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As people around the world receive COVID-19 vaccines, reports of temporary side effects such as headaches and fevers are rolling in. Much of this was expected—clinical-trial data for the vaccines authorized so far suggested as much. But now that millions of people are vaccinated, compared with the thousands enrolled in early studies, reports of some […]

For anyone invested in NASA’s decades-long efforts to robotically explore Mars, now is the time for nail-biting. Launched last July and barreling toward the Red Planet and Jezero Crater is the space agency’s Perseverance rover, cocooned in heat-resistant shielding and set for a terrifying, technically audacious fiery nosedive through the planet’s atmosphere on February 18. […]

On Sunday morning a wall of thick, concrete-gray water rushed down India’s Dhauliganga river valley, sweeping dams, houses and people along with it. The official death toll has reached 38, but nearly 200 people remain missing. Flood debris filled a 12-by-15-foot tunnel at a hydroelectric dam project, where more than 30 construction workers remain trapped […]

Last summer some people posted a listing for a fake Asian restaurant near my university on Google Maps and Instagram, with a name insulting to Asians and a menu that included horrible-sounding items such as “mouse tail salad” and “marinated ostrich foreheads.” The fake name, menu and reviews—even if they were intended as a joke—were […]

The world’s attention is rightly focused on news of COVID-19 vaccine updates, from eligibility to supply. But we will make a critical error if we ignore the need for treatments as well as vaccines. Vaccines may not reach everyone for many years. Vaccines will not protect everyone. And as infection surges threaten to overwhelm hospitals […]

Locking eyes with a bee is an opportunity offered only by photography. And while this close-up is strangely humanizing (who knew tilted antennae could look like a raised eyebrow?), it has a purpose, too. Scientists can determine whether a bee sees well in the dark by examining the insect’s portrait. Last year a team of […]

The Youth Poet Laureate offers an urgent message Amanda Gorman recites her inaugural poem, “The Hill We Climb”, during the 59th Presidential Inauguration ceremony on January 20, 2021 in Washington, D.C. Credit: Alamy Advertisement Amanda Gorman captured the world’s attention with her passionate delivery of her poem “The Hill We Climb” at President Joe Biden’s […]

In 1939, Albert Einstein published a paper in Annals of Mathematics, arguing that black holes do not exist in nature. A quarter of a century later, Maarten Schmidt discovered quasars as powerful sources of light at cosmological distances. These enigmatic point-like sources were explained in the mid-1960s by Yakov Zel’dovich in the East and Ed […]

President Biden launched one of the strongest climate policy platforms in U.S. history with a series of executive orders yesterday. The moves made addressing climate change a national priority on par with battling the pandemic and revitalizing the economy. “It’s about workers building our economy back better than before,” Biden said before signing the order. […]

Can we test the claims of theology with experiments? In science, theories are routinely subjected to the guillotine of experiments. The same could apply to any theory that puts “skin in the game” and makes testable predictions, even if those are in the realm of theology. This was already recognized by Isaac Newton, as discussed […]