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by Wei Lifigures by Wei Wu Trigger warning: this article contains mentions of suicide. What do the lead scientists behind the COVID-19 vaccine, the current first lady of the United States, and the students at Science in the News have in common?…

How do you introduce yourself, scientifically? I generally say that I’m an astronomer. More specifically, I’m an exoplanet astronomer, meaning I study planets that exist around other stars. In our solar system, all the planets orbit the Sun. I’m…

by Molly Sargenfigures by Molly Sargen, Buse Aktaş, and Aparna Nathan COVID-19 is unarguably devastating from any perspective. Even as we struggle to overcome the present challenges of the pandemic, COVID-19 is paving the way for other infectious…

by Sebastian Rowefigures by Jovana Andrejevic First conceptualized in the 1960s, the protein folding problem – how to predict a protein’s structure from its sequence – has been one of the main concerns of structural biologists worldwide.…

How do you introduce yourself, scientifically? My name is David Kolchmeyer and I am a theoretical physicist. I’m interested in quantum gravity, which is a theory of gravity that obeys the rules of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is…

by Piyush Nandafigures by Corena Loeb In an area devastated by deforestation, an 18-month-old toddler from the nearest settlement, Meliandou in Guinea, was seen playing around a fallen tree swarming with bats. The child then contracted a mysterious…

by Dawn Chenfigures by Daniel Utter Did you know that the divorce rate in Maine strongly correlates with the per capita consumption of margarine? Wow, maybe abstaining from margarine prevents divorce! I can definitely imagine a pop-media article with…

by Xiaomeng Han If your best friend Betty told you that she has a sore throat, a runny nose, and has lost her sense of smell or taste, you might immediately recognize the symptoms of COVID-19. But what if she had become very forgetful lately, instead?…

by Haim Moorefigures by Rebecca Senft How familiar are you with your immune system? You might be aware of its role in protection from external threats, but what if I told you that it does a lot more behind the scenes? New research is shedding light on…

by Melis Tekantfigures by Aparna Nathan  The pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2  (SARS-CoV-2) has arguably been the single most devastating global crisis in recent history. As of December…