All Stories

  1. Genetics

    DNA databases are too white, so genetics doesn’t help everyone. How do we fix that?

    A lack of diversity in genetic databases is making precision medicine ineffective for many people. One historian proposes a solution: construct reference genomes for individual populations.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    People who have had COVID-19 might need only one shot of a coronavirus vaccine

    Antibody levels in health care workers who had COVID-19 and got vaccinated were more than 500 times higher than those vaccinated but never infected.

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  3. Materials Science

    This soft robot withstands crushing pressures at the ocean’s greatest depths

    An autonomous robot that mimics the adaptations of deep-sea snailfish to extreme conditions was successfully tested at the bottom of the ocean.

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  4. Neuroscience

    Three visions of the future, inspired by neuroscience’s past and present

    Three fantastical tales of where neuroscience might take us are based on the progress made by brain researchers in the last 100 years.

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  5. Environment

    ‘Green’ burials are slowly gaining ground among environmentalists

    Researchers asked older environmental activists what they planned to do with their bodies after death. Many were unaware of “green” burial options.

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  6. Physics

    Black hole visionaries push the boundaries of knowledge in a new film

    ‘Black Holes: The Edge of All We Know’ follows researchers with the Event Horizon Telescope and other physicists working to understand black holes.

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  7. Paleontology

    Predatory octopuses were drilling into clamshells at least 75 million years ago

    Holes found in ancient clams reveal that octopuses have been drilling into their prey for at least 25 million years longer than was previously known.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    A music therapist seeks to tap into long-lost memories

    Alaine Reschke-Hernández is partnering with neuroscientists to figure out how music improves Alzheimer’s patients’ lives.

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  9. Science & Society

    ‘Gory Details’ dives into the morbid, the taboo — and our minds

    Erika Engelhaupt explores creepy insects, fecal transplants, cannibalism and more in her new book.

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  10. Archaeology

    An ancient dog fossil helps trace humans’ path into the Americas

    Found in Alaska, the roughly 10,000-year-old bone bolsters the idea that early human settlers took a coastal rather than inland route.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    What you need to know about J&J’s newly authorized one-shot COVID-19 vaccine

    Even as a third COVID-19 vaccine becomes available in the United States, questions remain over how well it works and if people will take it.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    Global inequity in COVID-19 vaccination is more than a moral problem

    Wealthy countries are vaccinating at much higher rates than low-income countries. Such inequities could ultimately prolong the pandemic for all.

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