Policymakers rely on models during uncertain times to figure out how their choices could affect the future. Over the pandemic, an ensemble of many COVID-19 models outperformed any one alone.
Many microscopy techniques have won Nobel Prizes over the years. Advancements like cryo-ET that allow scientists to see the individual atoms of cells can reveal their biological functions.
Claire Guinat, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich; Etthel Windels, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, and Sarah Nadeau, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
After a nose swab tests positive for a virus or bacteria, scientists can use the sample’s genetic sequence to figure out where and when the pathogen emerged and how fast it’s changing.
Record-keepers have a pretty good sense of how many people have died. But figuring out the cause of those deaths is a lot trickier – and that’s why reasonable modelers can disagree.
The subject of a new Netflix miniseries, Halston once ruled over New York’s fashion world. But the designer with a devil-may-care approach to his business dealings attempted too much, too quickly.
Why one city suffers significantly more deaths than another isn’t always obvious. A simple experiment shows how failing to consider certain factors can point policy makers in the wrong direction.
Why is there such a wide difference in projections for how much COVID-19 will spread? An expert in disease modeling explains what models can and cannot do.
We have all the technologies needed to make the electric grid run on renewables and lower pollution. What are they and what are the barriers to adopting them widely?
Linguists have a lot of largely untested theories. Borrowing a tool from ecology, researchers built a model that didn’t look for one worldwide explanation.
Where do the cooperative skills that hold together human societies come from and why don’t our selfish instincts overwhelm them? Evolutionary game theory suggests that empathy is a crucial contributor.
Big data open-access publishing and other advances offer ecologists the ability to forecast events like pest outbreaks over days and seasons rather than decades. But scholars need to seize this opportunity.
We tend to think of archaeological sites as dead silent – empty ruins left by past cultures. But this isn’t how the people who lived in and used these sites would have experienced them.