A group contends that the journal impact factor (JIF), which ranks scholarly journals by the average number of citations their articles attract in a set period, has increasingly become an obsession in science. Impact factor of articles is used in evaluating research for funding, hiring, promotion, or institutional effectiveness. 

Hofstadter's Butterfly, a complex pattern of the energy states of electrons that resembles a butterfly, has appeared in physics textbooks as a theoretical concept of quantum mechanics for nearly 40 years but had never been directly observed - until now. 

The Obama Administration released an updated draft proposal that would establish common sense safety standards for hydraulic fracturing on public and Indian lands.

Following the release of an initial draft proposal in 2012, the Department of the Interior received over 177,000 public comments that helped shape today’s updated draft proposal. The new proposal maintainssafety standards, improves integration with existing state and tribal standards and increases flexibility for oil and gas developers. The updated draft proposal will be subject to a new 30-day public comment period.

Depending on the species, males have different strategies to try and insure that they reproduce, rather than just being a step-parent.

They may try to ensure paternity by increased surveillance and fighting off the competition, they may have more frequent sex with their long-term partners, they may physically punish unfaithful females or refuse to parent potentially unrelated offspring.

Most people, including many scientists and electrical engineers, have never heard of Wilhelm Josef Sinsteden.  He invented the lead-acid battery and published his findings in 1854.  In 1860 an improved construction by Gaston Raimond Planté was the first commercially viable version.  It is probably the wide marketing and adoption of the Planté cell which has led to so many books and articles - even a majority of scientific papers - stating that Planté invented the first of these batteries, usually giving 1859 as the date. 

What was the diet and movements of the first New Zealanders like?

Isotopes from their bones and teeth can tell us. Researchers say they have been
able to identify what is likely to be the first group of people to colonize Marlborough's Wairau Bar, possibly from Polynesia around 700 years ago. They also present evidence suggesting that individuals from two other groups buried at the site had likely lived in different regions of New Zealand before being buried at Wairau Bar. 

The researchers undertook isotopic analyses of samples recovered from the koiwi tangata (human remains) of the Rangitane iwi tupuna (ancestors) prior to their reburial at Wairau Bar in 2009. 

The Karoo Array Telescope (KAT-7) in South Africa, the pathfinder radio telescope for the $3 billion global Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project, has released its first results.

In the ongoing struggle between the Representative of the 21st District of Texas, Lamar Smith, and all that is holy about the peer review grant process, the battle lines are getting clearer.

Finally the decay of Higgs bosons to b-quark pairs is emerging from LHC data, too.

 4C+29.30, a galaxy located some 850 million light years from Earth, has a new composite image which shows how the intense gravity of a supermassive black hole can be tapped to generate immense power.

 This multi-wavelength view reveals that the radio emission of 4C+29.30 comes from two jets of particles that are speeding at millions of miles per hour away from a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. The estimated mass of the black hole is about 100 million times the mass of our Sun. The ends of the jets show larger areas of radio emission located outside the galaxy.