A nurse applies a vaccine in Caracas, Venezuela in March, 2020

How Will a Coronavirus Vaccine Work?

Four different ways researchers use the virus's own structure to train our immune systems to exterminate it.
Francesca Vidotto

Francesca Vidotto: The Quantum Properties of Space-Time

Theoretical physicist Francesca Vidotto on feminist epistemology, white holes, string theory, and her book (with Carlo Rovelli) on loop quantum gravity.
A Canada Goose

Has the U.S. Government Abandoned Birds?

Recent changes to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 leave birds vulnerable to industry, experts say.
La Malaria by Auguste Hebert

Cracking the Malaria Mystery—from Marshes to Mosquirix

It took science centuries to understand malaria. Now we’re waiting to see how the 2019 vaccine pilot works.
A tunnel of carious speckles and colors

How to See the Invisible Universe

Telescopes that detect long-wavelength signals offer clues about the Big Bang, the centers of black holes, and the origins of life.
Alice Ball

The Chemist Whose Work Was Stolen from Her

The Black scientist Alice Ball helped develop a treatment for leprosy in the early twentieth century. But someone else took the credit.
Termites

Margaret S. Collins, Pioneering Black Entomologist

She was the first African American woman to earn a PhD in entomology as well as an activist for freedom in the Civil Rights Movement.
Emma and Charles Darwin

Darwin in Love

Charles Darwin, who of all people should have known better, married his first cousin. Did his love for Emma color his later works?
Zodiac Signs

Why Your Zodiac Sign Is Probably Wrong

The science of astronomy is at odds with the basic organizing principle in astrology: the dates of the zodiac.
A cartoon of a T Rex holding a boom box

Take These Teenage Dinosaurs Seriously!

Paleontologists recently solved the riddle of whether two fossil specimens were young T. rexes or a whole different species.