XBB.1.16, also referred to as “arcturus,” is a new COVID-19 variant that’s infecting people across the globe. Like BA.5 and BQ.1 from 2022, it’s also an omicron subvariant. It’s labeled by the World Health Organization as a “variant under monitoring,” according to Jodie Guest, professor of epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health […]
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Most Planets in the Galaxy Orbit Stars You Can’t Even See
When I was younger, I gazed at the stars at night and wondered how many possessed planets like Earth. Being a Star Trek nerd, I couldn’t help but imagine a universe where stars were fecund and planets were everywhere. But not knowing was agony. This story has a happy ending, though: Now we do know—the […]
Baseball Players Are Hitting More Home Runs–And Climate Change Is Helping
The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Home runs are exhilarating – those lofting moments when everyone looks skyward, baseball players and fans alike, anxiously awaiting the outcome: run or out, win or loss, elation or despair. Over the past several Major League Baseball seasons, home […]
Astronomers Spy a Giant Runaway Black Hole’s Starry Wake
What’s invisible, weighs 20 million suns and zooms through space at more than 1,500 kilometers per second, leaving a long starry trail in its wake? If you guessed “a supermassive black hole that has escaped its host galaxy,” you’re probably right. At least that’s the conclusion of an international team of researchers who found and […]
A Bad Medication Abortion Decision Threatens the Future Availability of Drugs in the U.S.
When federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk suspended the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the drug mifepristone on April 7, he significantly jeopardized access to abortion. In addition to dealing an immediate blow to accessing an essential and time-sensitive health care service, this decision also upended a drug approval system that for decades has been […]
How Over-the-Counter Narcan Can Help Reverse Opioid Overdoses
A lifesaving drug that can reverse an opioid overdose will be available on pharmacy shelves without a prescription this summer, a regulatory relaxation that experts herald as an important step in managing the U.S. opioid epidemic. Currently, naloxone is officially classified as prescription-only but is also available from pharmacists in states with a standing order—a […]
Why Are Killer Whales Ripping Livers Out of Their Shark Prey?
Life as a carnivore is often tough. You have to catch your meals on the run, and depending on the predator, more than 80 percent of attempts to grab a bite can end in failure. Because of this, scientists have often assumed that predators take what they can get from their prey and can’t afford […]
Southeastern U.S. Seas Are Rising at Triple the Global Average
CLIMATEWIRE | Sea levels have surged along the coastlines of the southeastern United States, new research finds — hitting some of their highest rates in more than a century. They’ve risen more than a centimeter a year over the last decade — about triple the global average — and the effects on communities near the Gulf […]
Good News for Coffee Lovers
Tanya Lewis: Hi, and welcome to Your Health, Quickly, a Scientific American podcast series! Josh Fischman: On this show, we highlight the latest vital health news, discoveries that affect your body and your mind. Every episode, we dive into one topic. We discuss diseases, treatments, and some controversies. Lewis: And we demystify the medical research […]
What New Evidence from the Wuhan Market Tells Us about COVID’s Origins
New and hotly debated genetic evidence from a curious doglike animal is adding some crucial pieces in the puzzle of how and where the virus that causes COVID first infected humans. The pieces don’t solve the puzzle—and haven’t entirely quelled the controversy over speculations about a “lab leak”—but they do help clarify the bigger picture. […]