Sora is one of several AI tools that generates video from text promptsCredit: OpenAI
The release of OpenAI’s Sora text-to-video AI tool last month was met with a mix of trepidation and excitement from researchers who are concerned about misuse of the technology. The California-based company showcased Sora’s ability to create photorealistic videos from a few short text prompts, with examples including clips of a woman walking down a neon-lit street in Tokyo and a dog jumping between two windowsills.
Tracy Harwood, a digital-culture specialist at De Montfort University in Leicester, UK, says she is “shocked” by the speed at which text-to-video artificial intelligence (AI) has developed. A year ago, people were laughing at an AI-produced video of the US actor Will Smith eating spaghetti. Now some researchers are worried that the technology could upend global politics in 2024.
OpenAI, which also developed ChatGPT and the text-to-image technology DALL·E, debuted Sora on 15 February, announcing that it was making the technology “available to red teamers to assess critical areas for harms or risks”. ‘Red teaming’ refers to the process of conducting simulated attacks or exploitation of a technology to see how it would cope with nefarious activity, such as the creation of misinformation and hateful content, in the real world.
Sora isn’t the first example of text-to-video technology; others include Gen-2, produced by Runway in New York City and released last year, and the Google-led Lumiere, announced in January. Harwood says she has been “underwhelmed” by some of these other offerings. “They are becoming more and more vanilla in what they present to you,” she says, adding that the programs require very specific prompts to get them to produce compelling content.
Misinformation is a major challenge for these text-to-video technologies, Harwood adds. “We’re going to very quickly reach a point in which we are swamped with a barrage of really compelling-looking information. That’s really worrying.”
Election fears
That poses particular problems with upcoming elections, including the US presidential election in November and an impending general election in the United Kingdom. “There will be colossal numbers of fake videos and fake audio circulating,” says Dominic Lees, who researches generative AI and filmmaking at the University of Reading, UK. Fake audio of the leader of the UK Labour Party, Keir Starmer, was released in October 2023, and fake audio of US President Joe Biden encouraging Democrats not to vote circulated in January.
One solution might be to require text-to-video AI to use watermarks, either in the form of a visible mark on the video, labelling it as AI, or as a telltale artificial signature in the video’s metadata, but Lees isn’t sure this will be successful. “At the moment watermarks can be removed,” he says, and the inclusion of a watermark in a video’s metadata relies on people actively researching whether a video they’ve watched is real or not. “I don’t think we can honestly ask audiences across the world to do that on every video they’re looking at,” says Lees.
There are potential benefits to the technology, too. Harwood suggests it could be used to present difficult text, such as an academic paper, in a format that is easier to understand. “One of the biggest things it could be used for is to communicate findings to a lay audience,” she says. “It can visualize pretty complex concepts.”
Another potential use might be in health care, with text-to-video AI able to talk to patients in place of a human doctor. “Some people might find it disconcerting,” says Claire Malone, a consultant science communicator in the United Kingdom. “Others might find it extremely convenient if they want to ask a medical professional questions multiple times a day.”
Data management
Text-to-video AI tools such as Sora could help researchers to wade through huge data sets, such as those produced by the European particle-physics laboratory CERN near Geneva in Switzerland and other large scientific projects, says Malone. Generative AI could “sift out code and do the mundane tasks of research”, she adds, but also do “much more sophisticated work [such as] giving it data and asking it to make predictions”.
Concerns have also been raised by people working in creative industries. The US actor Tom Hanks suggested last year that AI could enable him to continue appearing in films “from now until kingdom come” after his death. “If you were a young ambitious actor thinking about their future, and you were told ‘I’m sorry, Tom Hanks is always going to play the leading roles’, would you plan a future in that?” says Lees.
Text-to-video AI will throw up broad issues for society to face. “We’re going to have to learn to evaluate the content we see in ways we haven’t in the past,” says Harwood. “These tools put the opportunity to be a media content creator in the hands of everybody,” she says. “We’re going to be dealing with the consequences of that. It’s a fundamental shift in the way material will be consumed.”
President Biden visits the US National Institutes of Health, which under his proposed budget would receive roughly the same amount of funding in the 2025 fiscal year as in the 2023 fiscal year.Credit: Chris Kleponis/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty
US President Joe Biden today proposed modest increases in federal spending on science and innovation for the 2025 fiscal year. But that doesn’t mean his new budget will face an enthusiastic reception in Congress, which decides how much the government will spend.
Biden, a Democrat, has sought increases for many agencies in previous years but has run up against opposition among Republicans on Capitol Hill. Biden’s spending proposals for the 2024 fiscal year, which began in October, fared no better: in June 2023, after months of sparring, Democrats and Republicans agreed to spending limits for the 2024 fiscal year ― and for the 2025 fiscal year, likely quashing hopes that additional money will be poured into science.
Even after the June deal, the two sides continued to wrangle over the final numbers for the 2024 fiscal year. On 8 March, the Senate finally approved a spending package that cements the 2024 budget for most of the government’s largest science agencies. The House passed the bill on 6 March, and Biden is expected to sign it into law.
Trump versus Biden: what the rematch could mean for three key science issues
Against that backdrop, Biden’s newly published budget proposal “is nothing more than a showcase for the policies and the spending that the White House would like to pursue if it had the ability to do so, which it doesn’t,” says Michael Lubell, a physicist at the City College of New York in New York City, who tracks federal science-policy issues. “My guess is that none of this is going anywhere.”
Science advocates are already expressing dismay over some aspects of the new White House proposal. For example, the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, which was signed into law in 2022 to boost investments in semiconductors and science, authorized up to $35 billion in funding for science and innovation at major science agencies in the 2025 fiscal year, but the White House has requested only $20 billion, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington DC. Nor has Congress followed through on those commitments.
Here are the White House’s proposed budget numbers for fiscal year 2025 for some key science-related agencies. Also noted is how each agency’s proposed funding compares to the amount appropriated for the 2024 fiscal year. The exception is for the National Institutes of Health, whose budget is compared to the amount appropriated for the 2023 fiscal year.
National Institutes of Health: $46.4 billion, 0.6% increase
The administration’s request for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) would keep the agency’s budget nearly flat for what will probably be the second year in a row. Lawmakers are still negotiating how much the NIH will receive in the 2024 fiscal year, but it is unlikely that the agency’s budget will be higher than in 2023. NIH director Monica Bertagnolli acknowledged in December that the 2024 appropriations process will be “painful”, particularly for early-career researchers. “A flat budget is a contracting budget,” she said.
In addition to the $46.4 billion the White House has requested for the agency in 2025, it has also asked for an additional $1.4 billion to support the Cancer Moonshot programme, which aims to at least halve the US cancer death rate in 25 years, and $1.5 billion for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), which was created in 2022 to fund high-risk, high-reward biomedical research. The White House has also requested that the Department of Health and Human Services, the parent agency of the NIH, receive $20 billion for biodefence and pandemic preparedness, of which $2.7 billion would go to the NIH.
But it is unlikely that Congress will fund these additional programmes in full, says Ellie Dehoney, the senior vice president of policy and advocacy at Research!America, a non-profit organization in Arlington, Virginia, that advocates for health research. Overall, “these are disappointing numbers”, Dehoney says. This is not “what the United States needs to stay in the lead” of biomedical research, she says.
NASA: $25.4 billion, 2% increase
Biden requested significantly less for NASA for the 2025 fiscal year than he did for the 2024 fiscal year, but his new request would still provide the agency with a little more funding than Congress appropriated. NASA’s science budget would increase by 3%, with much of that boost going to the agency’s earth science division for restructuring several planned Earth-observing missions. NASA’s planetary sciences division would receive $2.7 billion; one major uncertainty is how much of that would go towards retrieving rock samples from the Martian surface. Last year the sample-return mission was estimated to cost as much as $11 billion; NASA and the European Space Agency are now looking at whether they can reduce the price tag.
The proposed budget would slash funding for the operation of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, a pre-eminent telescope that has been operating since 1999. The agency would also reduce funds for the operations of the Hubble Space Telescope, though much less drastically than for Chandra.
The White House is seeking a substantial boost for the US Environmental Protection Agency in the 2025 fiscal year, but Congress moved in the opposite direction last week: the agency’s overall budget in the 2024 fiscal year will be 9.6% lower than in the 2023 fiscal year. The picture is similar for the agency’s science and technology programmes, which are taking a 5.5% hit in the current fiscal year, leaving them with $758.1 million. The White House is now calling for an increase of 33.2% for those programmes in the 2025 fiscal year, which would bring the budget for science and technology to more than $1 billion.
National Science Foundation: $10.2 billion, 12% increase
Biden’s request for the National Science Foundation (NSF) is 12% above the funds appropriated for the 2024 fiscal year. The request includes $2 billion for priorities outlined in the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, $1.4 billion for climate research and $300 million for infrastructure for large-scale research projects. The budget explicitly supports a single US extremely large telescope rather than the two such projects sought by astronomers.
The spending bill finalized last week imposed an 8.3% funding cut on the NSF — a “catastrophic” move for science, says Matt Hourihan, associate director of R&D and advanced industry at the Federation of American Scientists, an advocacy group based in Washington DC. But Biden’s request constitutes “a good budget that takes us in the right direction”, he says.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: $9.7 billion, 5.7% increase
The Biden administration requested $9.68 billion for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the agency responsible for protecting public health. That would be a 5.7% increase over the agency’s funding for the 2023 fiscal year, but it is a smaller request than the $11.6 billion budget that the administration proposed for the 2024 fiscal year. “The request comes from, unfortunately, a return to austerity overall for discretionary funding,” says Dara Lieberman, director of government relations at Trust for America’s Health (TFAH), an advocacy group in Washington DC.
The budget includes substantial funding for efforts to modernize public health data systems: $225 million, a 28.5% increase over the amount appropriated for the 2023 fiscal year.
Department of Energy Office of Science: $8.6 billion, 4.2% increase
The Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, a major funder of research in the physical sciences, has weathered the budget storm better than most. The deal finalized by Congress last week increased the office’s budget for the 2024 fiscal year to more than $8.2 billion — a 1.7% increase over 2023 — and the White House is seeking another increase in the 2025 fiscal year.
The outlook is mixed for other parts of the DOE. The request for clean-energy programmes within the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, for example, is $5.1 billion. That is more than 46% higher than the amount that Congress appropriated for the 2024 fiscal year, but 9.4% less than the amount appropriated for the 2023 fiscal year. One clear winner is the National Nuclear Security Administration, an agency within the DOE that maintains the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons: its budget for the 2024 fiscal year is $19.1 billion, an increase of nearly $2 billion over the 2023 fiscal year, and the White House is seeking more than $19.8 billion for the 2025 fiscal year.
Urgent question
The White House proposal sets the stage for a new round of budget negotiations, but for Carney the most pressing question is how and when Congress will resolve questions about funding the rest of the government in the current fiscal year. As it stands, much of the federal government — including the National Institutes of Health, the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research — is poised to shut down in less than two weeks unless lawmakers act. And according to the budget agreement reached between Biden and the Republicans last year, further spending cuts will kick in if the Congress doesn’t finalize the appropriations process by the end of April.
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The worm-like caecilian Siphonops annulatus is the first amphibian described to produce ‘milk’ for offspring hatched outside its body.Credit: Carlos Jared
A species of amphibian is the first observed to nourish its young with a milk-like product, which it squirts from the cloaca, a combined rear opening for its reproductive and digestive systems. Siphonops annulatus is a blind, worm-like caecilian that lives underground. Lactation is considered a key characteristic of mammals, but a handful of other animals — including some birds, fish, insects and even spiders — produce nutrient-rich liquid for their offspring.
At its annual meeting this week, China’s legislative body, the National People’s Congress, promised to increase government funding for science by 10% in 2024. It’s the largest boost to funding in five years. The increase comes as the Chinese economy struggles to meet growth targets and is locked in a race for technological supremacy with the United States. “To win this game, China has to invest in science and technology, especially in basic research,” says Marina Zhang, who studies innovation with a focus on China.
New president Javier Milei hasn’t outright shut down Argentina’s main national science agency, CONICET, as he pledged during his presidential campaign. But by keeping its budget unchanged — in a country where annual inflation stands at more than 250% — he is making it impossible for some laboratories to stay open, say critics. On Wednesday, 68 Nobel prizewinners in chemistry, economics, medicine and physics delivered a letter to Milei expressing their concerns. “We watch as the Argentinian system of science and technology approaches a dangerous precipice, and despair at the consequences that this situation could have for both the Argentine people and the world,” it says.
Stone tools found in western Ukraine date to roughly 1.4 million years ago, making them the oldest known artefacts in Europe made by ancient humans. The findings support the theory that our early relatives — probably of the versatile species Homo erectus — first entered Europe from the east and spread west. The type of tools, and the location where they were found, hint that the first Europeans might have moved westwards along the valleys of the Danube River.
A stone tool from the archaeological site of Korolevo in western Ukraine.Credit: Roman Garba
Features & opinion
Researchers suggest that an imbalance in the intestinal microbiota might cause the gut to send signals to the brain that promote addiction behaviours. Even before a person’s first contact with alcohol or drugs, the imbalance could give rise to traits such as impulsivity, susceptibility to stress or anxiety, and sensation-seeking, creating a vulnerability that can lead to addiction. If that’s true, it could open the door to new treatments — but it’s not going to be simple to address disorders that are associated with many risk factors, including mental-health conditions and genetics. “People have asked me, ‘Can someone just eat yogurt and cure their addiction?’” says Drew Kiraly, a psychiatrist and physician. “It’s going to be much, much more complicated than that.”
There are four cognitive ‘traps’ that researchers should consider carefully before embedding AI tools in their research, say anthropologist Lisa Misseri and cognitive scientist Molly Crockett. They characterized these AI mindsets or ‘visions’ — ‘AI as Oracle’, ‘AI as Arbiter’, ‘AI as Quant’ and ‘AI as Surrogate’ — after reviewing 100 peer-reviewed papers, preprints, conference proceedings and books. In general, they warn researchers against imbuing AI systems with ‘superhuman’ abilities. “There’s a risk that we forget that there are certain questions we just can’t answer about human beings using AI tools,” says Crockett.
One behaviour that was thought to be unique to humans is the ability to learn something from your predecessors that you couldn’t figure out on your own. Now researchers have shown that bumblebees are also capable of this ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ approach to learning. Bees taught how to complete a puzzle too difficult to solve on their own were able to share this knowledge with other bees, raising the possibility that this ability could be widespread among animals.
Gender-equality researcher Susanne Täuber was dismissed from her job after blowing the whistle on bias. Her advice for others concerned about their workplace: trust your gut feeling. (Nature | 5 min read)
Karin Kirk is a freelance science journalist who has built a career on icy ground. She lives in Bozeman, Montana, a corner of the northwestern United States known for its snow-capped mountains and vast wilderness areas. There, she balances her work as a science writer and climate educator with her job as a skiing instructor and ridge guide — a professional with the expertise to guide skiers through trails beyond the ski lifts, accessible only by hiking.
Kirk tells Nature how she finds a balance between her two interrelated careers.
How did you get started on your multidimensional career path?
I was teaching undergraduates at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York — one of my first jobs after graduating in geology from Montana State University in Bozeman — and there was a nearby ski area that had night skiing. I found I could teach geology during the day and teach skiing at night. Ever since then, I’ve never let go of either of those pieces of my career. It’s an ongoing struggle,but my motivation to keep the right balance between work and life has been really strong. If someone right now offered me the ultimate dream writing job, but it was full time and it meant I couldn’t ski or go out and do all these other things I do, I don’t think I would accept it.
I feel really fortunate. Building a career is hard for everyone, but it’s harder for people in minority groups, first-generation university students and people who cannot afford to take big financial risks like going freelance. I am incredibly lucky that my husband and I could float for a bit and live on a reduced income when I started freelancing.
What challenges have you faced in maintaining that balance?
In science, I’ve had colleagues who really don’t know what to make of the fact that I have serious professional commitments that are not to do with research. Not everyone appreciates that, and some people see me as uncommitted. It was a theme more when I was in academia, because people are very used to the total dedication to that path.
Probably the hardest thing for me was getting started as a freelance science writer once I left academia. Going out on one’s own is exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure. You have moments of triumph. But then you have a lot of setbacks and moments that make you doubt yourself. Those first few years were a battle.
How did you navigate the leap into the unpredictable world of freelancing?
At first, I expanded my ski teaching, which helped financially and restored my energy and optimism when I needed it most.
The overall solution that worked for me was to find outlets for which I could be a regular writer, rather than chasing one-off assignments. After a couple of years I developed a nice rotation of writing about climate change, geology and skiing. Switching between topics kept me fresh and productive, and it was enough to pay the bills. Building relationships with editors also gave me space to explore ideas without having to prove myself with each new article, plus the pay was predictable so I could meter out my time accordingly. That’s when I felt like I’d found my groove, and everything became fun rather than scary.
When do you feel most successful in your science-communication work?
My personal priority is to reach as wide an audience as I can and talk to people in all different circumstances. I am super happy when I see my work reach an audience way outside my peers and colleagues. For example, some of my writing and infographics around electric-vehicle efficiency, which were published by the news service Yale Climate Connections, got picked up by MotorTrend magazine and referenced in two articles. I’m not the person who’s going to go and pitch to an automotive magazine, but for them to find my work, write about it and then recommend my article to their readers was awesome. It connected with a way different audience than I expected.
Karin takes notes after navigating glaciers in Greenland.Credit: Karin Kirk
In what ways is your work in geoscience complementary to your work as a skiing instructor and ridge guide?
As a guide here at Bridger Bowl Ridge, I love to talk about the geology of the mountain range and the intricacies of the rock. The summit is made of Mississippian-age Madison limestone (that’s around 325 million years old), the same rock I studied for my master’s thesis. It has brachiopod fossils and collapse breccias and fabulous chert lenses. At the crest of the range, the rocks have been uplifted to a near-vertical position, forming sheer walls of limestone that are a total rush to weave through on skis or a snowboard. My goal, as both a skiing instructor and a geoscience communicator, is to help people feel comfortable. Skiing is a scary sport. It’s important to see where a person is, understand what they’re feeling, and work with that. Fear can be paralysing. But when you feel comfortable, you can do amazing things. That’s where everything overlaps for me.
The other obvious overlap is climate change — the future is grim for the ski industry. But to me, that’s a very minor consequence of climate change: it doesn’t really matter, compared with other consequences. Skiing’s really fun, and it’s a way of life if you live near a ski area. But I’m more concerned for the water in the snowpack than my ability to play on the snowpack, and so is everybody here. Snow has a really special role in the hydrological cycle, because it stores water and releases it slowly. The way snow reflects sunlight is also integral to nature.
I think the best thing the ski industry can do, when we have guests up in these Alpine environments, is to be service educators. We need to say, “Skiing on snow is fun, but here are all the ways that snow is important in this ecosystem.”
What advice would you give scientists who want to communicate their work effectively?
We’re in a golden age of communication, but it can also be a media minefield. There’s this insatiable hunger for information, so the opportunities for science communication have never been greater. There are also so many venues for communicating science, whether you do it formally and you want to make a career out of it, or informally as part of another job. You can do it as a community leader — I’ve gone out and had hundreds of conversations about climate with voters, and I’ve been training others to do the same. If you can bring your science into your hobby, the way I’ve done with skiing and geoscience, you can use a shared passion to start conversations with people. My advice would be to try different lanes. Continue to iterate, and if you start to get some resonance with an audience, a topic or a method, then cultivate that.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Former US president Donald Trump and current US President Joe Biden will face off in November to win a second term.Credit: Morry Gash, Jim Watson/AFP via Getty
Voters in 15 US states and one territory weighed in at the polls on 5 March, or ‘Super Tuesday’, and the results lock in a rematch between Republican Donald Trump and the incumbent, Democrat Joe Biden, in November’s election for the next US president. The outcome could have massive implications for the environment, public health and international collaborations between scientists — as well as, some fear, US democracy itself.
Has Biden followed the science? What researchers say
Trump soundly beat his lone remaining challenger for the Republican nomination, Nikki Haley, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, who dropped out of the race on 6 March. The former president prevailed despite facing 91 criminal charges alleging interference with the 2020 presidential election, economic fraud and mishandling of classified materials. The result of this year’s election could hinge on the outcome of those cases, as well as on potential long-shot presidential challenges from candidates labelling themselves as independents. But for now, Trump has consolidated his control over the Republican Party and will once again run against Biden, whom Democrats have rallied behind.
The two candidates have opposing views on a host of scientific issues. As president, Biden has promoted climate and clean-energy innovation, and bolstered scientific-integrity policies throughout the federal government that are meant to protect evidence-based decision-making. During his presidency from 2017 to 2020, Trump repealed climate policies and promoted fossil fuels, while sidelining public-health officials and other government scientists. Each is expected to lean further into these stances if he wins a second term.
Here, Nature talks to policy analysts and researchers about what’s on the line in November.
Climate action or disruption?
“It’s a trope to say that every election is critical, but this election is particularly stark in the two paths that it presents for the United States,” says Alexander Barron, an environmental scientist at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, who has worked under both Biden and former US president Barack Obama.
As president, Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris climate accord. He would probably do so again if elected while seeking to roll back climate regulations put in place by the Biden administration to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, including from vehicles and power plants. But there might be limits to what Trump would be able to achieve.
Trump at a campaign rally in Richmond, Virginia, on 2 March.Credit: Win McNamee/Getty
For instance, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022, which by some estimates helped to lock in around US$1 trillion in funding for clean-energy programmes over a decade. If Trump wanted to repeal that legislation, it would require an act of Congress, which would be possible only if Republicans maintain control of the US House of Representatives and gain a majority in the Senate, which Democrats now control by a slim margin. And even then, observers say, the politics could be tricky given that large investments are already starting to flow into communities represented by lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle.
Nonetheless, Trump could still disrupt the climate agenda laid out in the IRA, says Greg Dotson, a legal scholar at the University of Oregon in Eugene, who was involved in crafting the legislation as a Democratic staff member in the Senate.
“The first Trump administration was very hostile to climate policies, and they didn’t feel necessarily restrained by the law,” Dotson says, noting that Trump could still block funding and rewrite climate-programme rules if he returned to office. By contrast, climate-policy specialists say that another four years under Biden could lock in nearly a decade of significant progress. This is what will be needed if the country is to have any hope of achieving Biden’s pledge to halve US emissions by 2030 and achieve net zero by mid-century.
“Getting to those targets is going to be a tremendous group effort,” Barron says. “We really need all levels of government and all sectors to continue moving in the right direction.”
The health of the nation
The two candidates also differ notably in their approach to investing in public health. For example, in each of Trump’s four years in office, his administration sought, unsuccessfully, to cut the budget of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the country’s premier biomedical-research agency. Biden, on the other hand, kick-started the US$2.5-billion Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, aimed at tackling high-risk, high-reward biomedical research — which he’d probably continue to support if re-elected.
The Trump administration also attempted to cut funding for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — an agency tasked with protecting public health — and undermined its scientists during the COVID-19 pandemic by, for example, countering their claims about the seriousness of the health emergency. By contrast, Biden has proposed budget increases for the CDC and has publicly defended the agency and its scientists. “Trump did a lot to discredit public health and scientific agencies in the United States, and it has been difficult to rebuild the trust,” says Larry Levitt, an executive vice-president at the health-policy research organization KFF, based in San Francisco, California.
Biden has pledged to resecure the nationwide right to an abortion, once protected by a Supreme Court ruling in the case Roe v. Wade.Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty
That stance will probably continue. At a campaign rally last week, Trump hinted that he would endorse elements of the anti-vaccine movement if re-elected, suggesting that he would deny federal funds to schools with a vaccine mandate.
The United States’ role in global health is also at stake. During his presidency, Trump pulled the United States out of the World Health Organization (WHO) and generally pursued isolationist policies, Levitt says. “Biden has done a lot to undo that, but we will likely see a slip back if Trump were elected again,” he says. Officials in the Biden administration have expressed their commitment to a global pandemic treaty — an agreement being negotiated among countries to help prevent the next global-health emergency. Meanwhile, Republicans have been critical of it, suggesting that it could be a threat to US intellectual-property rights, forcing companies to share vaccine and treatment know-how.
Ever since the 2022 US Supreme Court decision that ended nationwide abortion rights, the issue has become crucial for voters. The two candidates have adopted opposing positions: Trump, who vowed to overturn abortion rights when he took office, now supports a national ban on abortions after 16 weeks of pregnancy, whereas Biden has vowed to once again secure abortion rights, by passing a law to protect them. Both pledges would require congressional action to be fulfilled, so it isn’t clear whether either would be successful. “We’re at one of the most consequential moments for abortion access in modern American history,” says Nourbese Flint, president of All Above All Action Fund, an abortion-justice advocacy group in Washington DC.
Cross-border science
Another area where Biden and Trump differ vastly is in their approach to immigration, as well as the visas that thousands of foreign students and scientists depend on to study and work in the United States. Weeks after Trump’s presidential inauguration, he introduced broad travel bans that stopped citizens from seven majority-Muslim countries, including Iran and Syria, from entering the United States. The move left international students stranded at airports and shocked the scientific community.
China Initiative’s shadow looms large for US scientists
When Biden took office in 2021, he quickly overturned the ban. And he has taken other steps to reform immigration for professionals such as scientists: in January 2022, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services clarified guidance for workers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) who are seeking visas to come to the United States. This has increased the number of STEM visas being issued, according to the agency.
Should either candidate win the election in November, these stances will probably influence their agendas, experts say. But one area where their policies have more closely aligned — and is unlikely to change — is relations with China.
In 2018, under Trump, the US Department of Justice launched the China Initiative, a programme meant to safeguard US laboratories and businesses against espionage. The initiative led to a number of arrests of scientists with Chinese heritage, but when Biden took office, his administration reviewed the initiative and ended it, arguing that the programme had been perceived as using racial profiling to achieve its aims. Biden nonetheless continued with reforms introduced by Trump that required US universities and research organizations that were awarded more than $50 million per year in federal research funding to prove that they have instituted a research-security programme, including tougher scrutiny of foreign travel.
Trump’s presidential push renews fears for US science
At the end of last year, Republican lawmakers in the US House of Representatives wrote that it had been “unwise” of the Biden administration to end the China Initiative, sparking fear among civil-liberties advocates that they would try to reinstate the programme. They hope that a renewed Biden administration would stave off such efforts, but aren’t sure what would happen under a second Trump term.
“Relations with China won’t improve in the foreseeable future, but they could get worse,” says Jenny Lee, a higher-education researcher and vice-president for international affairs at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
The elections in November will undoubtedly affect government policies on many scientific issues. But for Barron, similar to many others, science is just one of many concerns that he has about a potential second term for Trump, who has questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election, promoted misinformation on a number of fronts, and signalled that he will institute new rules that critics argue will make it easier to fire career government employees who oppose his politics. “I would put myself in the camp that is most worried about democracy,” Barron says.
Three months after Javier Milei took office as the new president of Argentina, scientists there say that their profession is in crisis. As Milei cuts government spending to bring down the country’s deficit and to lower inflation — now more than 250% annually — academics say that some areas of research are at risk. And they say that institutes supported by Argentina’s main science agency, the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), might have to shut down. Researchers have been expressing their anger and discontent on social media and protesting in the streets.
‘Extremely worrying’: Argentinian researchers reel after election of anti-science president
The far-right Milei administration has decided that the federal budget will remain unchanged from that in 2023 — which means that, in real terms, funding levels are at least 50% lower this year because of increasing inflation. CONICET, which supports nearly 12,000 researchers at about 300 institutes, has had to reduce the number of graduate-student scholarships it awards from 1,300 to 600. It has also stopped hiring researchers and giving promotions, and it has laid off nearly 50 administrative staff members.
Yesterday, 68 Nobel prizewinners in chemistry, economics, medicine and physics delivered a letter to Milei expressing concerns about the devaluation of the budgets for Argentina’s national universities and for CONICET. “We watch as the Argentinian system of science and technology approaches a dangerous precipice, and despair at the consequences that this situation could have for both the Argentine people and the world,” it says.
“It is vital to increase the budget for CONICET,” says Nuria Giniger, an anthropologist at the CONICET-funded Center for Labor Studies and Research in Buenos Aires, who is also secretary of the union organizing the protests. She says that, if things don’t change in the next two months, some institutions will have to shut down. “We can’t afford basic things like paying for elevator maintenance, Internet services, vivariums [enclosures for animals and plants] and more.”
Some say that although Milei hasn’t outright shut down CONICET, as he pledged during his presidential campaign, he is keeping his promise by making it impossible for some laboratories to stay open. “By promoting budget cuts in science and technology, the government is dismantling the sector,” says Andrea Gamarnik, head of a molecular-virology lab at the Leloir Institute Foundation in Buenos Aires, which is supported by CONICET.
Daniel Salamone, the head of CONICET, who was appointed by Milei, contends that the government’s actions don’t signal a lack of support for science. “We gave raises and maintained CONICET’s entire staff of researchers and support professionals,” says Salamone, a veterinarian who specializes in cloning. He emphasizes that the country has severe economic problems. “It would seem unfair to assume a critical stance [by Milei towards science] without considering that the country is going through a deep crisis,” he adds, pointing out that more than 50% of the population is living in poverty.
Sending a message
CONICET isn’t the only science-based agency affected by Milei’s cuts. His administration has not yet appointed a president to the National Agency for the Promotion of Research, Technological Development and Innovation, which had a budget of about US$120 million in 2023 and which helps to finance the work of local researchers by channeling international funding to them. This means that the agency has not been operating since last year, putting the 8,000 projects it runs in jeopardy .
Argentina election: front runner vows to slash science funding
“The government is giving a message to society that science is not important” and is sending a negative message about scientists, Gamarnik says. For instance, Milei has liked and shared posts on the social-media platform X (formerly Twitter) suggesting that researchers funded by CONICET are lazy and don’t earn their pay.
Milei has also seemed to undermine science in other ways: on taking office, he dissolved the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, which oversaw agencies including CONICET, downgrading it to a secretariat with a smaller budget and less power. The head of the secretariat he appointed is Alejandro Cosentino, an entrepreneur and former bank manager who funded a financial-technology company but has no scientific background. “With so many areas under his control, there are no priorities set, nor coordination or planning,” says Lino Barañao, a biochemist who was the minister for science for 12 years under two previous administrations. “This is serious.”
Contacted by Nature, a spokesperson for the science secretariat denies that science is not a priority for the Milei administration. “CONICET is in the same budgetary situation as the rest of the national public administration,” that is, it is under the same budget as last year, just like the rest of the government, they said. Closing CONICET institutes is not the intention, they added. And counter to Milei’s comments during the campaign about shutting down or privatizing the agency, the government wants to “build and expand scientific policy” with a special focus on bringing back Argentinian scientists from abroad, they said.
But researchers worry that, instead, young scientists will be driven away from Argentina because of the new administration’s actions. “For the younger scientists, it is a great discouragement to continue,” says Gamarnik. “Our work requires motivation and a lot of commitment. If there are no scholarships and budget, people will start looking for other options.”
Nature’s 2024 photo competition is now live, providing a chance to celebrate the diverse, interesting, challenging, striking and colourful work that scientists do around the world.
Now in its fifth iteration, the competition is open to anyone who isn’t a professional photographer. It’s looking for images that showcase the work that scientists do — anywhere in the world.
To enter, e-mail your favourite picture to [email protected]. You can also use this address to ask any questions. And feel free to share your entry on social-media platforms X or Instagram with the hashtag #WorkingScientist. All entries must reach us by 00:01, UK time, on 28 March 2024.
Winners will be chosen by a panel of Nature staff, including representatives of the art and design team. Winning entries will appear in an April print issue and online. As well as being featured, winners will receive a full, year-long personal print and online subscription to Nature, plus £500 (or equivalent in a different currency) in Amazon vouchers; alternatively, we will make a donation of the same amount to a registered charity of your choice.
We need photos that are of sufficient quality to print — as a general rule, they should be at least 2,000 pixels on their longer edge.
If you need help or advice, read this feature on how to take great photos, written by one of Nature’s media editors (see ‘Capture the moment’). And check out Nature’s award-winning Where I Work section, a series of photo-led profiles of researchers in their workplaces.
Capture the moment
There are no hard and fast rules for taking great photographs, but professional photographers and media editors have some general advice for those who are new to working with a camera.
• Establish a connection with your subject. Make them feel comfortable for a candid shot.
• Understand the environment’s light. Use it to bring out detail in the scene.
• Capitalize on colours. Look for chromatic contrast, union and metaphor in colours.
• Use a tripod. Tools such as these stabilize your camera and will help to avoid blur or framing mistakes.
• Find a clean background. A busy background can distract from the subject.
• Play with camera angles and perspective. Try to be inventive, and look beyond standard ‘stock photography’ images.
• Photograph at the golden hour when shooting outdoors. A low angle of sunlight often creates warm, diffuse light and interesting shading.
• Remember the rule of thirds. Split your frame into thirds, and fill some — but not all — of them with your subject.
• Keep the subject’s eyes in focus. They’re often the best way to bring a viewer close to the subject.
• Shoot, check, re-compose, re-shoot. Take many photos using different angles and ideas to catch the best one.
More inspiration might come from the winners of our 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2022 competitions.
Full terms and conditions can be found in the Supplementary information.
Good luck, and we look forward to seeing your photos.
President Xi Jinping at the opening of the second session of the 14th Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.Credit: Lintao Zhang/Getty
China’s spending on science and technology is set to rise this year, despite the country’s sluggish economic growth.
The government will spend 371 billion yuan (US$52 billion) on science and technology in 2024 — a 10% increase compared with the previous year — according to a draft budget report by China’s Ministry of Finance. The report was submitted at the annual meeting of the country’s legislative body, the National People’s Congress, this week. Of the total government spending, 98 billion yuan will go to basic research, an increase of 13%, according to the report.
“The government is showing that it is committed to giving scientists more resources to support their research,” says Albert Hu, an economist at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai.
The increase in government spending on science and technology is the largest in five years, says Jing Qian, who heads the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis in New York City. With a drop of 9% in 2020, followed by two years of stalled growth, the government increased its spending by 2% last year.
What Xi Jinping’s third term means for science
The latest boost demonstrates the government’s “genuine commitment to its priorities”, says Qian. China has elevated science on the national agenda in recent years. Li Qiang, the premier of the State Council, reiterated that commitment in the written congress report presented at the opening session on 5 March. “We will move faster to boost self-reliance and strength in science and technology,” states the report.
Economic boost
The increase in money for science comes as the economy is struggling to meet growth targets. “China is in the midst of a structural transition,” says Hu. The country is moving from an economy based on long-established sectors such as real estate, to a greater emphasis on high-tech development, he says.
A race for technological supremacy with the United States is another motivating factor, say researchers. The United States has restricted China from accessing key technologies in areas such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors and quantum computing. This has spurred the country to invest in technological self-reliance, says Marina Zhang, who studies innovation with a focus on China at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia. “To win this game, China has to invest in science and technology, especially in basic research,” says Zhang.
Although the increased spending “represents a bigger commitment by the government towards science and technology”, it is still only a small fraction of the country’s total research and development expenditure, says Hu. Government spending accounts for around 11% of the 3.3 trillion yuan spent on R&D in China, according to official figures. R&D spending currently makes up about 2.6% of China’s overall gross domestic product; the corresponding figure in the United States in 2020 was 3.6%.
The congress session ends on 11 March and will be followed by a meeting of China’s political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, next week.
The explosion of custom GPT AI models has only just begun and one such example is the creation of a Data Science custom GPT allowing you to learn more about the multidisciplinary field. That combines statistical analysis, data mining, machine learning, and big data analytics to extract insights and knowledge from structured and unstructured data.
The recent launch of custom GPTs (Generative Pre-trained Transformers) by OpenAI provide a new way for individuals and businesses to create their very own custom AI models in just a few minutes. The new GPTs can be as complicated or a simple as you need and can be edited, tweaked and enhanced to improve results over time. If you are interested in learning more about data science and its different disciplines. You are sure to be interested in the custom GPT created by the Thu Vu data analytics channel providing an AI model specifically geared to answer questions you may have about Data Science.
Data Science disciplines include :
Data Collection: Gathering data from various sources, which can include databases, online repositories, and IoT devices.
Data Processing: Cleaning and structuring the data to make it suitable for analysis. This step often involves handling missing values, outliers, and data transformation.
Data Analysis: Applying statistical methods and machine learning algorithms to the data to identify patterns, trends, and relationships.
Predictive Modeling: Using the data to build models that can predict future outcomes. This involves selecting algorithms, training models, and validating their accuracy.
Data Visualization and Interpretation: Presenting the results of the analysis in a format that is understandable and actionable. This often involves the use of graphs, charts, and dashboards.
Decision Making: Applying the insights gained from the data to inform business strategies, policy-making, or scientific inquiry.
Data Science custom GPT
Other articles we have written that you may find of interest on the subject of OpenAI’s new custom GPT Builder :
Build your own custom GPT from scratch in minutes
Imagine crafting a personal AI chat assistant that speaks your language of data science. OpenAI’s new beta feature makes this a reality, allowing Plus and Enterprise users to create custom GPTs. The beauty of this tool is its accessibility; you don’t need to be a coding wizard to bring your AI assistant to life.
If you are wondering how to start, you’ll be pleased to know that the process is user-friendly. Begin by selecting topics or areas you want your GPT to focus on, like data science, machine learning, or any niche subject. Customizing your GPT’s behavior and responses gives it a unique personality, aligning with your specific needs or business goals. OpenAI provides more documentation and a step-by-step guide over on its official website. We have also created an introductory step-by-step guide on how you can create your first custom GPT in just a few minutes.
What sets these GPTs apart is their ability to integrate with external data sources and applications. Whether it’s syncing with Google Docs, managing emails, or collaborating on Slack, your custom GPT can handle it efficiently. This integration opens up a world of possibilities, from streamlining workflows to providing real-time data analysis.
Custom GPTs can be fine-tuned to interact with various internet services, turning them into versatile tools. They can perform specific tasks, answer queries, or even manage data across different platforms, making them invaluable assets in the tech-driven world.
In a unique move, OpenAI is paving the way for users to monetize their custom GPTs. With the launch of a GPT store, creators can share their personalized GPTs. These will become searchable, and their usefulness may even earn them rankings, allowing creators to profit from their innovative AI tools.
The Future of Custom GPTs
The horizon for these custom GPTs is vast. They offer a new level of personalization in the AI world, catering to specific user needs and interests. The integration with apps and the internet at large makes them highly adaptable and relevant in various sectors.
The creation and utilization of custom GPTs by OpenAI mark a significant step in the evolution of AI interaction. Whether it’s for personal use or professional development, these tools offer a unique opportunity to explore, create, and even profit from AI technology, especially in the field of data science.
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If you are considering careers in Data Analytics or perhaps Data Science and like to know little more about each. You may be interested in this guide which provides more insight into the differences between Data Analytics vs Data Science. Data science is a broad field that includes a variety of tasks and skills. It primarily involves identifying patterns in large datasets, training machine learning models, and deploying AI applications. The process usually begins with defining a problem or question, which guides the subsequent stages of data analysis and interpretation.
After defining the problem or question, the next step is data mining, which involves extracting relevant data from large datasets. However, raw data often contains redundancies and errors. This is where data cleaning comes in, correcting these errors to ensure the data is accurate and reliable, providing a solid base for further data analysis.
After cleaning the data, the next step is data exploration analysis. This involves understanding the data’s structure and identifying any patterns or trends. Feature engineering, a related process, involves extracting specific details from the data using domain knowledge. This can highlight important information and make the data easier to understand, facilitating more effective analysis.
Data Analytics vs Data Science
Other articles you may find of interest on the subject of Machine Learning :
Here is a bullet-pointed summary highlighting the key differences between data analytics and data science for quick reference:
Scope of Work:
Data Analytics: Focuses on processing and performing statistical analysis on existing datasets.
Data Science: Encompasses a broader scope that includes constructing algorithms and predictive models, and working on new ways of capturing and analyzing data.
Objective:
Data Analytics: Aims to answer specific questions by interpreting large datasets.
Data Science: Seeks to create and refine algorithms for data analysis and predictive modeling.
Tools and Techniques:
Data Analytics: Utilizes tools like SQL and BI tools; techniques include descriptive analytics, and diagnostic analytics.
Data Science: Uses advanced computing technologies like machine learning, AI, and deep learning; requires knowledge of Python, R, and big data platforms.
Complexity of Tasks:
Data Analytics: Typically deals with less complex tasks, more focused on visualization and insights from existing data.
Data Science: Deals with complex algorithm development and advanced statistical methods that can predict future events from data.
Outcome:
Data Analytics: Produces actionable insights for immediate business decisions.
Data Science: Develops deeper insights and predictive models that can be used to forecast future trends.
Required Skill Set:
Data Analytics: Strong statistical analysis and the ability to query and process data; more focused on data manipulation and visualization.
Data Science: Requires skills in coding, machine learning, and often a deeper understanding of mathematics and statistics.
Machine learning
Once the data has been explored and the features engineered, the next stage is predictive modeling. This involves using the data to predict future outcomes and behaviors. The results are often displayed visually through data visualization, using graphical tools to make the information easier to understand, enhancing overall data comprehension.
Machine learning and AI are crucial components of data science. Machine learning involves developing algorithms to learn from and make predictions based on data. AI involves creating systems that can perform tasks that usually require human intelligence, such as recognizing patterns in data and making complex decisions based on that data, improving the overall effectiveness of data analysis.
Programming skills
Coding is a fundamental skill for data scientists, who need to write instructions for computers to execute tasks. Python and R are two of the most commonly used languages in data science. Alongside coding, data scientists also need to be familiar with big data platforms like Hadoop and Apache Spark, which are used for storing, processing, and analyzing large datasets, facilitating a more efficient and effective data analysis process.
Database knowledge and SQL are also important skills for data scientists. They need to be able to store, retrieve, and manipulate data in a database. SQL, or Structured Query Language, is a programming language used for managing and manipulating databases, forming a crucial part of the data analysis process.
While data science is a broad field, data analytics is a more focused area. It involves querying, interpreting, and visualizing datasets. Data analysts use techniques like predictive analytics, prescriptive analytics, diagnostic analytics, and descriptive analytics to understand a dataset, identify trends, correlations, and causation, predict likely outcomes, make decision recommendations, and identify why an event occurred.
Data analysts also need strong programming skills and familiarity with databases. They need to write, test, and maintain the source code of computer programs. They also need a strong understanding of statistical analysis, which involves collecting, analyzing, interpreting, presenting, and organizing data.
While Data Analytics vs Data Sciences are distinct fields, they are closely related and often overlap. Both involve working with large datasets and require a strong understanding of coding, databases, and statistical analysis. However, data science has a broader scope and can involve complex machine learning algorithms, while data analysis is more focused on answering specific questions with data. Regardless of the specific field, both data scientists and data analysts play a crucial role in helping organizations make data-driven decisions, improving the overall effectiveness and efficiency of these organizations.
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