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Possible Plan

Australian science hasn't been doing so well lately as the science minister position was eliminated and folded into the industry portfolio and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization budget has been slashed about 16 percent, forcing it to close a number of research facilities.

However, chief scientist Ian Chubb says he has a strategy, ScienceInsider notes. Namely, he calls for the establishment of an Australian Innovation Board to identify research priorities, the addition of more qualified science teachers, more skilled STEM workforce, long-term and targeted research funding, and international engagement. He discusses these ideas and more in this report.

"It troubles me that Australia remains the only country among the members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) without a science or technology strategy," Chubb wrote in a recent editorial in Science. "The consequences are and will be felt in our performance, in a world more reliant than ever before on science and science-trained people."

But, Chubb notes he doesn't know whether the advice he is offering in his report will be taken. "I'll make my views known and I don't know whether that would carry any particular weight or not, but part of my job is, I think, to express those views when there is a need," Chubb tells the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The Scan

Genetic Ancestry of South America's Indigenous Mapuche Traced

Researchers in Current Biology analyzed genome-wide data from more than five dozen Mapuche individuals to better understand their genetic history.

Study Finds Variants Linked to Diverticular Disease, Presents Polygenic Score

A new study in Cell Genomics reports on more than 150 genetic variants associated with risk of diverticular disease.

Mild, Severe Psoriasis Marked by Different Molecular Features, Spatial Transcriptomic Analysis Finds

A spatial transcriptomics paper in Science Immunology finds differences in cell and signaling pathway activity between mild and severe psoriasis.

ChatGPT Does As Well As Humans Answering Genetics Questions, Study Finds

Researchers in the European Journal of Human Genetics had ChatGPT answer genetics-related questions, finding it was about 68 percent accurate, but sometimes gave different answers to the same question.