other two referees did not voice support for publication, and one of them remained unsatisfied with the authors’ responses and wanted more measurements taken.
The news team asked five superconductivity specialists to review key information available to Nature journal editors when they were considering the LuH manuscript: the referee reports for the LuH paper and the reports indicating data fabrication in the CSH paper. All five said the documents raised serious questions about the validity of the LuH results and the integrity of the data.
“The second paper — from my understanding of timelines — was being considered after the Nature editors and a lot of the condensed-matter community were aware there were profound problems” with the CSH paper, Canfield says. The specialists also pointed to negative comments from some of the LuH referees, such as the observation by Referee 1 that “raw data does not look like a feature corresponding to superconducting transition”.
When asked why Nature considered Dias’s LuH paper after being warned of potential misconduct on the previous paper, Magdalena Skipper, Nature’s editor-in-chief, said: “Our editorial policy considers every submission in its own right.” The rationale, Skipper explains, is that decisions should be made on the basis of the scientific quality, not who the authors are.
Many other journals have similar policies, and guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics state that peer reviewers should “not allow their reviews to be influenced by the origins of a manuscript”. But not all journals say they treat submissions independently. Van der Marel, who is the editor-in-chief of Physica C, says that he would consider past allegations of misconduct if he were assessing a new paper by the same author. “If you have good reasons to doubt the credibility of authors, you are not obliged to publish,” he says.
Under review
Soon after the LuH paper was published in March 2023, it came under further scrutiny. Several teams of researchers independently attempted to replicate the results. One group, using samples from Dias’s lab, reported electrical resistance measurements that it said indicated high-temperature superconductivity7. But numerous other replication attempts found no evidence of room-temperature superconductivity in the compound.
As previously reported in Science, Hamlin and Ramshaw sent Nature a formal letter of concern in May. Dias and Salamat responded to the issues later that month, but the students say they were not included in the response, and learnt about the concerns much later.
A recording of a 6 July 2023 meeting between Dias and his students, obtained by Nature’s news team, shows that Dias continued to manipulate the students. Throughout the hour-long meeting, Dias said he wanted to involve the students in deciding how the team would respond to concerns about the LuH paper. But he didn’t tell them that he and Salamat had already responded to the technical issues raised by Hamlin and Ramshaw.
One of Dias’s students adjusts a diamond anvil cell, which the team used in its experiments.Credit: Lauren Petracca/New York Times/Redux/eyevine
The recording also reveals how Dias tried to manipulate the Nature review, because he believed the process would turn against him once more. “We can pretend we’re going to cooperate and buy time for a month or so, and then gather some senior scientists from the community,” Dias says in the recording. Dias explains how he wants to use the credibility of senior scientists — or the University of Rochester — to pressure Nature and avert a retraction.
But Dias’s plans were thwarted. Later that month, the students received an e-mail from Nature’s editors that showed Dias and Salamat had, in fact, already responded to the concerns. The students realized that Dias had sent them a document with the dates removed, apparently to perpetuate the falsehood.
On 25 July 2023, the journal initiated a post-publication review and asked four new referees to assess the dispute. All of the referees agreed that there were serious problems with the data, and that Dias and Salamat did not “convincingly address” the issues raised by Hamlin and Ramshaw. A spokesperson for Nature says the journal communicated with University of Rochester representatives during the post-publication review.
Separately, Dias’s students were beginning to mobilize, re-examining the LuH data they were able to access. The students hadn’t done this before, because, they say, Dias produced almost all of the figures and plots in both of the Nature papers.
Several other researchers told the news team that the principal investigator does not typically produce all the plots. “That’s weird,” Canfield says.
The students say they were especially concerned about the magnetic susceptibility measurements — again, the raw data seemed to have been altered. Looking at the real raw data, one student says, the material does not look like a superconductor. But when Dias subtracted the background, the student says, that “basically flips that curve upside down and makes it look superconducting instead”.
They continued finding problems. For the resistance measurements, too, the alleged raw data didn’t match data actually taken in the lab. Instead, it had been tweaked to look neater. “Science can be really messy … some of these plots just look too good,” a student says.
Back to school
By this point, some students were deeply concerned about their careers. “My thesis is going to be full of fabricated data. How am I supposed to graduate in this lab?” one student says. “At that point, I was thinking of either taking a leave of absence, or of dropping out.”
During the summer, Dias began facing other issues. One of his papers in Physical Review Letters8 — unrelated to room-temperature superconductivity — was being retracted after the journal found convincing evidence of data fabrication. Around the same time, Dias was stripped of his students and the University of Rochester launched a fourth investigation — this time, the students say they were interviewed.
‘A very disturbing picture’: another retraction imminent for controversial physicist
In late August, the students decided to request a retraction of the LuH paper and compiled their concerns about the data and Dias’s behaviour. Before they sent a letter to Nature, Dias apparently caught wind of it and sent the students a cease-and-desist notice, which the news team has seen. But, after consulting a university official who gave them the green light, the students sent their letter to Nature editors, precipitating the retraction process. Eight out of 11 authors, including Salamat, signed the letter and the LuH paper was retracted two months later, on 7 November.
According to multiple sources familiar with the company, Salamat left Unearthly Materials in 2023 and is under investigation at UNLV. He did not respond to multiple requests for comment, and a spokesperson for UNLV declined to comment publicly on personnel issues.
The scandal has also had an impact on Nature’s journal team. “This has been a deeply frustrating situation, and we understand the strength of feelings this has stirred within the community,” Ziemelis says. “We are looking at this case carefully to see what lessons can be learnt for the future.”
With the university’s investigation now complete, Dias remains at Rochester while a separate process for addressing “personnel actions” proceeds. He has no students, is not teaching any classes and has lost access to his lab, according to multiple sources. Dias’s prestigious NSF grant — which has US$333,283 left to pay out until 2026 — could also be in jeopardy if the NSF finds reason to terminate it.
Dias has not published any more papers about LuH, but on X (formerly Twitter), he occasionally posts updates about the material. In a 19 January tweet, Dias shared an image of data, which he said showed the Meissner effect — “definitive proof of superconductivity!”
Chevrolet is resuming sales of the 2024 Chevy Blazer EV following reports of major software issues, . The company says the malfunctions have been patched, thanks to “significant software updates.” To entice wary consumers back into the fold, Chevy has slashed prices on the vehicle. The sticker price has been reduced by $5,600 to $6,500, depending on the trim.
Here’s how that breaks down. The Blazer EV LT AWD now starts at $50,195, instead of $56,715. The RS AWD now sells for $54,595, down from the original MSRP of $60,215. Finally, the RS RWD goes for $56,170, down from $61,790. These prices all include destination charges.
Also, the 2024 Blazer EV line is eligible for that $7,500 federal tax credit. This lowers the price of the LT AWD to just $42,695 and can now be applied , so buyers don’t have to wait for a rebate check. If that’s still too rich for your blood, the Blazer LT FWD EV is still slated for release later this year. Chevrolet says it’ll start “under $50,000”, though exact pricing has yet to be revealed. If Chevy follows through with that pricing promise and it qualifies for the full tax credit, we could be looking at a real budget-friendly contender in the EV space.
However, the EV Blazer line has experienced months of bad press following last year’s software malfunctions, drive motor control failures to glitchy and blank infotainment screens. Who knows if the price cuts will be enough for people to forget that embarrassment. GM has said that it’ll be instituting these software fixes to other EVs under its umbrella, . Chevrolet’s parent company also owns Cadillac, GMC and Buick.
One thing is for sure. Despite proclamations that the there’s still a whole lot of curious consumers out there. Manufacturer Rivian by announcing a trio of new vehicles this week, racking up over 68,000 preorders in under a day.
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If you have an older Pixel phone and you’ve been wondering when the newest Pixel features would finally be arriving, I have … news! It might be this week, but probably not. There is no rhyme or reason to Google’s Pixel feature drop, and confusion about features like circle-to-search portends deeper problems. Google made a promise to support its latest Pixel 8 phones for a very long time, and this debacle makes me doubtful that Google will deliver.
This isn’t really about the Pixel Feature Drop, not yet. I have problems with Google’s erratic ‘Feature Drop’ model, but the most important thing Google did for phones this year was its promise to support the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro for seven years from when they launched. That’s unprecedented in the phone world. Apple supports its iPhone models for five years, and it offered the longest support until Google stepped up.
The Pixel 8 Pro will get seven years of updates as well (Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)
Of course, Apple has been supporting five-year-old phones for more than a decade, while this longevity promise is new for Android makers like Google and Samsung. Apple has a proven track record. Until the Pixel 8 gets its final OS update in 2031 and the Galaxy S24 in 2032, we won’t know if Google and Samsung can truly deliver on the seven year promise, or what that delivery will look like.
If Google is going to beat the best, it needs to be the best
In the meantime, I’m watching for Google to follow Apple’s pattern. Apple has reliably updated its phones every year, so if Google is going to match or beat Apple’s promise, it will need to match its practices.
The iPhone XR from 2018 got the latest IOS 17.4 update recently. It also got iOS 17, iOS 16, and iOS 15 on the day those operating systems were offered. There is no delay for older iPhone models. It is obvious that Apple’s diligence keeping its phones up to date provides a clear path to that final update down the road. I feel confident that my iPhone 11 will get iOS 18 this year because it’s gotten every single iOS update, and every new iOS feature, right on time.
Even this old iPhone XR got the latest iOS update on day one (Image credit: Future)
Google is asking me to have the same confidence in Pixel phones, and that’s not an easy ask. So far, things have been smooth with the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro. Google’s biggest software addition of the past year, the new circle-to-search functionality, was added to those phones on day one. Of course, the new search feature inexplicably launched on the Samsung Galaxy S24, but it showed up on the latest Pixel phones at the same time. No harm, no foul, Pixel 8 fans.
Google said it would bring circle-to-search to older Pixel devices, and the rollout has been odd. This week, in a Pixel Feature Drop, the new feature was added to the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro. The Pixel 7a and Pixel Fold, which are both newer phones than the Pixel 7, have not been updated with the new feature. Why?! All of these phones use the same Google Tensor G2 chipset. The Pixel 7a is a bargain phone, but it still has 8GB of RAM, just like the Pixel 7.
Why not bring the feature to all of these phones at the same time? The only reason I can imagine is that Google didn’t think it worthwhile to devote the developer resources. Google only has so many developers, and a limited number of people working on older phones. They focused on the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro first. Other phones will come later.
This makes sense at a small company, but Google has more than 180,000 employees. This smacks of laziness or a limited vision of Google’s Pixel team. Google appears to be abandoning its customers with no rhyme or reason. Thanks for spending $1,500 on the Pixel Fold! Maybe eventually it will get the same features as this Pixel 7 you could have bought for $400.
It’s hard to recommend a phone Google doesn’t update
This doesn’t happen with Apple, a company that supports its phones long-term. Apple doesn’t leave its older phones behind, or leave its most important buyers wondering when the cool new features might come their way. If you have an iPhone 12, or an iPhone 13 mini, or an iPhone 15 Pro Max, you got the new NameDrop feature on the same day as everybody else.
In this way, Apple simply treats its owners better. It is easier to recommend the best iPhone today because I know, from Apple’s history, how it will treat iPhone owners. I’m not so sure about Google.
The Pixel 7a didn’t get circle to search because … why?! (Image credit: Future / Philip Berne)
The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro are great phones, and I’d have little trouble recommending them, but that’s not to say I’d have NO trouble. Will you be angry with me when Google offers a cool new AI feature for Pixel 9 owners but gives older phones neither feature nor explanation? I asked Google why the Pixel 7a was left out of the circle to search party, and they said they had nothing to share.
I’ve been recommending the Pixel 7a as a great bargain phone option, but now I wonder if Google cares about that phone as much as I do. I can’t recommend it if Google is going to leave it in feature limbo for the rest of its lifespan, for no apparent reason.
The line in the sand for me is Google’s seven-year promise, and that started with the Pixel 8, so that’s the phone I hold to a higher standard. From this phone forward, including a possible Pixel 8a that may arrive soon, I will expect Google to treat its phones equally, and to treat its owners with respect and clarity. If Google is going to change the game, making promises that beat Apple, it needs to show us that it’s ready to play ball.
A team of physicists has developed a method to detect gravity waves with such low frequencies that they could unlock the secrets behind the early phases of mergers between supermassive black holes, the heaviest objects in the universe.
The method can detect gravitational waves that oscillate just once every thousand years, 100 times slower than any previously measured gravitational waves.
“These are waves reaching us from the farthest corners of the universe, capable of affecting how light travels,” said Jeff Dror, Ph.D., an assistant professor of physics at the University of Florida and co-author of the new study. “Studying these waves from the early universe will help us build a complete picture of our cosmic history, analogous to previous discoveries of the cosmic microwave background.”
Dror and his co-author, University of California, Santa Cruz postdoctoral researcher William DeRocco, published their findings Feb. 26 in Physical Review Letters.
Gravitational waves are akin to ripples in space. Like sound waves or waves on the ocean, gravitational waves vary in both frequency and amplitude, information that offers insights into their origin and age. Gravitational waves that reach us can be oscillating at extremely low frequencies, much lower than those of sound waves detectable with the human ear. Some of the lowest frequencies detected in the past were as low as one nanohertz.
“For reference,” Dror explained, “the frequency of sound waves created by an alligator roar are about 100 billion times higher than this frequency — these are very low-pitched waves.”
Their new method of detection is based on analyzing pulsars, neutron stars that emit radio waves at highly regular intervals. Dror hypothesized that searching for gradual slowdown in the arrivals of these pulses could reveal new gravitational waves. By studying existing pulsar data, Dror was able to search for gravitational waves with lower frequencies than ever before, increasing our “hearing range” to frequencies as low as 10 picohertz, 100 times lower than previous efforts that detected nanohertz-level waves.
While gravitational waves with frequencies around a nanohertz have been detected before, not much is known about their origin. There are two theories. The leading idea is that these waves are the result of a merger between two supermassive black holes, which, if true, would give researchers a new way to study the behavior of these giant objects that lie at the heart of every galaxy.
The other main theory is that these waves were created by some sort of cataclysmic event early in the universe’s history. By studying gravitational waves at even lower frequencies, they may be able to differentiate these possibilities.
“Looking ahead, the next step is to analyze newer data sets,” Dror said. “The datasets we used were primarily from 2014 and 2015, and a huge number of pulsar observations have been undertaken since that time.”
Dror also plans to run simulations on mock data using UF’s HiPerGator supercomputer to further unravel cosmic history. The supercomputer can efficiently run large, complex simulations, significantly reducing the time required to analyze data.
This study was supported in part by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.
Rivian’s R2 reservations are off to a hot start. On Friday, CEO RJ Scaringe posted on X that the automaker had taken more than 68,000 reservations for the SUV in less than 24 hours. Amid alarmingly weakened demand for electric vehicles, perhaps there’s a latent interest in innovative EV companies when they aren’t helmed by a conflict magnet with a fixation on baseless conspiracy theories and the supposed online “rights” of Neo-Nazis.
Rivian’s 68,000 reservations hold up well against its most high-profile competitors. It took Ford about three weeks to get 100,000 pre-orders for the F-150 Lightning. Tesla’s Cybertruck got 250,000 reservations in less than a week. To be fair, reserving a Rivian R2 only requires a $100 deposit the same as the Cybertruck and F-150 Lightning.Customers plunking down a Benjamin to hold one have no obligation to pay the remaining $44,900 (and up) when the vehicle finally arrives in 2026, and even if they intend to buy one now, that’s plenty of time to change their minds.
You could argue that — like with Tesla and Ford — Rivian chose the low deposit to build hype, knowing full well that many pre-order customers won’t follow through. But it also helps that Rivian’s event on Thursday did everything the company needed. The R2 looks “quite fetching,” as Engadget’s Lawrence Bonk pointed out. On the inside, it has sleek and subtle details like two glove boxes, fold-down rear and front seats, a slide-out cargo floor and dual scroll wheels with dynamic haptic feedback on the steering wheel. It also has a 300-mile minimum range and a $45,000 starting price, which doesn’t hurt.
Overwhelmed by the wonderful response to our new vehicles: R2, R3 and R3X.
In less than 24 hours, we’ve taken more than 68,000 R2 reservations. We are thrilled to see this vehicle resonate so strongly with our community! pic.twitter.com/tEIBhwlJQC
And, of course, the surprise “One more thing”-style reveal of the cheaper, sportier and more compact R3 and R3X could help provide a halo effect for the company when it desperately needs to build excitement around its brand. In February, Rivian announced that it would lay off 10 percent of its salaried workers, and this week, it cut 100 employees at its Illinois factory. Still, the EV market could use a new “hero.” I have no idea if Rivian or its CEO, RJ Scaringe, has potential to be the face of the industry. But Elon Musk, its current poster boy, is a lightning rod for unnecessary turmoil.
In a survey of Americans conducted by The Harris Poll late last year, 45 percent of respondents said they had a lower opinion of EVs “because of the actions of people associated with them.” (I’m pretty sure they didn’t mean Ford’s Doug Field or GM’s Mary Barra.)
Perhaps Rivian’s impressive showing reveals at least some Americans have an appetite for an EV maker that’s neither a traditional auto company nor one helmed by someone who, at times, seems more interested in behaving like a teenage contrarian than a responsible adult serving as the public face of an industry the world desperately needs to grow up — and get people excited about driving electric vehicles — as climate change begins to ravage the planet.
As an academic who studies social policy and race, I was not surprised to learn of the resignation of Claudine Gay, former president of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who was the first Black woman to have the role.
I was not shocked by the news that Antoinette Candia-Bailey, an administrator at Lincoln University of Missouri in Jefferson City, had died by suicide, amid concerns of harassment and a lack of support from senior colleagues.
Black female scholars and staff members continue to face exclusion and challenges in academia that often remain ignored.
A few years ago, I gave evidence to the Women and Equalities Committee of the UK Parliament at a session on racial harassment at British universities. I shared the example of a Black woman who had been driven out of her institution and treated so abysmally in the process that she had considered taking her life. To my knowledge, no one at that university has been held to account. I also outlined findings from my study of the career experiences of UK Black female professors who described being passed over for promotion in favour of less-qualified white faculty members, being undermined by white female colleagues who otherwise champion feminism, and having to take deliberate steps to protect their well-being (see go.nature.com/43bv84e).
Why Juneteenth matters for science
I do not stand outside the issues I research. I have long been aware of the opaqueness with which institutions interpret and apply policies, and how this benefits certain groups but disadvantages others. I was so scarred by my previous experiences of applying for academic posts that, at one point, I took to walking around with the promotion criteria for senior lecturer at that university in my pocket to help me decide which work requests I should commit my time to.
I submitted my application to the university with confidence. It met the listed criteria for senior lecturer and many for the level above that. Yet my application did not pass even the first of three review panels. The amount of research funding I had secured was deemed not to be ‘sufficient’. There had been no mention of this in the guidelines. Introducing subjective language such as ‘sufficient’ risks inviting bias into the process.
The low representation of Black women in senior posts cannot be attributed merely to a pipeline issue. Resolving poor retention — by creating environments in which Black women can flourish — is crucial. This goes beyond ‘dignity at work’ statements, ‘diversity and inclusion’ policies and lunchtime yoga sessions. Black women are more likely than white women to die in childbirth (see go.nature.com/3pcukgs) and to have fibroids, and less likely to receive adequate pain treatment from health-care professionals. This means that Black women are often facing these challenges while also dealing with workplace difficulties, such as unsupportive line managers, isolation and the weight of academic service.
Existing at the intersection of being Black and a woman is exhausting.
Colleagues keen to demonstrate their solidarity with Black women might, at a minimum, commit to the below actions. Although these principles should be considered good practice, in general, not adopting them could have a disproportionately large effect on Black women, because of the existing challenges we face.
Equity is more than a buzzword
Be respectful of our time. I often receive requests — some even outside work hours — with unrealistic deadlines, without apology or explanation. When asking us to do something, acknowledge that we already have other commitments.
Pay us. Asking people to work for free implies that you do not value them or their expertise. If your business has a healthy bank balance or you are charging people huge sums to attend your conference, it is not reasonable to hide behind honorariums as a rationale for not paying contributors.
Sponsor Black women. In many ways, progress in academia — and in wider society — depends on who you know. While we continue to fight for recognition by and access to institutions, you can help us by citing our work and championing us.
Be transparent and honest in communications. If you can’t accommodate a request or commit to a project, say so. Avoid ambiguous language that requires us to read between the lines.
White women: feminism means Black women, too. In my study, Black professors described how white women excluded them through behaviours similar to those that the same women criticized in men. Working in solidarity with Black women means attending to the ways your racialized identity affords you privileges.
Unless such actions are integrated into workplace policies and practices, and unless people are held accountable, Black women will continue to be on the receiving end of disrespectful, exclusionary behaviours.
Black women must be vigilant about their health and well-being, and put firm boundaries in place to protect themselves. We must support and champion each other and be wary of narratives based on other people’s ideas of success, such as being called a role model, or “if you see it, you can be it”. Our challenge is not one of individual motivation, aspiration or achievement, but of the need for radical change that breaks down the barriers that, despite our efforts, continue to impede our collective success.
