Enlarge / Scott Atlas, a White House adviser, used his position to advocate for allowing the SARS-CoV-2 virus to spread and tried to block testing for it, which would further that goal. (credit: MANDEL NGAN / Getty Images ) Over the past few months, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis has been investigating […]
Enlarge / London’s Millennium Bridge had issues with excessive shaking and swaying when it first opened in June 2000. (credit: Alberto Pezzali/NurPhoto/Getty Images) London’s Millennium Bridge is notorious for its “wobble” when this first opened in June 2k, as thousands of pedestrians streamed across. Londoners nicknamed it “Wobbly Bridge. ” The accepted explanation has been […]
Enlarge (credit: JOSEPH PREZIOSO / Getty Images ) Moderna announced Monday that its booster provides protection against COVID-19 variant omicron. In its testing, Moderna found a 50-microgram dose resulted in a 37-fold increase of antibodies compared to vaccinated, unboosted individuals. A 100 µg dose, which is the same amount used in the first two vaccine […]
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Aurich Lawson) Thanks to unbridled greenhouse gas emissions, our planet is stitching together a climate version of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. We still have ice from the warmer parts of the Pleistocene even as our temperature approaches the warmer Pliocene levels of 3 million years ago. Meanwhile, our CO 2 level […]
Enlarge / Portrait of Catherine the Great. Her 1787 letter to Count Piotr Aleksandrovich Rumiantsev—now up for auction—called for a national vaccination campaign against smallpox. (credit: Public domain ) During her long reign, Catherine the Great ‘s leadership transformed Russia into a powerhouse of Europe. She was also a leader in public health policy, championing […]
Enlarge / This “quantum pendant” purports to protect the wearer from 5G signals. The anti-5G hysteria is a groundless conspiracy theory, but the pendants aren’t just useless trinkets. They emit low levels of ionizing radiation that can cause adverse health effects over time. (credit: Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu) Worried that 5G cell phone towers […]
Enlarge (credit: Reshi Irshad / Getty Images ) On Friday, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that their latest vaccine trial was showing some odd results in children within a specific age range. Children in the 2- to 5-year age group didn’t produce as strong of an antibody response to the particular vaccine as older and younger […]
Enlarge / The Robo-bass, along with some actual fish. (credit: Giovanni Polverino) The mosquitofish is a particularly troublesome invasive species that has spread from its original home in North America to various locales around the world, including Europe and Australia. The small, 3 cm-long fish likes to chew the tails off fish and tadpoles and […]
Enlarge / Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin visits the construction site for the launch pad for the rocket boosters of the Angara family, at the Vostochny Cosmodrome. (credit: Yegor AleyevTASS via Getty Images) A long and strikingly critical article that reviews the state of the Russian space program was published in the state-aligned newspaper MK this […]
Enlarge / The polygons of Sputnik Planitium. (credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI ) Expectations for active geology on Pluto were pretty low prior to the arrival of the New Horizons probe. But the photos that came back from the dwarf planet revealed a world of mountains, ridges, and… strange lumpy things that don’t have an obvious Earthly analog. […]