Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint. It was originally published October 23, 2018. Genetic engineering (GE) is being used in myriad ways these days, despite the fact we know very little about the long-term ramifications of such meddling in the natural order. For example, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an arm of… Read More »
After dangling the possibility of a mini-lockdown to break coronavirus’s chain of transmission, Boris Johnson has opted for a much softer strategy. The new Covid restrictions for England – which allow pubs and restaurants to remain open and households to continue mixing – have been met by scientists with responses ranging from praise to despair.… Read More »
Coronavirus has not been kind to incumbent governments – they have had to mobilise vast resources and make era-defining policy decisions. To compound matters, they have had a relatively short time frame to do all this. Even so, there are some merits to the charges levelled against the UK government. The NHS has been criticised… Read More »
There is not yet an ironclad scientific consensus on exactly how the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is spreading, but experts are getting a pretty good sense of it. That understanding needs to be central to our strategy of combatting the virus with minimal collateral damage. This isn’t about over-reaction or under-reaction, but mis-reaction. For example,… Read More »
Neurons have a special mechanism that allows them to quickly boost energy production to support bursts of brain activity, according to a new study from scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine. The discovery, published Dec. 17 in Neuron, helps dispel the mystery of how neurons achieve the necessary metabolic flexibility to adjust rapidly to varying levels of signaling… Read More »
In a move that worries many public health experts, the federal government is quietly shutting down a surveillance program for dangerous animal viruses that someday may infect humans. The United Nations Environment Program estimates that a new animal disease that can also infect humans is discovered every four months. Ending the program, experts fear, will… Read More »