BATS in the frontier regions of south and south-west China harbour other coronaviruses that already have the capacity to cross over to humans, a prominent Chinese scientist has said…
This article was first published in The Guardian on 4 December 2020. To continue reading, click here.
LETTING the virus that causes Covid-19 circulate more-or-less freely is dangerous not only because it risks overwhelming hospitals and so endangering lives unnecessarily, but also because it could delay the evolution of the virus to a more benign form and potentially even make it more lethal…
This article first appeared in The Guardian on 19 November 2020. To continue reading, click here.
A DEEPLY entrenched idea, that newly emerged agents of disease inevitably evolve to become more benign over time, is scientifically unfounded, according to new research…
This story was first published in The Guardian on 19 November 2020. To continue reading, click here.
PARTS of Ann Arbor bring The Truman Show to mind, with their wood-frame houses and white picket fences. Home to the University of Michigan, the city oozes middle-class prosperity and security. So, while doing research there a decade ago, Sarah Garfinkel was shocked to discover that young veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan felt terrified even in Ann Arbor. “It broke my heart,” she says. And it changed the course of her career…
This article first appeared in New Scientist on 27 June 2020. To continue reading, click here (paywall).
EIGHT thousand years ago small bands of seminomadic hunter-gatherers were the only human beings roaming Europe’s lush, green forests. Archaeological digs in caves and elsewhere have turned up evidence of their Mesolithic technology: flint-tipped tools with which they fished, hunted deer and aurochs (a now extinct species of ox), and gathered wild plants. Many had dark hair and blue eyes, recent genetic studies suggest, and the few skeletons unearthed so far indicate that they were quite tall and muscular. Their languages remain mysterious to this day…
This article first appeared in the July 2020 issue of Scientific American. To continue reading, click here.