After more than three years of COVID-19, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that over 763 million infections, and nearly seven million deaths, have been attributed to SARS-CoV-2. COVID-19 vaccination was deemed…
Month: May 2023
I’m over 65 and worried about the flu. Which vaccine should I have?
Influenza, or the flu, is a virus transmitted by respiratory droplets from coughing and sneezing. It can cause the sudden onset of a fever, cough, runny nose, sore throat, headache, muscle and…
It’s not just climate – we’ve already breached most of the Earth’s limits. A safer, fairer future means treading lightly
People once believed the planet could always accommodate us. That the resilience of the Earth system meant nature would always provide. But we now know this is not necessarily the case. As…
scientists discover markedly different kangaroos on either side of Australia’s dingo fence
Australia’s dingo fence is an internationally renowned mega-structure. Stretching more than 5,600 kilometres, it was completed in the 1950s to keep sheep safe from dingoes. But it also inadvertently protects some native…
Have we got the brain all wrong? A new study shows its shape is more important than its wiring
The human brain is made up of around 86 billion neurons, linked by trillions of connections. For decades, scientists have believed that we need to map this intricate connectivity in detail to…
what you can and can’t recycle and why it’s so confusing
When it comes to recycling are you a wishcycler? No, I didn’t know what this term meant until recently either – apparently it’s when people try to recycle items that should be…
Why 40°C is bearable in a desert but lethal in the tropics
This year, even before the northern hemisphere hot season began, temperature records were being shattered. Spain for instance saw temperatures in April (38.8°C) that would be out of the ordinary even at…
Beavers are the undiscovered engineers of the boreal forest
While hiking near a river, chances are you’ve seen the tell-tale tree stumps with cone-shaped tips. Who carves these? A large, flat-tailed rodent called the Canadian beaver (Castor canadensis), who also happens…
Cytomegalovirus lies dormant in most US adults and is the leading infectious cause of birth defects, but few have heard of it
“Why didn’t anyone tell me about this virus?” is a frequent response I hear from parents upon learning their newborn is infected with cytomegalovirus, or CMV. Although more than half of the…
The beats, rhymes and spirituality of Latin hip-hop
As a first-generation college graduate and a Latino from a family that constantly scrambled to make ends meet, there was very little in my upbringing that foreshadowed my current life as a…