Inside the hunt for a Covid-19 vaccine: how BioNTech made the breakthrough
The story of the company and the people working on the Covid-19 vaccine trial that made news around the world this week.
The C.D.C. Waited ‘Its Entire Existence for This Moment.’ What Went Wrong?
An account (disputed in some quarters) of the Center for Disease Control & Prevention’s response to the covid-19 pandemic that is none too complimentary.
How Coronavirus Mutates and Spreads
A visual essay diving into the genetic mutations that are being observed in the coronavirus.
The Hubble Space Telescope and 30 years that transformed our view of the universe
The story of the Hubble Space Telescope over the last 30 years.
A Forest Submerged 60,000 Years Ago Could Save Your Life One Day
An ancient forest submerged 30 miles off the coast of Alabama is the home to huge biodiversity in the form of “shipworms and other marine xylophiles”. These creatures and the bacteria that exist in them are a key line of enquiry for scientists looking to develop the medicines of the future.
How Does the Coronavirus Behave Inside a Patient?
An analysis of how coronavirus behaves inside patients, and the data points that might help us better understand how it impacts different people.
Snow Science Against the Avalanche
An insight into specialist avalanche mitigation teams and the challenges they face working with a natural material that is “light and fluffy and soft and downy, and it’s everybody’s favorite thing in the world” but also “one of the most destructive forces in nature”.
Why the Coronavirus Has Been So Successful
A look at the origins, composition and behaviour of the new coronavirus itself, in a piece that results in what its author Ed Yong calls “a rough preliminary portrait of SARS-CoV-2”.
Consider the Hermit Crab
A story marvelling at the hermit crab, possibly responsible for eating Amelia Earhart on an island in the West Pacific, a species of which the oldest “live to more than a hundred, and grow to be wider than three feet across: too large to fit in a bathtub, exactly the right size for a nightmare.”