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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a detrimental effect on research. However, little has been done to identify and solve the unique challenges faced by early career investigators (ECIs). As a group of American Cancer Society-funded ECIs, we provide recommendations for solving these challenges in the aftermath of the pandemic.

With COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) dominating headlines, highlighting links between the pandemic and biodiversity may increase public awareness of the biodiversity crisis. However, ill-considered messages that frame nature as the problem rather than the solution could inadvertently propagate problematic narratives and undermine motivations and individual self-efficacy to conserve nature.

Core facilities have a different mission than academic research labs. Accordingly, they require different career paths and structures.[Image: see text]

Understanding how animals' capacity to count evolved and works at the neural level could benefit research on human cognition.[Image: see text]

Homosexuality has been a constant throughout human evolution and civilization, and yet, science has been slow to look at the causes of sexual preferences.[Image: see text]

The study of ancient genes in contemporary species is providing new insights about how organisms adapted to new environments during evolution.[Image: see text]

In the wake of economic sanctions, Western funding agencies are increasingly halting scientific collaboration with Russia.[Image: see text]

Ruminant livestock are a significant contributor to global methane emissions. Infectious diseases have the potential to exacerbate these contributions by elevating methane outputs associated with animal production. With the increasing spread of many infectious diseases, the emergence of a vicious climate–livestock–disease cycle is a looming threat.

Understanding how evolution generates and maintains redundancy to cope with damage and loss of function in living systems could inspire applications from new therapies to resilient computer networks.[Image: see text]

Buildings should serve the people who live and work there. Buildings for research should encourage and symbolize communication, transparency and interactions among scientists.[Image: see text]

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic will change how we communicate biomedical science to reflect the new realities of increasing politicization of vaccines or therapeutics, as well as targeted attacks against prominent US scientists. The stakes are high, given how thousands of Americans are losing their lives by refusing vaccinations or demanding unproven treatments.

Posting papers on preprint servers creates patent ‘prior art’ and is likely to affect the patentability of any underlying invention.[Image: see text]

Better knowledge of marine carbon cycles, their effect on global warming, and the important role of fish in both, can convince politics to establish more sustainable fishery policies.[Image: see text]

Human challenge trials to deliberately infect volunteers with SARS‐CoV‐2 should inspire wider debates about research ethics and participants’ motivations to take part in such studies. [Image: see text]

Human actions have caused an increasing number of species to go extinct. Do the available data support concerns about a new mass extinction event? [Image: see text]

International audience; Academic Core Facilities are optimally situated to improve the quality of preclinical research by implementing quality control measures and offering these to their users.

Various viruses can affect the brain directly or indirectly. The specter of Long COVID has focused research on how respiratory viruses can cause infection and inflammation of brain cells. [Image: see text]

New technologies in forensic science often find other scientific and commercial applications beyond assisting criminal investigators. [Image: see text]

Postdocs are at a challenging step in the career ladder and research organisations could do more to help them along the way.[Image: see text]

Open Science calls for transparent science and involvement of various stakeholders. Here are examples of and advice for meaningful stakeholder engagement.

Plant biologists have begun to unravel the molecular mechanisms behind grafting, yielding insights into plant evolution and expanding the scope of this technique.[Image: see text]

Lessons learned from the vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 has encouraged research and vaccine development aimed at mustering strong T cell responses against the pathogen.

Synthetic biology could harness the ability of microorganisms to use highly toxic cyanide compounds for growth applied to bioremediation of cyanide-contaminated mining wastes and areas.

AlphaFold is the most ground-breaking application of AI in science so far; it will revolutionize structural biology, but caution is warranted.

A survey of academics in Germany shows a lack of and a great demand for training in leadership skills.

Non‐technical summaries of research projects allow tracking the numbers and purpose of animal experiments related to SARS‐CoV2 research so as to provide greater transparency on animal use.

Highly pathogenic avian H5N1 influenza A viruses occasionally infect humans, but currently do not transmit efficiently among humans. The viral haemagglutinin (HA) protein is a known host-range determinant as it mediates virus binding to host-specific cellular receptors. Here we assess the molecular changes in HA that would allow a virus possessing subtype H5 HA to be transmissible among mammals. We identified a reassortant H5 HA/H1N1 virus-comprising H5 HA (from an H5N1 virus) with four mutations and the remaining seven gene segments from a 2009 pandemic H1N1 virus-that was capable of droplet transmission in a ferret model. The transmissible H5 reassortant virus preferentially recognized human-type receptors, replicated efficiently in ferrets, caused lung lesions and weight loss, but was not highly pathogenic and did not cause mortality. These results indicate that H5 HA can convert to an HA that supports efficient viral transmission in mammals; however, we do not know whether the four mutations in the H5 HA identified here would render a wholly avian H5N1 virus transmissible. The genetic origin of the remaining seven viral gene segments may also critically contribute to transmissibility in mammals. Nevertheless, as H5N1 viruses continue to evolve and infect humans, receptor-binding variants of H5N1 viruses with pandemic potential, including avian-human reassortant viruses as tested here, may emerge. Our findings emphasize the need to prepare for potential pandemics caused by influenza viruses possessing H5 HA, and will help individuals conducting surveillance in regions with circulating H5N1 viruses to recognize key residues that predict the pandemic potential of isolates, which will inform the development, production and distribution of effective countermeasures.

From immunology to manufacturing to social science: COVID-19 has been a boon for research and development in many research areas.

The Physalis community science project shows how citizen science not just communicates with and engages people in research but also how it can inform and benefit the professional scientists. [Image: see text]

Until COVID‐19, coronaviruses were largely overlooked by virologists. Yet, their abundance in mammalian species could cause new spillover events into humans. [Image: see text]

ヒト胚研究のルールを変更することの意味. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2021-09-02., Science is based on promises, not on mere rules. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2021-09-06.

As humans, many animal species that communicate via vocalization show a wide range of accents and dialects driven by environmental and social factors. [Image: see text]

New biotechnologies such as gene drives and engineered viruses herald a viral era that would give humans exceptional power over any organism at the level of the genotype.

Molecular biology could find inspiration from social sciences and ecology research on how communities remain resilient in times of crisis to better understand tissue homeostasis and resilience.[Image: see text]

The biological cause for the increase in Autism Spectrum Disorder may be fathers’ older age and the epigenetic marks it leaves on sperm cells.[Image: see text]

Even if the predominant model of science communication with the public is now based on dialogue, many experts still adhere to the outdated deficit model of informing the public.

Giant viruses continue to yield fascinating discoveries from ancient eukaryotic immune defenses to viruses’ role in the global carbon cycle.[Image: see text]

Farmers’ opinions and concerns are rarely considered in public debates about the use of gene‐editing technologies to modify farm animals.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has exacerbated the structural inequities in healthcare and the challenges of translating research into public discourse. This article highlights key antiracist considerations, presents previously noted core challenges, and provides recommendations for writing and reporting. Importantly, this article contributes to combating racialized science in the biomedical community.

Whether some animal species possess consciousness is no longer the question; rather how their environment and evolution shaped species‐specific forms of self‐awareness[Image: see text]

Proteomics research infrastructures and core facilities within the Core for Life alliance advocate for community policies for quality control to ensure high standards in proteomics services. The CRG/UPF Proteomics Unit is a member of the ProteoRed PRB3 consortium which is supported by grant PT17/0019 of the PE I + D+i 2013‐2016 from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) and ERDF. We acknowledge support from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, “Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2013‐2017”, SEV‐2012‐ 0208, and “Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d’Economia i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya” (2017SGR595). The VIB Proteomics Core acknowledges support from the VIB Tech Watch Fund and FWO‐SBO Project S006617N. Research in the Mechtler lab was supported by the ERA‐CAPS I 3686 project of the Austrian Science Fund. We acknowledge support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 823839 (EPIC‐XS)

The EU's Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 makes great promises about halting the decline of biodiversity but it offers little in terms of implementation. [Image: see text]

Giving undergraduate students an opportunity to partake in a research project pays back for both students and the lab. [Image: see text]

Governments' measures to control the COVID-19 pandemic and public reaction hold important lessons for science and risk communication in times of crisis.

Modern biotechnology holds great potential for expanding the scope of fermentation to create novel foods and improve the sustainability of food production. [Image: see text]

There is no doubt that sleep is good for health. Yet, understanding how sleep exerts its healing effects has been a formidable challenge. [Image: see text]

Good leadership is important for the efficient functioning of an organization. PhD and postdoctoral research is a mentally challenging job, and a good mentor must be able to both treat students with compassion and provide motivation. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has resulted in the decline of the mental health of a large fraction of mentees.

Policymakers should treat DIY‐biology laboratories as legitimate parts of the scientific enterprise and pay attention to the role of community norms.[Image: see text]

The Research Center Borstel developed a bottom-up approach based on communication and team scouts to create a culture that fosters research integrity.