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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Health & Medicine

    COVID-19 case clusters offer lessons and warnings for reopening

    As restaurants, offices and other businesses open, trends in where and how COVID-19 transmission is happening could help guide re-entry strategies.

    By Helen Thompson
  2. Health & Medicine

    Florence Nightingale understood the power of visualizing science

    Florence Nightingale showed simple sanitation measures could stop infectious diseases’ spread, a timely message given the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

    By Sujata Gupta
  3. Science & Society

    How the U.S. census has measured race over 230 years

    As the U.S. census gets under way, a review of historical data shows the difficulties in measuring race

    By Betsy Ladyzhets
  4. Science & Society

    To fight discrimination, the U.S. census needs a different race question

    Asking about race on the U.S. census can help identify discrimination against minority groups. But sociologists say the question needs a makeover.

    By Sujata Gupta
  5. Planetary Science

    Apollo astronauts left trash, mementos and experiments on the moon

    Here’s what planetary scientists are learning from the remains of Apollo outposts, and how archeologists hope to preserve it.

    By Maria Temming
  6. Planetary Science

    After 15 years on Mars, it’s the end of the road for Opportunity

    After 15 years of exploring Mars, a dust storm led to the demise of NASA’s longest-lived rover.

    By Lisa Grossman
  7. Science & Society

    The #MeToo movement shook up workplace policies in science

    In the #MeToo era, the scientific community is confronting its own sexual harassment problems and looking to research for solutions.

    By Kyle Plantz
  8. Earth

    Erosion has erased most of Earth’s impact craters. Here are the survivors

    Earth’s largest known impact crater measures 160 kilometers in diameter. The newest, yet to be confirmed, stretches a still-whopping 31 kilometers.

    By Emily DeMarco
  9. Health & Medicine

    Air pollution is shaving a year off our average life expectancy

    The first country-by-country look at how dirty air affects when we die shows it can have more impact on mortality than breast or lung cancer.

    By Katy Daigle
  10. Science & Society

    Closing the gender gap in some science fields may take over 100 years

    In some STEM fields, the gender gap won’t disappear for decades or even centuries, a new study suggests.

    By Kyle Plantz