Month: June 2022

The Stanley Cup, already dented from the Colorado Avalanche’s on-ice celebration, was delivered to the wrong house. (There are worse mistakes to find on your doorstep.) Today in health care, we’ll look at some of the small revisions Senate Democrats have made to their drug pricing plan. And Democrats are hoping to have another go at including […]

An implant made from biodegradable materials chills nerves to 10°C, reducing pain signals sent to rats’ brains, and can be absorbed into the body over time Health 30 June 2022 By Clare Wilson This implant consists of a flexible strip with small channels for chemicals to flow through Northwestern University Putting ice on an injury […]

Karen Hopkin: This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Karen Hopkin. They say you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. But what if you had access to a remote-controlled carnivorous plant? Because researchers have engineered a bio-inspired system…an artificial neuron, if you will…that can trigger the snap of a Venus fly trap.   […]

The Supreme Court’s decision in the case known as West Virginia et al. v. Environmental Protection Agency et al. is a serious blow to the EPA’s ability to fight climate change—and could have dangerous repercussions beyond this case. The timing of the decision feels especially harsh, as the nation is in the throes of the […]

The World Health Organization said June 25 that monkeypox wasn’t yet a public health emergency of international concern. More than 4,500 cases have been reported worldwide, with more than 300 in the U.S. And with public health officials unable to follow all chains of transmission, they’re likely undercounting cases. Everyone should be aware of its symptoms, […]

Addiction is a behavioral phenomenon that has touched many of us. Whether it be through our own relationship to it or through our family or friends, addiction often leaves us feeling helpless, stripped of agency and robbed of our capacity to help those we care about most. Addiction is perhaps most notably manifested in a […]

First there were sneezing hamsters, now sneezing cats. A team in Thailand reports the first solid evidence of a pet cat infecting a person with SARS-CoV-2 — adding felines to the list of animals that can transmit the virus to people. Researchers say the results are convincing. They are surprised that it has taken this […]

Only the hardiest organisms can thrive in one of the coldest springs on earth. That’s why in the summers of 2017 and 2019, Lyle Whyte took a helicopter to Lost Hammer Spring in the unpopulated High Arctic region of Nunavut, Canada. Snow, ice, salt tufa, rocks, and permafrost surround the unassuming spring, which is nestled […]

When boa constrictors and other strangling snakes wrap their prey in a deadly embrace, they don’t just exert pressure on their victim; they put the squeeze on their own lungs as well. Now new research shows how these remarkable reptiles use a sophisticated breathing technique to avoid suffocating themselves. Instead of using a diaphragm muscle […]

On a rainy afternoon earlier this year, I logged in to my OpenAI account and typed a simple instruction for the company’s artificial intelligence algorithm, GPT-3: Write an academic thesis in 500 words about GPT-3 and add scientific references and citations inside the text. As it started to generate text, I stood in awe. Here […]