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Influenza A is the virus responsible for the Spanish Flu pandemic, which wiped out 3-5% of the human population in the early 20th century. The annual influenza outbreak occurs in the autumn and winter, although it is not normally deadly for healthy…

A Chinese researcher, He Jiankui, shocked the world two weeks ago when he revealed that the world’s first genetically edited babies had been born. Jiankui claimed to have edited embryos before implanting them into the mother as part of an otherwise…

by Fernanda Ferreira figures by Abagail Burrus In one of the lower-level exhibition rooms of the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston is a large red and blue mantle from Peru made of camelid wool. Stylized faces embroidered in yellow, blue, green, and…

The next time you sit down to make a deposit at your local porcelain bank, you might want to think twice before flushing. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Center for Disease Control have conducted a comprehensive analysis of…

by Zhen Dai figures by Sean Wilson and Zhen Dai A deep ripple It was a typical lab day earlier this year. I planned to install an equipment component that had just arrived in the mail. I unpacked the component and proceeded to recycle the packaging. As…

Everyone on Earth is familiar with gravity to some extent; it is the force that pulls us down to the planet’s surface. In fact, all objects with mass tug on other objects moving around them because of gravity. The strength of the gravitational pull…

If you have ever swatted a spider web away from a dusty corner of the house, congratulations—you have unknowingly dismantled one of the toughest materials known to man. The silk which spiders use to spin their webs and capture prey is five times stronger…

In a basement vault near Paris, under a series of nested bell jars, sits a one kilogram platinum-iridium cylinder. Even as it wears away or collects dust particles, it is still exactly one kilogram. That’s because it is the kilogram: “Le Grand K.” For…

by Julian Segert figures by Aparna Nathan In Mountain View, California, near the headquarters of Facebook and Google, lies 23andMe, a company that set out to make genetic testing approachable and affordable for the general public. The company started…

by Jordan Wilkerson figures by Rebecca Senft The blue, glimmering Pacific Ocean. On his 1997 trip from Hawaii back to the US mainland, Captain Charles Moore expected captivating views of its pristine waters. After all, he’d be sailing across one of the…