Physicist Mildred Dresselhaus with a student; a study has found that more experienced scientists produce more persistently disruptive science than their younger peers. Credit: Micheline Pelletier/Gamma-Rapho via Getty

Experienced scientists produce ‘disruptive’ work less often than early-career researchers, but when they do, their innovations are more likely to have a lasting effect, according to a study 1 published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America on 19 October.

Previous research has suggested that experienced scientists are less likely to produce disruptive work 2 — discoveries that overturn established foundations, rather than building on them incrementally — than are those starting their careers .…