The Pentagon Ponders the Threat of Synthetic Bioweapons
When it comes to detecting new organisms that emerge from exotic places and cause global havoc, the US military is ready. The Pentagon operates infectious disease labs and surveillance networks in places like Kenya, Georgia, and Thailand, as well as a giant research center and vaccine-making unit just outside Washington, DC. All that effort makes…
These Neurons are Alive and Firing. And You Can Watch Them In 3-D
For patients with epilepsy, or cancerous brain lesions, sometimes the only way to forward is down. Down past the scalp and into the skull, down through healthy grey matter to get at a tumor or the overactive network causing seizures. At the end of the surgery, all that extra white and grey matter gets tossed…
Lab-Grown Brain Balls Are Starting to Look More Lifelike
When it became possible to remove a tumor from a patient and study it in a dish, the field of oncology was transformed. Sergiu Paşca, a neuroscientist at Stanford University, wants psychiatry to experience the same kind of revolution. Yet the brain presents an even greater challenge than cancer. Without the option of simply cutting…
Mass Shootings, Climate, Discrimination: Why Government's Fear of Data Threatens Us All
In the aftermath of the massacre of 26 people in a small-town Texas church, you might have seen that the killer used a gun called an AR-15. It’s a popular weapon—relatively easy to use, endlessly customizable, military in appearance. How popular? It’s the same gun that a killer used in the massacre of 58 people…
'Oumuamua Probably Isn't a Spaceship—But It Could Have Passengers
Last Wednesday, at 3:45 pm, scientists from the Breakthrough Listen project trained the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia on 'Oumuamua—the mysterious, oblong space-rock which last month became the first known object to enter our solar system from elsewhere in the universe—and scanned it for signs of intelligent life. For six hours, astronomers interrogated the…
The Monumental Task of Restoring Houston After Harvey
It's been almost two weeks since Hurricane Harvey began its assault on southeastern Texas, and communities throughout the region have set off down the long, hard road to recovery. FEMA administrator Brock Long and Texas governor Greg Abbott both said last week that it will take years to rebuild homes, salvage businesses, shore up infrastructure,…
Tug, the Busy Little Robot Nurse, Will See You Now
Robots seem so far away. We’re so many years from Jetsons-esque machines that live among us and wash our dishes and fold our clothes. But the reality is the robots have arrived—you’re just not noticing them. Take a robot called Tug, for instance. No, Tug can't talk philosophy with you, and Tug can't do your…
Veritas Genetics Scoops Up an AI Company to Sort Out Its DNA
Genes carry the information that make you you. So it's fitting that, when sequenced and stored in a computer, your genome takes up gobs of memory—up to 150 gigabytes. Multiply that across all the people who have gotten sequenced, and you're looking at some serious storage issues. If that's not enough, mining those genomes for…
Why the Bomb Cyclone Hitting the East Coast Is So Unusual
Click:ARCOTRONICS MKP 1.44/A GPD/LS SH 13152216 Capacitor Now, the first thing you should know about a bomb cyclone is it’s just a name—and unlike a sharknado, it’s not a literal one. The very real scientific term describes a storm that suddenly intensifies following a rapid drop in atmospheric pressure. Bombing out, or “bombogenesis,” is when…
METI's First Message Is a Music Lesson for Aliens
Tromsø, Norway is usually a destination for northern lights lovers—tourists and scientists alike. But on October 16, the small city north of the Arctic Circle took on a new cosmic role. A radio telescope in the city, a hotspot for aurora investigators, became the origin point of a transmission aimed at the exoplanet GJ 273b,…