News
- Health & Medicine
A viral gene drive could offer a new approach to fighting herpes
A new gene drive can copy and paste itself into the genomes of herpes simplex viruses in mice. The end goal is a version that disables the virus in humans.
- Science & Society
There’s a new term for attempting to own the wind: ventography
Nations established territorial claims underground to access oil and gas. Now they are expanding those claims upward to snag the wind.
- Earth
What leads rivers to suddenly change course?
An analysis of satellite data could help predict where rivers will change their course and where their rerouted flows will go.
- Paleontology
The largest arthropod to ever live finally has a head
Fossils of an extinct giant millipede reveal new details about the arthropod’s anatomy.
- Astronomy
Runaway stars could influence the cosmos far past their home galaxies
Dozens of stars fleeing a neighbor of the Milky Way suggest these escapees could have an outsized influence on their cosmic surroundings.
- Chemistry
Work on protein structure and design wins the 2024 chemistry Nobel
David Baker figured out how to build entirely new proteins. Demis Hassabis and John Jumper developed an AI tool to predict protein structures.
- Animals
To tell a right-trunked elephant from a lefty, check the wrinkles
Elephant trunks, more sci-fi face-tentacle than ho-hum mammal nose, are getting new scrutiny as researchers explore how the wrinkles grow.
- Planetary Science
Europa Clipper has launched to solve an alien mystery
Launched October 14, the spacecraft will repeatedly buzz Europa in search of water, energy and organic compounds.
- Health & Medicine
New electrical stitches use muscle movement to speed up healing
In rats, the sutures hastened recovery and reduced the risk of infection.
- Archaeology
Ancient Scythians had cultural roots in Siberia
A possible sacrificial ritual from around 2,800 years ago suggests mounted herders from Siberia shaped a Eurasian culture thousands of kilometers away.
- Artificial Intelligence
The discovery of tools key to machine learning wins the 2024 physics Nobel
John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton used tools from physics to develop data analysis methods that underlie machine learning.
- Neuroscience
Semaglutide saps mice’s motivation to run
Mice given semaglutide, the key ingredient in drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, lost weight, but they also voluntarily ran less on a wheel.
