Scientists
Deep State Diaries
“I Am Seeing My Community of Researchers Decimated”
Across the country, the Trump Administration’s assault on public institutions and its cuts to government funding are forcing scientists to abandon their work and the patients who benefit from it.
By E. Tammy Kim
Deep State Diaries
The Government’s Rock Librarian
Her work was so quiet and fundamental—to academia and industry, all over the world—that she believed her job would be safe.
By E. Tammy Kim
The Weekend Essay
The “Epic Row” Over a New Epoch
Scientists, journalists, and artists often say that we live in the Anthropocene, a new age in which humans shape the Earth. Why do some leading geologists reject the term?
By Elizabeth Kolbert
Blitt’s Kvetchbook
The Latest Scientific Breakthrough on Aging
Courtesy of the humble mouse.
By Barry Blitt
Elements
The Scientist Who Studied Peace
Now that the war in Ukraine has suspended many collaborations with Russia, how should we think of the relations between scientists and their nations?
By Rivka Galchen
A Reporter at Large
Have Chinese Spies Infiltrated American Campuses?
The U.S. government arrested Chinese professors, implying that they were foreign agents. The professors say that they’ve been caught up in a xenophobic panic.
By Gideon Lewis-Kraus
Dept. of Science
A Journey to the Center of Our Cells
Biologists are discovering the true nature of cells—and learning to build their own.
By James Somers
Daily Cartoon
Daily Cartoon: Thursday, January 27th
“I went back to warn them, but they already knew and didn’t seem to care.”
By Brendan Loper
News Desk
Why Scientists Become Spies
Access to information only goes so far to explain the curious link between secrets and those who tell them.
By Rivka Galchen
Comment
Mining the Bottom of the Sea
The future of the largest, still mostly untouched ecosystem in the world is at risk.
By Elizabeth Kolbert
The Pictures
How to Design a World-Killing Comet
Amy Mainzer, one of NASA’s lead asteroid hunters, and the director Adam McKay, who collaborated on the film “Don’t Look Up,” chat about ways to neutralize an oncoming space rock (explosives!) and the likelihood of an apocalyptic collision (low!).
By Michael Schulman
The Control of Nature
Creating a Better Leaf
Could tinkering with photosynthesis prevent a global food crisis?
By Elizabeth Kolbert
Profiles
Can Progressives Be Convinced That Genetics Matters?
The behavior geneticist Kathryn Paige Harden is waging a two-front campaign: on her left are those who assume that genes are irrelevant, on her right those who insist that they’re everything.
By Gideon Lewis-Kraus
Books
A Cautionary Tale About Science Raises Uncomfortable Questions About Fiction
Benjamín Labatut’s Sebaldian “When We Cease to Understand the World” grapples with science’s moral quandaries, but what is real and what is imagined?
By Ruth Franklin
Annals of Science
Persuading the Body to Regenerate Its Limbs
Deer can regrow their antlers, and humans can replace their liver. What else might be possible?
By Matthew Hutson
News Desk
The Moms Who Are Battling Climate Change
A new initiative seeks to tap into mothers’ concern for the world their children are inheriting.
By Lizzie Widdicombe
Letter from Moscow
The Sputnik V Vaccine and Russia’s Race to Immunity
When the pandemic struck, scientists in Moscow set out to beat the West.
By Joshua Yaffa
Dept. of Guts
An Untested Source of Pandemic Data? The Sewer
By looking at what people flush down their toilets, Biobot Analytics can track the spread of COVID-19 and other problems, such as opioid use.
By Sheelah Kolhatkar
Annals of Medicine
When a Virus Is the Cure
As bacteria grow more resistant to antibiotics, bacteriophage therapy is making a comeback.
By Nicola Twilley
Books
How Does Science Really Work?
Science is objective. Scientists are not. Can an “iron rule” explain how they’ve changed the world anyway?
By Joshua Rothman