The Time Of Trials: Waiting For A Coronavirus Vaccine
An infected and impatient world needs protection from COVID-19, but rushing it won't be easy. How can we speed up a complicated process?
An infected and impatient world needs protection from COVID-19, but rushing it won't be easy. How can we speed up a complicated process?
New therapeutics are testing whether protective bacteria can dampen harmful immune responses to food.
It began with an email from Wuhan, a Maine laboratory and mouse sperm from Iowa. Now that lab is on the verge of supplying a much-needed animal for SARS-CoV-2 research.
Reports of patients with neurological symptoms have emerged during the pandemic. Scientists don't yet know whether these are a direct effect of the virus or part of the body's response to infection.
Dozens of times over the eons, rove beetles have made complex, independent adaptations to live inside the nests of ants — the phenomenon of convergent evolution. Biologists want to know if this shows patterns at work in natural selection.
It's a hot topic under political debate: providing cash grants as a social safety net. Small programs hint at how it might work — or not — on a national scale.
A bevy of intricate biochemical fluctuations inside cells rule the natural world. Scientists are trying to figure out how they all work.
Learning a language is child's play, but linguists are still trying to understand how children do it so easily.
How do trees find their sense of direction as they grow? Researchers are getting to the root — and the branches — of how the grandest of plants develop.
For decades, genetics and biochemistry have formed the bedrock of developmental biology. But it turns out that physical forces — the way cells push, pull and squeeze each other — play a huge role, too.
Pain comes in many types that each require specialized treatment. Scientists are starting to learn how to diagnose the different varieties.
Despite the triumph of Einstein's general relativity physicists still wonder whether it will someday face the same fate as Newton's law. While Einstein's gravity has passed every test so far, nobody knows for sure that it applies everywhere, under all conditions.
As researchers learn more about how exercise fights chronic ills like heart disease and diabetes, doctors may soon be able to treat physical activity as the powerful medicine it is.
Some parts of the world are on the path to largely eradicating cervical cancer, but the story is less rosy for other populations, including US Hispanics. Why, and what can be done about it?
An increasing number of cities and countries have begun taxing sugary beverages. But can raising the price of these drinks really make a dent in obesity, diabetes and other ailments?
Replicating human milk is no easy feat — nor is separating the science from the hype.
Moneyball-like statistical tools have already changed baseball, basketball and football. But bringing such methods to the ice has proved challenging. That might soon be changing.
Stegosaur expert Susie Maidment is laying crucial groundwork for assigning ages to fossils from North America's most dinosaur-rich rocks. More precise timings promise to reveal plenty about how the beasts lived and evolved through time.