Establishing a new field of science to answer the question of what makes humans unique from our extinct relatives has earned Svante Pääbo the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. …
Category: Health & Medicine
Emily Jacobs wants to know how sex hormones sculpt the brain
When Emily Jacobs embarked on a career studying the brain in the early 2000s, a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, was having a moment. “Just like we…
Christopher Barnes is on a quest for a universal coronavirus vaccine
In January 2020, Caltech biochemist Pamela Bjorkman asked for volunteers to help work out the structures of immune proteins that attack a newly discovered coronavirus. The pathogen had emerged in…
Smruthi Karthikeyan turned to wastewater to get ahead of COVID-19
Environmental engineer Smruthi Karthikeyan had spent just a couple of days working in her new lab at the University of California, San Diego when the state instituted its first coronavirus…
This robotic pill clears mucus from the gut to deliver meds
A mucus-wicking robotic pill may offer a new way to deliver meds. The multivitamin-sized device houses a motor and a cargo hold for drugs, including ones that are typically given…
False teeth could double as hearing aids
Prosthetic teeth could make great hearing aids. Vibrations applied to replacements for lost teeth travel well through jawbones to the inner ear, researchers report in the September Journal of the…
This face mask can sense the presence of an airborne virus
Face masks — the unofficial symbol of the COVID-19 pandemic — are leveling up. A mask outfitted with special electronics can detect SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and other…
5 people with lupus are in remission after CAR-T cell treatment
After receiving an experimental treatment to stop the body from attacking itself, five people no longer have any symptoms of lupus. That treatment, called CAR-T cell therapy, seems to have…
Poliovirus is spreading in New York. Here’s what you need to know
A particular kind of poliovirus is spreading in the United States. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that the country now joins a list of around…
How living in a pandemic distorts our sense of time
Time hasn’t made much sense since spring 2020 for many people, myself included. In February 2020, during the Before Times, my family traveled to Barcelona, a relatively carefree trip that…
