You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.The 58-year-old man was blind, barely able to perceive whether it was day or night. After receiving gene therapy to add light-sensing molecules to one of his retinas, he could locate a notebook set on a table. Scientists in Europe and the US are reporting today what they describe as the first successful use of optogenetics to improve a person’s vision. The feat involved introducing a gene from algae into the man’s retina.   “I think that a new field is being born,” Botond Roska, a professor at the University of Basel who led the research,...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.The 58-year-old man was blind, barely able to perceive whether it was day or night. After receiving gene therapy to add light-sensing molecules to one of his retinas, he could locate a notebook set on a table. Scientists in Europe and the US are reporting today what they describe as the first successful use of optogenetics to improve a person’s vision. The feat involved introducing a gene from algae into the man’s retina.   “I think that a new field is being born,” Botond Roska, a professor at the University of Basel who led the research,...WW…

You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.A wild-animal trader who caught a strange new virus from a frozen pangolin. A lab worker who slipped up and sniffed the air under her biosafety hood. A man who suddenly fell ill after collecting bat guano from a cave to use for fertilizer. Were any of these scenarios what touched off the covid-19 pandemic? That is the question facing that is now searching for the source of covid-19. What the researchers know so far is that a coronavirus very similar to some found in horseshoe bats made the jump into humans, appeared in the Chinese city of...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.A wild-animal trader who caught a strange new virus from a frozen pangolin. A lab worker who slipped up and sniffed the air under her biosafety hood. A man who suddenly fell ill after collecting bat guano from a cave to use for fertilizer. Were any of these scenarios what touched off the covid-19 pandemic? That is the question facing that is now searching for the source of covid-19. What the researchers know so far is that a coronavirus very similar to some found in horseshoe bats made the jump into humans, appeared in the Chinese city of...WW…

You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.In 2016, Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz grew human embryos in a lab dish for longer than anyone had before. Bathing the tiny spheres in , her team at the University of Cambridge watched the embryos develop, day after day, . The embryos even attached to the dish as if it were a uterus, sprouting a few placental cells. But on day 13, Zernicka-Goetz halted the experiment. Zernicka-Goetz had hit up against an internationally recognized ethical limit called the “14-day rule.” Under this limit, scientists have agreed never to allow human embryos to...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.In 2016, Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz grew human embryos in a lab dish for longer than anyone had before. Bathing the tiny spheres in , her team at the University of Cambridge watched the embryos develop, day after day, . The embryos even attached to the dish as if it were a uterus, sprouting a few placental cells. But on day 13, Zernicka-Goetz halted the experiment. Zernicka-Goetz had hit up against an internationally recognized ethical limit called the “14-day rule.” Under this limit, scientists have agreed never to allow human embryos to...WW…

You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.The photographs alone tell a fantastic story—a mouse embryo, complete with beating heart cells, a head, and the beginning of limbs, alive and growing in a glass jar. According to a scientific group in Israel, which took the picture, the researchers have grown mice in an artificial womb for as long as 11 or 12 days, about half the animal’s natural gestation period. It’s record for development of a mammal outside the womb, and according to the research team, human embryos could be next—raising huge new ethical questions. “This sets the stage for...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.The photographs alone tell a fantastic story—a mouse embryo, complete with beating heart cells, a head, and the beginning of limbs, alive and growing in a glass jar. According to a scientific group in Israel, which took the picture, the researchers have grown mice in an artificial womb for as long as 11 or 12 days, about half the animal’s natural gestation period. It’s record for development of a mammal outside the womb, and according to the research team, human embryos could be next—raising huge new ethical questions. “This sets the stage for...WW…

You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.On December 23, as part of a publicity push to encourage people to get vaccinated against covid-19, the University of Pennsylvania released footage of two researchers who developed the science behind the shots, Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, getting their inoculations. The vaccines, icy concoctions of , used a previously unproven technology based on messenger RNA and had been built and tested in under a year, thanks to discoveries the pair made starting 20 years earlier. In the silent promotional clip, neither one speaks or smiles as a...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.On December 23, as part of a publicity push to encourage people to get vaccinated against covid-19, the University of Pennsylvania released footage of two researchers who developed the science behind the shots, Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman, getting their inoculations. The vaccines, icy concoctions of , used a previously unproven technology based on messenger RNA and had been built and tested in under a year, thanks to discoveries the pair made starting 20 years earlier. In the silent promotional clip, neither one speaks or smiles as a...WW…

You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.When covid-19 began to race around the world, countries closed businesses and told people to stay home. Many thought that would be enough to stop the coronavirus. If we had paid more attention to pigs, we might have known better. When it comes to controlling airborne viruses, says Bill Christianson, “I think we fool ourselves on how effective we can be.” Christianson is an epidemiologist and veterinarian who heads the Pig Improvement Company, in Hendersonville, Tennessee. The company sells elite breeding swine to the pork industry, which for...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.When covid-19 began to race around the world, countries closed businesses and told people to stay home. Many thought that would be enough to stop the coronavirus. If we had paid more attention to pigs, we might have known better. When it comes to controlling airborne viruses, says Bill Christianson, “I think we fool ourselves on how effective we can be.” Christianson is an epidemiologist and veterinarian who heads the Pig Improvement Company, in Hendersonville, Tennessee. The company sells elite breeding swine to the pork industry, which for...WW…

You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.Rock-climb without fear. Play a symphony in your head. See radar with superhuman vision. Discover the nature of consciousness. Cure blindness, paralysis, deafness, and mental illness. Those are just a few of the applications that Elon Musk and employees at his four-year-old neuroscience company Neuralink believe electronic brain-computer interfaces will one day bring about. , and some are unlikely to ever come about. But in a “product update” on Friday, Musk, also the founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, joined staffers wearing black masks to...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.Rock-climb without fear. Play a symphony in your head. See radar with superhuman vision. Discover the nature of consciousness. Cure blindness, paralysis, deafness, and mental illness. Those are just a few of the applications that Elon Musk and employees at his four-year-old neuroscience company Neuralink believe electronic brain-computer interfaces will one day bring about. , and some are unlikely to ever come about. But in a “product update” on Friday, Musk, also the founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, joined staffers wearing black masks to...WW…

You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.The large number of people already infected with the coronavirus in the US has begun to act as a brake on the spread of the disease in hard-hit states. Millions of US residents have been infected by the virus that causes covid-19, and at least 160,000 are dead. One effect is that the pool of susceptible individuals has been depleted in many areas. After infection, it’s believed, people become immune (at least for months), so they don’t transmit the virus to others. This slows the pandemic down. “I believe the substantial epidemics in Arizona,...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.The large number of people already infected with the coronavirus in the US has begun to act as a brake on the spread of the disease in hard-hit states. Millions of US residents have been infected by the virus that causes covid-19, and at least 160,000 are dead. One effect is that the pool of susceptible individuals has been depleted in many areas. After infection, it’s believed, people become immune (at least for months), so they don’t transmit the virus to others. This slows the pandemic down. “I believe the substantial epidemics in Arizona,...WW…

You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.Preston Estep was alone in a borrowed laboratory, somewhere in Boston. No big company, no board meetings, no billion-dollar payout from Operation Warp Speed, the US government’s covid-19 vaccine funding program. No animal data. No ethics approval. What he did have: ingredients for a vaccine. And one willing volunteer. Estep swirled together the mixture and spritzed it up his nose. Nearly 200 covid-19 vaccines are in development, and some three dozen are at various stages of human testing. But in what appears to be the first “citizen science”...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.Preston Estep was alone in a borrowed laboratory, somewhere in Boston. No big company, no board meetings, no billion-dollar payout from Operation Warp Speed, the US government’s covid-19 vaccine funding program. No animal data. No ethics approval. What he did have: ingredients for a vaccine. And one willing volunteer. Estep swirled together the mixture and spritzed it up his nose. Nearly 200 covid-19 vaccines are in development, and some three dozen are at various stages of human testing. But in what appears to be the first “citizen science”...WW…

You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.Results from surveys tracking the true spread of the coronavirus are all over the map—but one done in the heart of the technology sector says the germ is more widespread, and less deadly, than widely believed. The looked for antibodies to covid-19 in the blood of 3,300 residents of Santa Clara County, which is home to Palo Alto, top venture capital firms, and the headquarters of tech giants Intel and Nvidia.  According to the study’s authors, which include data skeptic John Ioannidis of Stanford University, actual infections in the region...…You need to enable JavaScript to view this site.Results from surveys tracking the true spread of the coronavirus are all over the map—but one done in the heart of the technology sector says the germ is more widespread, and less deadly, than widely believed. The looked for antibodies to covid-19 in the blood of 3,300 residents of Santa Clara County, which is home to Palo Alto, top venture capital firms, and the headquarters of tech giants Intel and Nvidia.  According to the study’s authors, which include data skeptic John Ioannidis of Stanford University, actual infections in the region...WW…