Enlarge / A health worker vaccinates a child against malaria in Ndhiwa, western Kenya. (credit: BRIAN ONGORO / Getty Images) The incredible success of the COVID vaccines has been a triumph of biotechnology. But that triumph has in some ways obscured the amount of luck involved. We’ve been trying for decades to produce vaccines against […]
Enlarge / Venus’ thick atmosphere was photographed in ultraviolet light in 1979 by the Pioneer Venus Orbiter. (credit: NSSDCA Photo Gallery) Last year, a study made waves by suggesting a chemical that had been proposed as a potential indicator of life was present in the atmosphere of Venus. While the hellish conditions on the planet’s […]
Enlarge (credit: Avi Levin and Ilan Theiler, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University) It’s probably long past time to stop thinking of humanity’s nearest relatives as forming a family tree. Our close relatives like the Neanderthals and Denisovans clearly interbred both with us and each other. There are also indications that an older African […]
Enlarge / After thawing out, these tiny creatures started making clones of themselves. (credit: Michael Plewka) Rotifers are microscopic freshwater-dwelling multicellular organisms. They’re already known to withstand freezing (even in liquid nitrogen), boiling, desiccation, and radiation, and the group has persisted for millions of years without having sex. The humble yet remarkably hardy bdelloid rotifer […]
Enlarge / Fluorescent tagged DNA is the key to a new storage system. (credit: Gerald Barber, Virginia Tech) DNA-based data storage appears to offer solutions to some of the problems created by humanity’s ever-growing capacity to create data we want to hang on to. Compared to most other media, DNA offers phenomenal data densities. If […]
Enlarge / A participant gets his second dose of the Novavax vaccine during the clinical trial. (credit: Karen Ducey / Getty Images) Today, a company called Novavax announced that it had completed a large efficacy trial of its COVID-19 vaccine, and the news was good. The vaccine is highly effective, it blocked severe disease entirely, […]
Enlarge / It may not look like much, but you can actually learn a lot from a fossilized leaf that preserves insect damage. (credit: Donovan et. al.) He knew what it was as soon as he saw it: the signature sign of a bird landing. He’d seen hundreds of such tracks along the Georgia coast. […]
Enlarge / Gimme five! New University of Arizona study finds puppies are wired to communicate with people. “There’s definitely a strong genetic component, and they’re definitely doing it from the get-go.” (credit: Anita Kot/Getty Images) That special social bond between dogs and humans might be a genetic trait that evolved as dogs became domesticated and […]
Enlarge / A Eurasian jay takes a skeptical view of magic. (credit: Luc Viatour) Most magic tricks require a fairly sophisticated understanding of how humans perceive the world. To fall for a trick, people have to see things they perceive as important and ignore things that are actually important. Understanding why magic works can tell […]
Enlarge / On the outside, these heavily engineered bacteria look no different from their normal peers. (credit: Raphael Gaillarde / Getty Images) Many of the fundamental features of life don’t necessarily have to be the way they are. Chance plays a major role in evolution, and there are alternate paths that were never explored, simply […]