News

Jolted by Her Own Illness, Pandemics Scholar Gains Insight into Botched COVID-19 Response

After she arrived at Stevens Institute of Technology six years ago, Theresa MacPhail quickly became a friend and go-to source for advice on nasty viruses. I did a Q&A with Theresa on the 2014 Ebola outbreak, and I started getting flu shots because she told me I’d be an idiot not to. She is a medical anthropologist, with a Ph.D. […]

News

Self-Terminating Biospheres – Scientific American Blog Network

The puzzle of what kind of phenomenon life is has pursued us throughout history. From long defunct notions of ‘vital sparks’ and spontaneous generation all the way to our modern picture of Darwinian evolution and molecular biology. We still don’t have all the answers. It is really quite extraordinary that the very thing that we […]

News

Can India Contain the Pandemic?

In light of health sector experts and experiences of other countries, the nation is taking a very important decision today,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in a televised address to the Indian nation on March 24. “From midnight tonight onwards, the entire country, please listen carefully, the entire country shall go under complete lockdown.” For […]

News

How Can You Tell If You Have Perfect Pitch?

Mariah Carey, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, Mozart, Beethoven, Jimi Hendrix, and Yanni. What do these musicians have in common? They’re all said to have perfect pitch. How rare is perfect pitch? If you don’t have it already, can you learn it? What is perfect (or absolute) pitch? Perfect pitch (technically known as absolute pitch) is […]