Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtainthe best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode inInternet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without stylesand JavaScript.AdvertisementModified viruses deliver death to antibiotic-resistant bacteriaThis article has beenEngineered microbes turn a bacterium's immune response against itself using CRISPR.Phages (green) attack a bacterium (orange). Researchers are hoping to use engineered...…Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtainthe best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode inInternet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without stylesand JavaScript.AdvertisementModified viruses deliver death to antibiotic-resistant bacteriaThis article has beenEngineered microbes turn a bacterium's immune response against itself using CRISPR.Phages (green) attack a bacterium (orange). Researchers are hoping to use engineered...WW…

This week Arkansas became the first state to ban physicians from giving hormones or puberty-delaying drugs to transgender people under age 18. Doctors who do so could be stripped of their licenses and sued. The law is called the Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act. It became official on Tuesday afternoon, when the state’s Republican-controlled legislature voted to override Governor Asa Hutchinson’s attempted veto.Nineteen other states have introduced similar legislation, and some of the bills outline strict penalties. Under one that passed Alabama’s Senate in March, physicians...…This week Arkansas became the first state to ban physicians from giving hormones or puberty-delaying drugs to transgender people under age 18. Doctors who do so could be stripped of their licenses and sued. The law is called the Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act. It became official on Tuesday afternoon, when the state’s Republican-controlled legislature voted to override Governor Asa Hutchinson’s attempted veto.Nineteen other states have introduced similar legislation, and some of the bills outline strict penalties. Under one that passed Alabama’s Senate in March, physicians...WW…

[UPDATED at 1 p.m. ET]For employees of small businesses in Montana suddenly laid off during the covid-19 pandemic, maintaining health insurance coverage could be a struggle.This story also ran on . It can beEmployers with 20 or more workers offer a bridge insurance program made possible by a federal law known as the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, or COBRA. The law allows people who have left a job voluntarily or involuntarily to keep their former employer’s health insurance plan for 18 months by paying the premium that the employer used to cover.But smaller Montana...…[UPDATED at 1 p.m. ET]For employees of small businesses in Montana suddenly laid off during the covid-19 pandemic, maintaining health insurance coverage could be a struggle.This story also ran on . It can beEmployers with 20 or more workers offer a bridge insurance program made possible by a federal law known as the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, or COBRA. The law allows people who have left a job voluntarily or involuntarily to keep their former employer’s health insurance plan for 18 months by paying the premium that the employer used to cover.But smaller Montana...WW…

Scientists Found a Way to Supercharge Cancer-Fighting CellsThe bioengineered immune players called CAR T cells last longer and work better if pumped up with a large dose of a protein that makes them resemble stem cellsBioengineered immune cells have been shown to attack and even cure cancer, but they tend to get exhausted if the fight goes on for a long time. Now, two separate research teams have found a way to rejuvenate these cells: make them more like stem cells.Both teams found that the bespoke immune cells called CAR T cells gain new vigour if engineered to have high levels of a...…Scientists Found a Way to Supercharge Cancer-Fighting CellsThe bioengineered immune players called CAR T cells last longer and work better if pumped up with a large dose of a protein that makes them resemble stem cellsBioengineered immune cells have been shown to attack and even cure cancer, but they tend to get exhausted if the fight goes on for a long time. Now, two separate research teams have found a way to rejuvenate these cells: make them more like stem cells.Both teams found that the bespoke immune cells called CAR T cells gain new vigour if engineered to have high levels of a...WW…

December 22, 2020WOLF POINT, Mont. — Fallen pine cones covered 16-year-old Leslie Keiser’s fresh grave at the edge of Wolf Point, a small community on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation on the eastern Montana plains.Leslie, whose father is a member of the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes, is one of at least two teenagers on the reservation who died by suicide this summer. A third teen’s death is under investigation, authorities said.Leslie’s mother, Natalie Keiser, was standing beside the grave recently when she received a text with a photo of the headstone she had ordered.She looked at...…December 22, 2020WOLF POINT, Mont. — Fallen pine cones covered 16-year-old Leslie Keiser’s fresh grave at the edge of Wolf Point, a small community on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation on the eastern Montana plains.Leslie, whose father is a member of the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes, is one of at least two teenagers on the reservation who died by suicide this summer. A third teen’s death is under investigation, authorities said.Leslie’s mother, Natalie Keiser, was standing beside the grave recently when she received a text with a photo of the headstone she had ordered.She looked at...WW…

Science has long considered itself to be an apolitical enterprise. But in the midst of a global pandemic and with the 2020 election looming, some scientific institutions and elite journals have suddenly become willing to take a political stance against President Donald Trump and his allies.On October 8, for instance, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) jumped into the fray for the with an unprecedented . Although it stopped short of endorsing Democratic candidate Joe Biden, the article labeled people running the current administration “dangerously incompetent” and added that “we...…Science has long considered itself to be an apolitical enterprise. But in the midst of a global pandemic and with the 2020 election looming, some scientific institutions and elite journals have suddenly become willing to take a political stance against President Donald Trump and his allies.On October 8, for instance, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) jumped into the fray for the with an unprecedented . Although it stopped short of endorsing Democratic candidate Joe Biden, the article labeled people running the current administration “dangerously incompetent” and added that “we...WW…

This story also ran on . It can beWOLF POINT, Mont. — Lawrence Wetsit misses the days when his people would gather by the hundreds and sing the songs that all Assiniboine children are expected to learn by age 15.“We can’t have ceremony without memorizing all of the songs, songs galore,” he said. “We’re not supposed to record them: We have to be there. And when that doesn’t happen in my grandchildren’s life, they may never catch up.”Such ceremonial gatherings have been scarce over the past year as Native American communities like Wetsit’s isolate to protect their elders during the covid-19...…This story also ran on . It can beWOLF POINT, Mont. — Lawrence Wetsit misses the days when his people would gather by the hundreds and sing the songs that all Assiniboine children are expected to learn by age 15.“We can’t have ceremony without memorizing all of the songs, songs galore,” he said. “We’re not supposed to record them: We have to be there. And when that doesn’t happen in my grandchildren’s life, they may never catch up.”Such ceremonial gatherings have been scarce over the past year as Native American communities like Wetsit’s isolate to protect their elders during the covid-19...WW…