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Space trash could kill satellites, space stations — and astronauts

For Kids, Recent Work, space /

Seven astronauts aboard the International Space Station woke to unwelcome news on the morning of November 15, 2021. NASA, the U.S. space agency, was worried. The station was zooming directly into a suddenly dangerous area littered with trash. A collision could damage the spacecraft. And that could threaten the safety of everyone inside. NASA warned […]

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Virtual reality helps shape and respond to artistic impulses

art, Recent Work /

In February 2020, weeks before the pandemic made such a thing nearly impossible, the MK Gallery in Milton Keynes, UK, hosted an exhibit called Paint Park that featured works by Alison Goodyear. A visual artist from nearby Bedfordshire, Goodyear works in what she calls “the expanded field of painting.” That means she examines the conventional tools of

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The 100-Day Vaccine

COVID-19, Recent Work /

The first vaccine for COVID-19 broke records: Only 342 days passed between the virus being sequenced and an FDA-authorized vaccine. Looking back, researchers now wonder whether it could be done even more quickly. Speedier vaccine development for COVID would have saved many lives. At 100 days, in April 2020, about 2.3 million people had been

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Some ecologists value parasites — and now want a plan to save them

biology, Features, For Kids, parasites /

Chelsea Wood always wanted to be a marine biologist. As a child growing up on New York’s Long Island, she envisioned traveling the world, studying big animals that live in the ocean. “There was just never any question in my mind,” she says. Then, during college, she worked in a lab that focused on parasitic

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Researchers turn to deep learning to decode protein structures

artificial intelligence, biology, Features /

Twenty-eight years ago, computational biologists led by John Moult then at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, launched an ambitious, large-scale experiment designed to answer one of the most challenging open questions in biology: How can researchers determine the structure of any protein? Structure is key to understanding biological function because a the shape of a

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Research Has a “Trash Island.” Some Are Trying to Clean it Up.

artificial intelligence, medicine, Recent Work /

Bad science can do lasting damage. A study falsely connecting COVID-19 to 5G wireless technology, for instance, was quickly retracted for its sloppy methods and unearned conclusions, though not before causing a wave of conspiracy theories. This past March, a controversial 2017 study suggesting sepsis could be treated with vitamin C—a sign of hope in the battle

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Cipher

How Mathematicians Cracked the Zodiac Killer’s Cipher

Math stories, Recent Work /

In the late 1960s, a serial killer self-identifying as “the Zodiac” killed at least five people in Northern California and claimed to have murdered more. In November 1969, the Zodiac Killer sent a card to the San Francisco Chronicle containing a 340-character secret message that for more than 50 years went unsolved by detectives, cryptography experts, amateur

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