Major reports

A new National Academies report details the extensive degradation of facilities on the two main campuses of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. To resolve the situation, it endorses a plan to more than triple the agency’s current construction and maintenance budget for more than a decade.

The National Science Foundation is taking steps to address sexual assault and harassment at the Antarctic research facilities it supports, including launching a new office to support victims. The problem was the subject of an expansive report the agency released to the public in August.

In the run-up to the next Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel exercise, physicists are showing enthusiasm for building a new collider on U.S. soil, and diversity and community engagement are also getting new attention.

The latest iteration of the National Academies planetary science decadal survey is the first to undertake detailed examinations of astrobiology, the integration of science with crewed exploration, planetary defense, and the state of the planetary science profession.

The new National Academies decadal survey for planetary science prioritizes completion of the Mars Sample Return mission, new flagship missions to Uranus and Saturn’s moon Enceladus, and a slate of candidate concepts for medium-scale missions.

The National Academies has released its first-ever decadal survey on the ‘physics of living systems,’ which recommends coordinating fragmented funding sources and education programs to help biological physics cohere as its own branch of the physical sciences.

A new report from the National Science Board finds that the U.S. has continued to lose its clear leadership position in global science and engineering. Accordingly, the board recommends the nation position itself as an international hub for scientific collaboration and take urgent action to strengthen the domestic STEM workforce.

A new study sponsored by the American Physical Society concludes that U.S. systems for intercepting intercontinental ballistic missiles cannot be relied on to counter even a limited nuclear strike and are unlikely to achieve reliability within the next 15 years.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is advancing five new principles for protecting scientific integrity, with an eye toward guarding against political interference across federal agencies.

Aside from its highest-profile recommendations, the latest astronomy and astrophysics decadal survey recommends priorities for small and mid-scale projects, with a particular emphasis on time-domain and multi-messenger astronomy. It also calls for increased spending on technology development.