{"id":13285,"date":"2026-05-01T21:54:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T21:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/01\/science-news-return-of-the-river-herring-run-musk-vs-altman-and-new-pancreatic-cancer-drugs-wgbh\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T21:54:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T21:54:47","slug":"science-news-return-of-the-river-herring-run-musk-vs-altman-and-new-pancreatic-cancer-drugs-wgbh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/01\/science-news-return-of-the-river-herring-run-musk-vs-altman-and-new-pancreatic-cancer-drugs-wgbh\/","title":{"rendered":"Science news: Return of the river-herring run, Musk vs. Altman and new pancreatic cancer drugs – WGBH"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been more than two decades since the harvesting of river herring was outlawed in Massachusetts. But now, the Cape Cod herring run is finally back in action.
\u201cEvery spring, historically, [river herring] were harvested in huge numbers as they\u2019re swimming up into local rivers,\u201d said Claudia Geib, a freelance science journalist. \u201cThere used to be hundreds of millions of these fish at one time swimming up. But overfishing, dams, pollution \u2026 has dwindled their numbers. But thanks to some careful management practices, these fish have rebounded.\u201d
The herring run in Harwich officially opened on April 22.
Geib said river herring, which are different from the ocean herring often found at the seafood counter at grocery stores, are often used as bait or even as fertilizer.
Eric Sullivan, senior technology editor at Scientific American, said the story of the river herring\u2019s return highlights how limits lead to successful conservation.
\u201cThe town didn\u2019t just reopen the run and say, \u2018Have at it, take as many as you want,\u2019\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cThere were permits given out, short harvest windows, catch limits for each person that had a permit, people counting the fish that people were bringing away. So there\u2019s a little bit of bureaucracy to it, but I think that it\u2019s the reason that this tradition can come back and hopefully thrive again without pretending that the old pressures have disappeared.\u201d
Meanwhile, two new experimental drugs are showing tremendous promise in the fight against pancreatic cancer.
Pancreatic cancer, which is highly aggressive, has about a 13% survival rate after five years \u2014 a significantly lower survival rate compared to breast cancer (about 91%-92%), prostate cancer (about 98%) and colorectal cancer (63%-65%.)
Independent science journalist and editor Shraddha Chakradhar said part of the deadly nature of the disease is centered around when it is detected.
\u201cMost pancreatic cancer diagnoses are made when they\u2019ve already spread to lymph nodes and metastasized, so they tend to be late-stage diagnoses,\u201d Chakradhar said. \u201cAnd so, you have more targets at that point \u2014 you have a more difficult disease to treat.
The two drugs \u2014 one of which is a daily pill and the other is an MRNA vaccine \u2014 are helping to extend the lives of patients.
\u201cThese patients were given an average life expectancy of less than seven months, and now it\u2019s … a little under 14 months, actually. So that\u2019s almost a doubling, which is quite rare in this field,\u201d Chakradhar said.
And in the tech world, two industry giants have taken their fight to the courtroom.
Elon Musk and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company that created ChatGPT, are in a legal battle over the future of the AI company. Musk claims OpenAI is reneging on its promise to stay a nonprofit with a mission to benefit humanity. OpenAI is valued at $852 billion<\/u><\/a> and has both a for-profit and nonprofit arm.
Sullivan said though the drama between Musk and Altman is what\u2019s making headlines, he\u2019s more focused on the bigger issue at hand.
\u201cI really do think that there is a valid point that this was founded as a non-profit and with a lot of language about building AI for the public good, and now it\u2019s one of the most valuable companies in the world with huge investors, huge computing needs, huge commercial pressures now because of the for-profit arm,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cAnd so the trial is, I think, really about how those early promises, and whether those early promises still mean anything once the money gets this big.\u201d
All that, plus communities taking on data centers, a gene therapy breakthrough for children with profound hearing loss, and the trouble caused by overheated sharks on this week\u2019s science and tech news roundtable.
Guests<\/b><\/p>\n

Stories featured in this week\u2019s roundtable<\/b><\/p>\n

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It\u2019s been more than two decades since the harvesting of river herring was outlawed in Massachusetts. But now, the Cape Cod herring run is finally back in action.\u201cEvery spring, historically, [river herring] were harvested in huge numbers as they\u2019re swimming up into local rivers,\u201d said Claudia Geib, a freelance science journalist. \u201cThere used to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}