The government may finally be on a path to reopening, but the shutdown’s effects will linger for scientists studying everything from climate change to cancer.

Despite Friday's €70m rescue of the Spanish National Research Council, Spain's scientists are still in mourning. Amaya Moro Martín sets the scene as a range of commentators identify the challenges still facing Spanish science

Universities need a "cultural change" towards teaching, the universities minister, David Willetts, has argued, as a survey of UK undergraduates showed they were being set less work and received notably less tutor feedback than did their peers 50 years ago.

Just another talking club or a genuine attempt to give science more weight in policy matters of global importance? Time will tell whether the United Nations' newly created scientific advisory board, whose members were announced last week, will indeed influence the business of international policy-making in practice.

List of last week's 2013 Nobel prize winners.

Dmitry Medvedev appointed Oleg Ostapenko as new director of Russia's crisis-ridden space agency, Roscosmos.

Although UK's research funding might be protected, the research councils themselves face a squeeze on their operational costs.

Janet Woodcock, Head of the Food and Drug Administration’s pharmaceutical division, announced plans to retire within the year.

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives tonight voted to end a partial shutdown of the U.S. government that has paralyzed science funding agencies, disrupted research projects and meetings, and threatened to wipe out an entire season of field studies.

Software experiment raises prospect of extra peer review.

The success of Sao Paulo's way of funding science has made it a model throughout Brazil: Sao Paulo produces 50 per cent of Brazilian science through FAPESP which receives one per cent of state tax revenue. The model allows for long-term planning and other states are now emulating it.

The just-elected parliament will face several key decisions on research funding, which will have far-reaching consequences for German scientists. Several big funding programs run out between 2015 and 2019, and the next government will shape their replacements. There is broad support across parties, however, for continuing the programs in some form.

Kurz vor der Wahl hat der Bundesrat ein Gesetz durchgewunken, das wissenschaftlichen Urhebern mehr Rechte einräumt. Weder Forscher noch Verlage sind zufrieden damit.

At the International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication, efforts to explore the scientific literature have shifted away from peer review and into other areas, such as bias and authorship. With a dearth of available data and funding, large systematic studies of how peer review works and doesn't aren't easy to get off the ground.