Science Magazine

6 days ago | science.org | Meredith Wadman

President Donald Trump’s administration wants to cut nearly in half the $47 billion budget of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and reorganize the agency’s 27 institutes and centers into just eight institutes, according to a leaked version of a near-final 2026 budget proposal obtained by Science. That plan, however, must pass muster with Congress—historically a strong bipartisan supporter of the agency—if it is to become reality.

6 days ago | science.org | Michael Funk |Bianca Lopez |Jake Yeston |Marc S. Lavine

Environmental Science Mapping metalsBianca LopezHistoric and current human activities, such as copper mining near this tailing pond in Romania, pose serious threats to soil health globally. PHOTO: PAL SZILAGYI PALKO/ALAMY STOCK PHOTOMetals and metalloids are ubiquitous in soils, originating from bedrock and from human activities and infrastructure. These compounds can be toxic to humans and other organisms, and their soil distribution and concentrations at global scale are not well known.

6 days ago | science.org | Farooq Shah |Wei Wu

Skip to main content Main content starts here Farooq Shah and Wei Wu [email protected] Info & Affiliations Access the full articleView all access options to continue reading this article. References and Notes1UN, “UNEP/Closing of INC-5 In Busan Korea” (2024); https://media.un.org/unifeed/en/asset/d331/d3316357.

6 days ago | science.org | Shraddha Chakradhar

MARINE BIOLOGY Oh baby! First sighting of colossal squid in its habitat A young colossal squid was filmed for the first time in its natural deep-sea habitat.ROV SUBASTIAN/SCHMIDT OCEAN INSTITUTE A team of researchers this week debuted the first video taken of the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) in its natural deep-water habitat.

6 days ago | science.org | Sarah Crespi |David Grimm

Natural History Museum, London/Bridgeman Images First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how an Egyptian cult that killed cats may have also tamed them. Next on the show, we hear about when the aurorae wandered. About 41,000 years ago, Earth’s magnetic poles took an excursion. They began to move equatorward and decreased in strength to one-tenth their modern levels. Agnit Mukhopadhyay, a research affiliate at the University of Michigan,...