Over the last two decades, technology companies and policymakers warned of a “digital divide” in which poor children could fall behind their more affluent peers without equal access to technology. Today, with widespread internet access and smartphone ownership, the gap has narrowed sharply. But with less fanfare a different division has appeared: Across the country, […]
Read More
Was it alien space junk? A wandering interstellar asteroid? Or a weird comet from another sun? Ever since 2017, when astronomers in Hawaii discovered an object they called Oumuamua (Hawaiian for “scout”) zipping through the solar system, they have been arguing about what it was. Telescopes saw only a tumbling dot that was already on […]
Read More
On Jan. 12, 2020, Chinese investigators combing a market for clues about the outbreak of a mysterious new illness in the city of Wuhan swabbed a cart. It was the kind typically used for transporting animal cages, and it came back positive for the coronavirus. Three years later, a team of international experts has sifted […]
Read More
In early March 2020, as the nation succumbed to a pandemic, a group of young scientists walked out of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. They left quietly, one or two at a time, through the building’s front doors, flashing their badges at guards, instead of through side exits where their departures […]
Read More
WASHINGTON — In the spring of 2021, with studies of the coronavirus pandemic’s origins going nowhere and the issue embroiled in bitter partisan politics, David Relman, a microbiologist at Stanford, quietly made a request of his congresswoman. He told his representative, Anna Eshoo, that he was organizing a letter from leading scientists calling for an open […]
Read More
On Thursday, scientists unveiled new data on the possible origins of the Covid-19 pandemic — and put a strange, squat creature squarely in the spotlight. Meet the raccoon dog; it earns its name from its black facial markings, which give the animal a masked appearance and a more-than-passing resemblance to those infamous raiders of urban […]
Read More
In Japan, it’s possible to enjoy a coffee while an owl perches on your head, or to sit at a bar where live penguins stare out at you from behind a plexiglass wall. The country’s exotic animal cafes are popular with locals as well as visitors seeking novelty, cuteness and selfies. Customers can even buy […]
Read More
Few spiders in the United States have a more fearsome reputation than black widows. But throughout the South, the bulbous arachnids with red hourglasses on their bellies are engaged in a lethal competition with the brown widow, a relative from abroad — and they’re losing. This isn’t a case of one species outcompeting another for […]
Read More
An international team of virus experts said on Thursday that they had found genetic data from a market in Wuhan, China, linking the coronavirus with raccoon dogs for sale there, adding evidence to the case that the worst pandemic in a century could have been ignited by an infected animal that was being dealt through […]
Read More
KOKOMO, Ind. — Tammy Cunningham doesn’t remember the birth of her son. She was not quite seven months pregnant when she became acutely ill with Covid-19 in May 2021. By the time she was taken by helicopter to an Indianapolis hospital, she was coughing and gasping for breath. The baby was not due for another […]
Read More
Pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to Covid-19, and new government data show that maternal mortality rose sharply in 2021, the second year of the pandemic. Here’s what women need to know to keep themselves safe. If I’m pregnant or trying to get pregnant, how do I protect myself from Covid? The most important step is […]
Read MoreLast summer, the highly contagious strain of avian influenza that had been spreading through North American birds made its way into marine mammals, causing a spike in seal strandings along the coast of Maine. In June and July, more than 150 dead or ailing seals washed ashore. Now, a study provides new insight into the […]
Read More
At the same time, environmental variables can have potent biological effects on people. Groups who live in neighborhoods with high air pollution, for example, will have higher rates of certain diseases. The authors of the new study recommend building these environmental influences into studies, rather than looking at genes in isolation. The authors created a […]
Read More
The donkey is a key, if increasingly marginalized, character in human history. Once venerated, the animal has been an object of ridicule for so long that the word “asinine” — derived from the Latin asinus, meaning “like an ass or a donkey” — means “stupid.” Donkeys and donkey work are essential to the livelihoods of […]
Read More
They also engineered predatory opportunities, introducing spiders to the base of vegetation where insects were sleeping topside. Sure enough, spiders, sensing slow food, climbed stalks to do their deeds. Even without human transport, however, candy-striped spiders were observed ballooning and rappelling between insect bedrooms, surreptitiously securing sleeping targets with sticky silk. Candy-striped spiders are not […]
Read More
In a long-awaited ruling, the Food and Drug Administration recommended on Thursday that all mammogram centers must tell women if they have dense breasts that could put them at increased risk for breast cancer. The density of breast tissue — whether it contains mostly fatty or glandular tissues — varies from woman to woman and […]
Read More
Sexually transmitted infections have soared in recent years in the United States, prompting an urgent search for solutions. New research suggests that a widely available antibiotic, taken after sex, may help stem the tide. A single dose of doxycycline taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex dramatically cuts the risk of a bacterial S.T.I., studies […]
Read More
Scientists announced this week a tantalizing advance toward the dream of a material that could effortlessly convey electricity in everyday conditions. Such a breakthrough could transform almost any technology that uses electric energy, opening new possibilities for your phone, magnetically levitating trains and future fusion power plants. Usually, the flow of electricity encounters resistance as […]
Read More
In 1937, an American drug company introduced a new elixir to treat strep throat — and unwittingly set off a public health disaster. The product, which had not been tested in humans or animals, contained a solvent that turned out to be toxic. More than 100 people died. The following year, Congress passed the Federal […]
Read More
The kelp forests off the West Coast are dying, and with their decline, an entire ecosystem of marine plants and animals is at risk. A large starfish with an appetite for sea urchins could come to the rescue. One reason for the disappearing kelp is the tremendous expansion of the sea urchin population that feeds […]
Read More
Patients in the Abbott study have now been followed for at least one year. The clip did not extend life but, said Dr. David Adams, cardiac surgeon in chief at Mount Sinai Health System and co-principal investigator for the study, “we would never see a mortality difference — one year was not enough time.” “This […]
Read More
A few weeks after Republican attorneys general in 21 states sent letters threatening legal action against retail pharmacy chains if they dispensed the abortion pill mifepristone, Walgreens said it would not distribute the pill in those states. In January, after the Food and Drug Administration said it would allow retail pharmacies to become certified to […]
Read More
The project is a collaboration among scientists in the United States, Ukraine and Poland, as well as the Clean Futures Fund, a nonprofit based in the United States that works in Chernobyl. The nonprofit, which was established in 2016, began as an effort to provide health care and support to the power plant employees, who still […]
Read More
Dolphins, pilot whales and sperm whales use echolocation clicks to hunt and subdue their prey. But the animals, known as toothed whales, also produce other sounds for social communication, like grunts and high-pitched whistles. For decades, scientists speculated that something in the nasal cavity was responsible for this range of sounds, but the mechanics were […]
Read More
“The causes of preterm birth have been so elusive, despite considerable efforts,” said Dr. Denise Jamieson, an obstetrician at Emory University’s School of Medicine in Atlanta who was not involved in the new study. Even though the global study found a dip of only about 4 percent, “I think any reduction in preterm birth is […]
Read More
The Georgia law says that relatives of drug users can sue for harms they endured from the “individual drug abusers.” Even so, defense lawyers for the distributors often turned the case into a referendum on addiction, saying that relatives suffered at the hands of people who chose pills over family. Fentanyl Overdoses: What to Know Card […]
Read More
The place: a modest house at the end of a narrow street in Culver City, Calif. The problem: The house’s owner had been feeding bread to a population of rats, which had moved into her kitchen and living room and then into the ceilings, where they had begun encroaching on the neighboring tenants from above. […]
Read More
TOPPENISH, Wash. — Three days before Christmas, the only hospital in this remote city on the Yakama Indian Reservation abruptly closed its maternity unit without consulting the community, the doctors who delivered babies there or even its own board. At least 35 women were planning to give birth at Astria Toppenish Hospital in January alone, […]
Read More
Scientists have discovered two new forms of salty ice that probably do not exist naturally on Earth but might be found on icy moons farther out in the solar system. “These structures are nothing like anything that has been described before,” said Baptiste Journaux, an acting assistant professor of earth and space sciences at the […]
Read More
The company has forecast Covid vaccine sales of $5 billion for 2023. The N.I.H. tends to be uneasy about aggressively asserting legal rights to its work, experts said, a stance that some activists believe hurts taxpayers who face high prices for medicines developed with government funding and research. In the case of the dispute over […]
Read More
Among wealthy industrialized nations, the United States has the highest maternal mortality rate. According to the W.H.O., the rate almost doubled between 2000 and 2020, rising to 21 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2020, or one in 5,000, up from 12 deaths per 100,000 births in 2000, or 1 in 10,000. Stark racial inequities, […]
Read More