The items below are highlights from the free newsletter “Smart, useful, science stuff about COVID-19.” To receive newsletter issues daily in your inbox, sign up here. Please consider a monthly contribution to support this newsletter. News this week included word that a Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine candidate to protect against the new coronavirus is showing positive progress […]
Internet interruptions caused by extreme weather events sap billions of dollars annually from the global economy and can interfere with the delivery of essential data and services by governments, utilities and first responders. A Boston-based startup is trying to address that problem by applying climate resilience and adaptation principles to the internet, which experts say […]
A new color-changing ink could aid in health and environment monitoring—for example, allowing clothing that switches hues when exposed to sweat or a tapestry that shifts colors if carbon monoxide enters a room. The formulation could be printed on anything from a T-shirt to a tent. Wearable sensing devices such as smartwatches and patches use […]
With the wave of statue-felling currently sweeping across the United States and United Kingdom, it is clearer than ever that we are living at a time of iconoclasm. From the Protestant Reformation to the American War of Independence, image-breaking has served as a powerful demonstration of a break with the old order. These are not […]
The image of a dorsal fin cutting through the sea surface is iconic. But scientists studying the stomach contests of young great white sharks off the coast of Australia were in for a surprise when they learned that the predators seem to spend a lot of time patrolling the sea floor. “They have a predominantly […]
Originally published in June 1909 Credit: Scientific American Advertisement “The French Minister of Agriculture, after a careful examination of the subject, has established ‘the legal status of the snail’ by defining snails as animals injurious to vegetation, and therefore legally subject to capture and destruction at all times and seasons. This decision has created dismay […]
One of the costliest storms in the past decade struck indiscriminately along the southeast coast of the United States in 2016. The government’s response showed more bias. The federal agency that distributed $492 million in disaster loans after Hurricane Matthew based its approvals on a method known to harm some racial groups. The outcome was […]
Mary Lyn Koval did not want to go to the dentist. A marketing communications consultant in upstate New York, Koval works from home and felt she was staying safe during the coronavirus pandemic. One of her childhood fillings had broken, however. “I put off going for two weeks. But I was afraid that if I’d […]
In a world’s first, researchers in France and the U.S. have performed a pioneering experiment demonstrating “hybrid” quantum networking. The approach, which unites two distinct methods of encoding information in particles of light called photons, could eventually allow for more capable and robust communications and computing. Similar to how classical electronics can represent information as […]
Recently, NASA has been working to erase all hints of gender bias lingering from previous generations. The agency even converted the phrase “manned mission” to “crewed mission,” and stood by the change for the recent SpaceX launch, despite the fact that both members of the crew possessed their very own Y chromosomes. Casual English speech […]