Lab burners may spread germs, NIH shifts funds to defense, and orcas likely play with boats
New research shows Bunsen burners do not reduce bacterial contamination and may worsen it, while the NIH has agreed to move billions in infectious-disease research to defense projects, and scientists say Iberian orcas’ boat-ramming is playful rather than aggressive.
Laboratory tests using the bacterium Gordonia rubripertincta demonstrated that Bunsen burners, traditionally used to sterilize air above workbenches, failed to lower bacterial counts and sometimes increased them, according to a Microbiology Spectrum study. In a separate development, the US National Institutes of Health entered a ten-year agreement with the Department of Defense to shift research projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars from its infectious-disease institute to military biodefence programs, raising worries about the loss of openness and clinical relevance.
Researchers studying Iberian orcas observed that most incidents of boat-ramming involved juvenile whales that nudged vessels gently and occasionally dropped fish, challenging the notion that the animals are seeking revenge. The briefing also mentioned a new history of Newton’s Principia, the emergence of single-cell proteomics for profiling thousands of proteins in individual cells, and an essay urging “reparative science” to address environmental harms. Together, these items illustrate how longstanding scientific practices and funding structures are being re-examined.
Why it matters
The findings challenge common lab safety methods, shift major research funding to defense, and reshape our view of orca behavior.
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