Research Rabbit and the tools that map an idea's family tree
Citation-mapping tools trace a paper backward to its foundations and forward to its offspring. Here is what they can and cannot tell you.
By Samuel Achebe • October 27, 2026
Engevity News
Latest
Why the science podcast boom brought research to more ears
Scientists host most science podcasts, listening hit record shares of Americans in 2024, and the first big census of the genre traced its climb from 2004 to 2018.
By Bianca Torres • October 27, 2026
Education News
How school funding works: a plain-English guide to the money
Schools run on three streams: local property taxes, state aid, and a small federal share. The mix explains most gaps between districts, and the spending record is humbling.
By Tobias Lange • October 27, 2026
Literacy
What works in adult literacy when school is long over
Adult literacy programs deliver real but small reading gains. A 2011 trial of 198 adults, UNESCO’s 2025 count, and PIAAC surveys show what the evidence supports.
By Yasmin Haddad • October 24, 2026
How to write a research paper that people actually read
A clear argument, an honest methods section and a limitations paragraph you are proud of will do more for a paper than any clever phrase.
By Samuel Achebe • October 21, 2026
Two Air Force lab projects show how research survives on thin details
An autonomous shotgun and a blood recirculation machine are both in development at the Air Force Research Laboratory. What the reporting supports — and what it does not.
By Samuel Achebe • September 29, 2026
News — Georgia State Opens a Research Tower: How to Read a University Building Announcement
A nine-story lab building is a promise, not a result. Here is what the numbers in such announcements can and cannot tell you.
By Tobias Lange • September 22, 2026
Research
ResearchGate explained: what it is and how scholars use it
The Berlin-based network counts tens of millions of researcher accounts. Here is what actually happens on it, and what a careful reader should keep in mind.
By Samuel Achebe • September 21, 2026
From the past month
Education News
What Is Innovation in Education? Classrooms That Keep Changing
The word shows up in every school brochure. Here is what it actually means, and how to tell a real change from a renamed one.
By Victor Petrov • September 30, 2026
Literacy
Baseline Characteristics: How to Spot When a Study Compares Apples to Oranges
Two groups, one bold headline, and a hidden factor nobody mentioned. Learn how confounding and selection bias make studies compare apples to oranges, and how to spot it yourself.
By Bianca Torres • October 9, 2026
Literacy
The science of reading: how brains crack the code
Decades of research point to one skill at the center of learning to read — and it explains why classrooms keep changing.
By Tobias Lange • October 21, 2026
Science News
Science news for students: how a youth newsroom adapts research
Youth science news is its own journalism. One newsroom has rewritten research for readers as young as nine since 2003, tuning vocabulary and adding teacher aids without weakening the reporting.
By Samuel Achebe • October 18, 2026
Types of innovation — Incremental vs disruptive innovation: a field guide
Incremental change fills in the gaps; disruption starts cheap and grows. Schumpeter’s split and Christensen’s 1995 theory, with the case that broke its own rules.
By Samuel Achebe • October 22, 2026
How surgeons and medtech companies learn to work together at IRCAD North America
A Charlotte training center shows why device innovation fails in the operating room when nobody practices the whole setup.
By Bianca Torres • October 13, 2026
Innovation meaning: what the word really carries in business and science
A new thing is not an innovation until someone uses it and value moves. The definition is stricter than the marketing suggests.
By Bianca Torres • October 7, 2026
Frugal innovation: how constraint shapes low-cost invention
Why some of the world's most useful devices come from tight budgets, and what the word 'frugal' actually carries into engineering.
By Bianca Torres • September 27, 2026
What the literacy rate in the US actually measures
The literacy rate in the US is a skill ladder, not a pass-fail count. What the 2023 federal numbers show, and why method changes blur the trend.
By Bianca Torres • October 23, 2026
How bad is the literacy crisis in the numbers?
National tests show a real reading slide: 31 percent of fourth-graders at Proficient, more adults at the lowest levels. The crisis label depends on the bar.
By Samuel Achebe • October 19, 2026
Literacy
What a p-value actually means (and what it doesn't)
A p-value is the probability of data at least as extreme as the observed data if the null hypothesis were true — not the probability that the hypothesis is true, and not the size of the effect.
By Tobias Lange • August 28, 2026
Literacy
How peer review works, and what it doesn't catch
Peer review is a check by outside experts on a study's methods and reasoning before publication — a filter that improves papers but cannot verify data, replicate results, or catch deliberate fraud.
By Bianca Torres • August 24, 2026
The replication crisis explained: when famous findings fail
Why landmark results sometimes collapse when other scientists repeat them, and what open science is doing about it.
By Tobias Lange • October 3, 2026
The semaglutide heart trial that changed the obesity-drug conversation, in close-up
The SELECT trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2023, found semaglutide cut major cardiovascular events by a fifth in adults with existing heart disease and overweight — a benefit independent of diabetes.
By Samuel Achebe • August 26, 2026
Science News
How do scientists know how old a fossil is?
Fossils are almost never dated directly. Geologists date the rock around them instead, and the method depends entirely on what happens to be nearby.
By Samuel Achebe • August 22, 2026
Science News
Papers that get harsher peer review may end up more cited
By Samuel Achebe • August 20, 2026
Bilingual education benefits — Bilingual education: what the research shows, and what it doesn't
Dual-language classrooms are often praised and often doubted. The honest picture is more measured than either camp suggests.
By Victor Petrov • October 1, 2026
Standardized testing debate — Standardized testing: how exams became gatekeepers and what may replace them
The standardized testing debate is really a question about fairness: same exam for everyone, but is the same exam measuring the same things?
By Victor Petrov • September 25, 2026
Education News
Why institutional review boards slow down research (and why that matters)
The committees that protect study volunteers also add months to timelines. The trade-off is deliberate, but the delays have grown.
By Victor Petrov • September 13, 2026
Education News
How does a federally funded lab discovery become a company?
The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 set the route from federal grant to patent to licensed startup — and federal records track the paperwork far better than the outcomes.
By Victor Petrov • August 12, 2026