News
- Health & Medicine
COVID-19 plasma treatments may be safe, but we don’t know if they work
Blood plasma from COVID-19 survivors can be used to treat hospitalized patients, FDA says, but researchers question how well it works.
- Health & Medicine
What we can learn from how a doctor’s race can affect Black newborns’ survival
When Black physicians attended Black newborns after a hospital birth, it reduced the mortality gap between Black and white babies.
- Animals
Female hyenas kill off cubs in their own clans
Along with starvation and mauling by lions, infanticide leads as a cause of hyena cub death. Such killings may serve to enforce the social order.
- Health & Medicine
A man in Hong Kong is the first confirmed case of coronavirus reinfection
During a 33-year-old man’s first round with the virus, he had symptoms, but not the second time — a hint his immune system protected him from disease.
- Quantum Physics
A measurement of positronium’s energy levels confounds scientists
A gap in the energy levels of positronium seems to be substantially larger than predicted, and physicists don’t know why.
- Health & Medicine
New treatments aim to treat COVID-19 early, before it gets serious
Some new drugs that may stop the coronavirus from getting into cells, or from reproducing itself, may treat the illness as soon as it’s diagnosed.
- Animals
Genetically modified mosquitoes have been OK’d for a first U.S. test flight
After a decade of heated debate, free-flying swarms aimed at shrinking dengue-carrying mosquito populations gets a nod for 2021 in the Florida Keys.
- Astronomy
Check out the first-ever map of the solar corona’s magnetic field
Solar physicists watched waves in the sun’s corona to map the whole corona’s magnetic field. Future observers could use the same technique to predict solar eruptions.
- Paleontology
This ichthyosaur died after devouring a creature nearly as long as itself
Ichthyosaurs, marine reptiles generally thought to munch on soft prey like cephalopods, may have chowed down on fellow big marine reptiles, too.
- Archaeology
X-rays reveal what ancient animal mummies keep under wraps
A new method of 3-D scanning mummified animals reveals life and death details for a snake, a bird and a cat.
- Humans
Ancient sculptures hint at universal facial expressions across cultures
Interpreting the emotions carved onto sculptures from long ago offers a new way to study how humans perceive facial expressions.
- Tech
Methanol fuel gives this tiny beetle bot the freedom to roam
A new robot insect uses energy-dense methanol as fuel, not batteries. It could be a blueprint for future search-and-rescue bots with long run times.
