EurekAlert! News by Subject: Policy & Ethics - News by Subject: Policy & Ethics

Policy & Ethics

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 12-Jul-2025 11:10 ET (12-Jul-2025 15:10 GMT/UTC)

More transparency about So Cal’s fire-polluted air

University of California - Riverside
Business Announcement

Many phone apps offer general but nonspecific information about airborne particles. To help increase public safety amidst the LA fires, scientists are making new, real-time, advanced air pollutant measurements available to the public.

Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation

AAAS and ASU launch mission-driven collaborative to strengthen scientific enterprise

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Business Announcement

Today, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Arizona State University announced a five-year partnership, the AAAS + ASU Collaborative. Together, the institutions will elevate and amplify strategies and practices that advance scientific excellence and enable a boldly inclusive scientific enterprise serving society.

WVU legal scholar makes case for equal protection among different medication classes

West Virginia University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A West Virginia University legal scholar said biologic drugs like the flu vaccine are afforded a lengthy period of legal protection before copycat versions can be sold. In contrast, small-molecule drugs like antibiotics and steroids get far less time, and that may unfairly benefit biologic manufacturers, according to Sean Tu with the WVU College of Law.

Journal: JAMA

Seagrass meadows as natural climate protectors

Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR)
Grant and Award Announcement

24.January 2025/Kiel. How can seagrass help combat climate change? This question is the focus of the new research project ZOBLUC (“Zostera marina as a Blue Carbon Sink in the Baltic Sea”), which now starts under the leadership of the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. The project aims to investigate the role of seagrass meadows as carbon sinks and to develop recommendations for their protection. Funded with around €6 million as part of the Natural Climate Protection Action Programme (ANK) of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMUV) and the Ministry for Energy Conversion, Climate Protection, Environment and Nature of the State of Schleswig-Holstein (MEKUN), the project will run until September 2030.

Funder: German Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMUV), Ministry for Energy Conversion, Climate Protection, Environment and Nature of the State of Schleswig-Holstein (MEKUN)

In a landmark study, an NYBG scientist and colleagues find that reforestation stands out among plant-based climate-mitigation strategies as most beneficial for wildlife biodiversity

The New York Botanical Garden
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study by a New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) scientist and her colleagues published in this week's Science finds that, of the three large-scale, plant-based climate mitigation strategies, reforestation stands out as most beneficial for biodiversity. Well-intended strategies such as afforestation and bioenergy cropping could have unforeseen impacts on biodiversity. The team, including scientists at Princeton University and The Nature Conservancy in addition to NYBG, modeled the impact of these mitigation strategies on over 14,000 invertebrate species. They argue that policy makers and conservation officials should consider impacts on biodiversity when evaluating the most effective tools to mitigate climate change.

Journal: Science

The ISSCR announces new Lawrence Goldstein Science Policy Fellows

International Society for Stem Cell Research
Business Announcement

The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) has appointed three new Goldstein Science Policy Fellows, Lizhong Liu, Ph.D., Westlake University, China, Kate MacDuffie, Ph.D., Seattle Children’s Research Institute, U.S.A., and Mubeen Goolam, Ph.D., University of Cape Town, South Africa. The fellows each have extensive interest in science policy and regulatory issues affecting stem cell science and will serve for three years beginning in June 2025.

Opioid overdose deaths throughout Midwest most strongly linked to a lack of economic upward mobility, Boston College study finds

The unprecedented increase in drug overdose deaths in the U.S., long believed to be driven by access to legal and illegal opioids, is most closely tied to an equally dramatic decline in upward income mobility, according to a new analysis by Boston College researchers published in the International Journal of Drug Policy.

Journal: International Journal of Drug Policy