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The Virgo gravitational-wave detector near Pisa, Italy, has roughly doubled its sensitivity since 2017.Credit: Cappello/Ropi via ZUMA

Three massive gravitational-wave detectors — the two in the United States called LIGO and one in Italy known as Virgo — officially resumed collecting data on Monday, after a 19-month shutdown for upgrades. Thanks in part to a quantum phenomenon known as light squeezing, the machines promise to spot more gravitational waves and make more detailed detections than before.

Nature | 6 min read

Australians are just weeks from a national election and the government’s latest budget, released yesterday, prioritizes tax cuts, roads and small businesses ahead of spending on science. “It is not an inspirational budget for a nation that needs to transition from a bulk resources exporter to an innovation economy,” says marine ecologist Emma Johnston, president of Science and Technology Australia.

Nature | 4 min read

An unconventional palaeontologist has found a detailed fossil record of the moment an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. A paper from PhD student Robert DePalma and colleagues describes a jumble of plants, fossilized fish and glass formed from molten rock blasted into the air that they say reveals a never-before-seen snapshot of conditions “minutes to hours” after the impact. In a New Yorker feature that broke the news, DePalma also tells of finding dinosaur fossils among the material, supporting the theory that the dinosaurs were alive and well at the time of the disaster. “It’s like finding the Holy Grail clutched in the bony fingers of Jimmy Hoffa, sitting on top of the Lost Ark,” says DePalma, who has been working on the private site in North Dakota since 2012, paying for tools and equipment himself.

Scientists greeted the news with astonishment and scepticism, reports Science — partly because the big claims about dinosaurs made in the New Yorker piece have yet to be published in a scientific paper. Some have raised concerns about cultural sensitivity, saying the story has been reported as one of a white ‘Indiana Jones-like’ character in the “lonely expanses” of North Dakota, obfuscating the existence and knowledge of the Indigenous people whose ancestral territory it is.

The New Yorker | 45 min read & Science | 9 min read

Reference: PNAS paper

FEATURES & OPINION

The Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan was the anvil on which the Soviet Union forged its nuclear arsenal. Decades after weapons testing stopped, researchers are still struggling to decipher the health impacts of long-term, low-dose radiation on the people who still live nearby.

Nature | 12 min read

Even for those versed in the Theranos story, a new documentary about the biotech company offers something fresh, says reviewer Heidi Ledford. The visual medium offers eye-opening gems, including footage of founder Elizabeth Holmes, the visceral regret of journalists who were duped into boosting the company’s fortunes and a stark reminder of just how young the key whistle-blowers were.

Nature | 6 min read

Information scientist Tomasz Głowacki thought that academia would be his lifelong career, but after taking part in a leadership programme organized by the Polish government, he now works in industry and teaches business-related skills. “Leaving academia was not a failure,” he says. “It helped me to explore new opportunities, to better understand my professional expectations and to find the career path that fits me best.”

Nature | 6 min read