Day 2 of the 13th World Conference of Science Journalists: Advancing science journalism for society and global impact

World Conference of Science Journalists 2025

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The second day of the 13th World Conference of Science Journalists unfolded today at the CSIR International Convention Centre in Tshwane, South Africa -  gathering over 450 science journalists, experts, and stakeholders from around the world to engage on the critical role of science journalism in promoting resilience and social justice.

The conference, themed “Science Journalism and Social Justice – our role in promoting resilience,” continues to emphasise the vital ecosystem between science, society, collaboration, and global impact, with a special focus on Africa’s unique contributions and challenges.

Honourable Minister Dr. Blade Nzimande, South Africa’s Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, honoured the event with his presence, reinforcing the national commitment to science engagement and the strategic role of science journalism in societal development. “Hosting this prestigious conference in Africa is a proud moment for South Africa and presents an opportunity to harness science as an instrument for social justice,” said Minister Nzimande. His attendance underscores the government's dedication to science, innovation, and the medis role in advancing informed public discourse.

Lynne Smit, Senior Editor at Nature Africa and local organising committee member, reflected on the power of this platform: “Day 2 has demonstrated the depth of conversation and urgent need to reclaim trust amid a complex ecosystem of misinformation. The sessions today have empowered journalists to deliver factual, clear science, fostering public understanding and resilience.”

Engela Duvenage, Conference Director and chair of the programme committee, added, “The challenges we face with misinformation require a global, collaborative response. Today’s sessions highlighted innovative strategies and tools that science journalists across regions employ to combat falsehoods that threaten public health and environmental policies.”

The conference purpose extends beyond knowledge sharing; it embodies a commitment to strengthening the global and African science journalism ecosystem. This ecosystem forms a crucial bridge connecting science to society, encouraging collaborations that support resilience and informed decision-making worldwide.

By spotlighting topics from science journalism, communication infrastructure to social justice impacts, the conference advocates for a science-literate society where public policies are shaped by robust, transparent scientific discourse.

 

New research reveals chemical process that may have sparked life on Earth

Discovery by U of A scientists provides a missing piece in an evolutionary puzzle

University of Alberta

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University of Alberta geochemists have discovered a missing piece to one of the great mysteries of science — the origin of life on Earth.

That fateful spark is believed to have occurred on the ocean’s floor, fuelled by warm, mineral-rich hydrothermal vents. But scientists have long puzzled over how the right fertilizer — particularly the forms of carbon and nitrogen necessary to create and sustain life — could have existed without the benefit of the sun.

After analyzing rock samples from hydrothermal vents drilled over a depth of about 200 metres into the crust in the South China Sea, Long Li and his team in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences found evidence of a chemical process — called abiotic nitrogen reduction (ANR), a reaction driven by minerals as catalyst — that likely produced the necessary nutrients for life. A key part of those is ammonium, says Li, crucial for the abiotic synthesis of organic compounds to develop the first life.

The results of their discovery — in collaboration with a group at the South China Institute of Oceanography — were published Nov. 28 in Nature Communications.

“This definitely fills in the gap for the first-step reaction in the origin of life,” says Li. “People have searched for this reaction for a long time, but this is the first time we have convincing evidence to show it is occurring on Earth, and probably did occur on early Earth as well.”

Laboratory experiments have demonstrated the ANR reaction before, but finding its telltale signature in the ocean itself proved difficult, say the study’s authors, because of sample contamination by the modern biological nitrogen cycle.

The discovery also helps to shed light on a long-standing scientific problem known as the “faint young sun paradox,” which considers how liquid water, also essential for life, could have existed on the early Earth when the sun’s rays were weaker and, according to climate modelling, Earth’s surface temperature should have been well below 0 C.

And yet there is convincing geological evidence that the planet was indeed warm enough for liquid water at least 4.4 billion years ago, says Li, likely due to greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia in the atmosphere. Submarine hydrothermal vents could manufacture these greenhouse gases, he notes.

The evidence of ANR in the South China Sea is sufficiently compelling to assume it occurred elsewhere in the ocean, he adds.

“We definitely need more evidence to show that. But since the conditions for ANR are common in both modern and ancient oceans, we reasonably speculate that this could happen globally over Earth’s history.”

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-025-65711-1 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Abiotic N2 reduction in submarine hydrothermal systems could quickly fertilize prebiotic oceans

Article Publication Date

28-Nov-2025

 

Crickets munch on microplastics — especially if they have a big mouth

American Chemical Society

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image: 

Tropical house crickets consumed more plastic-contaminated food over time, even alongside the presence of uncontaminated food.

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Credit: Matthew Muzzatti

To a human, microplastics are very small at less than 5 millimeters (mm) wide. But to an insect, microplastics might be the same size as the food they usually eat. Researchers reporting in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology have shown that crickets can and will consume polyethylene microplastics if their mouth is larger than the plastic particle. The study suggests that crickets — and likely many other insects — cannot distinguish plastic from food.

Previous research has shown that consuming microplastics negatively affects small animals like insects, snails and earthworms. These plastic particles, ranging in size from 1 micrometer (around the width of a bacterial cell) to 5 mm, are sloughed off a variety of sources like garbage and microplastic-contaminated fertilizer. Because of the plastics’ wide variation in size, it’s unclear how insects, which also vary in size, may respond to different particles. Crickets are “generalists,” which means they will eat almost anything that’s available — including plastic pieces. So, Marshall Ritchie and colleagues wanted to use crickets to understand how generalist insects interact with plastic-contaminated food as they grow.

First, the researchers gave groups of adult tropical house crickets (Gryllodes sigillatus) a choice between plastic-free food or food contaminated with either small or large microplastics. The crickets showed no preference for the uncontaminated food, but they consumed more of the contaminated food over time. However, unlike some other animals, eating plastic did not appear to stunt the crickets’ growth.

Next, the team investigated what sizes of microplastics crickets would consume over a seven-week period. During that time, the crickets’ body size increased by approximately 25 times, with their mouth size growing, too. The researchers found that crickets could only consume plastic particles whole when their mouth grew large enough. “Once a particle was big enough to be eaten, crickets continued to eat it for the rest of their life,” explains Ritchie.

The team also found that during digestion, crickets were able to break microplastics into smaller nanoplastics, which are more harmful to the environment than large microplastics. This ability changed as crickets grew — larger particles were found to be less fragmented in larger crickets.

The researchers say that this work suggests that crickets are unable to distinguish between plastic and food, and sheds light on the role insects may play in breaking down microplastics in the environment as they eat them and excrete smaller particles.  

The authors acknowledge funding from the Increasing Knowledge on Plastic Pollution Initiative from Environment and Climate Change Canada, and a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Discovery Grant.

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The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1876 and chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS is committed to improving all lives through the transforming power of chemistry. Its mission is to advance scientific knowledge, empower a global community and champion scientific integrity, and its vision is a world built on science. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, e-books and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world’s scientific knowledge. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

Registered journalists can subscribe to the ACS journalist news portal on EurekAlert! to access embargoed and public science press releases. For media inquiries, contact newsroom@acs.org.

Note: ACS does not conduct research but publishes and publicizes peer-reviewed scientific studies.

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Journal

Environmental Science & Technology

DOI

10.1021/acs.est.5c09189 

Article Title

“The Disadvantage of Having a Big Mouth: The Relationship Between Insect Body Size and Microplastic Ingestion”

Article Publication Date

2-Dec-2025

 

Making quieter dental drills to reduce dental anxiety

By studying the aeroacoustics of a dental drill, researchers can pinpoint the anxiety-causing sounds and design drills to lessen them. 

Acoustical Society of America

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A dental drill being used in a patient’s mouth.

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Credit: Tomomi Yamada

HONOLULU, Dec. 2, 2025 — Dental anxiety, also known as odontophobia, prevents people from getting their regular cleanings and keeping up with necessary dental hygiene.

One aspect of the anxiety comes from the sound of the dental drill, which makes a high-pitched whining sound. As a dentist, Tomomi Yamada has witnessed discomfort and fear in her patients firsthand.

“Originally, I was doing research on dental materials, but I realized that almost no one — not even dentists — was tackling this sound problem scientifically,” Yamada said.

Yamada, an assistant professor at the University of Osaka’s graduate school of dentistry, will present her work Tuesday, Dec. 2, at 8:20 a.m. HST as part of the Sixth Joint Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and Acoustical Society of Japan, running Dec. 1-5 in Honolulu, Hawaii.

To understand the aerodynamics of the drill, Yamada and her collaborators from the University of Osaka, Kobe University, and National Cheng Kung University used Japan’s flagship supercomputer to conduct large-scale aeroacoustics simulations. They analyzed the internal and external airflow of the dental drill, which is powered by compressed air and rotates at about 320,000 revolutions per minute.

From these simulations, they were able to visualize how air moves through and around the drill to create the noise.

“Our research showed that just making the drill quieter isn’t enough to make the sound less unpleasant,” Yamada said. “What really matters is improving its sound quality.”

The researchers also tested the psychological effects of the dental drill, which can generate high-pitched sounds reaching nearly 20 kilohertz, with children and adults. They found that younger listeners had different reactions to the drill, perceiving the sounds as louder and more unpleasant.

“This indicates that children’s fear of dental sounds is not merely psychological but also physiological in nature,” said Yamada. “Children truly hear these sounds differently, so their fear of dental treatment is a genuine sensory response, not just imagination.”

To address this, Yamada and her colleagues are working on optimizing the blade geometry and exhaust port of the drill to minimize the noise while maintaining the performance.

To get the dental industry to adopt this new technology, achieving a balance between the device’s performance and safety is key, since a quieter drill won’t necessarily get the job done.

“Moving forward, we hope to work with dental manufacturers through industry–academia partnerships, progressing toward commercialization after completing the necessary regulatory and durability testing,” Yamada said.

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Main Meeting Website: https://acousticalsociety.org/honolulu-2025/

Technical Program: https://eppro02.ativ.me/web/planner.php?id=ASAASJ25

ASA PRESS ROOM

In the coming weeks, ASA’s Press Room will be updated with newsworthy stories and the press conference schedule at https://acoustics.org/asa-press-room/.

LAY LANGUAGE PAPERS

ASA will also share dozens of lay language papers about topics covered at the conference. Lay language papers are summaries (300-500 words) of presentations written by scientists for a general audience. They will be accompanied by photos, audio, and video. Learn more at https://acoustics.org/lay-language-papers/.

ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

The Acoustical Society of America is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world’s leading journal on acoustics), JASA Express Letters, Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year. See https://acousticalsociety.org/.

ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF JAPAN

ASJ publishes a monthly journal in Japanese, the Journal of the Acoustical Society of Japan, as well as a bimonthly journal in English, Acoustical Science and Technology, which is available online at no cost https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/ast. These journals include technical papers and review papers. Special issues are occasionally organized and published. The Society also publishes textbooks and reference books to promote acoustics associated with various topics. See https://acoustics.jp/en/.

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