1+ day, 49+ min ago   (135+ words) I’m fond of saying that the most important single statistic about the drug industry is the clinical failure rate, which is (by any reasonable standard) appallingly high. To my mind, everything that is infuriating or inexplicable to outside observers (or…...

1+ mon, 6+ day ago   (160+ words) Life on land likely evolved when one of our ancient fish ancestors developed legs and came ashore. These early creatures, known as tetrapods — creatures with four limbs — would eventually evolve into the birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals of today. Previous…...

2+ mon, 6+ day ago   (149+ words) Engineers from the University of Houston, MIT and Harvard have developed a new mRNA-based strategy that dramatically amplifies the T-cell response to vaccines — an advance that could lead to far more powerful cancer vaccines and stronger protection against infectious diseases....

2+ mon, 3+ week ago   (136+ words) My ex once told me, mid-argument, that I was the most unempathetic person he’d ever met. It was a low blow. I’m a clinical psychologist. Empathy is literally my job. What he probably didn’t know – and I was too “flooded…...

3+ mon, 3+ week ago   (131+ words) Some 30 years ago, the mathematician Peter Shor (opens a new tab) took a niche physics project — the dream of building a computer based on the counterintuitive rules of quantum mechanics — and shook the world. Shor worked out a way for…...

3+ mon, 3+ week ago   (101+ words) Modern life depends on fast and reliable wireless connections. Video calls, streaming services, virtual reality, and smart devices all place growing demands on networks that already serve billions of users. Most wireless data today travels through radio-based technologies such as…...

3+ mon, 3+ week ago   (138+ words) A Starlink satellite suffered an unidentified anomaly, generating a small field of debris in low-Earth orbit. SpaceX lost contact with one of its Starlink satellites on Sunday due to an in-orbit malfunction, the company confirmed on X. Orbital tracking company LeoLabs…...

4+ mon, 2+ week ago   (115+ words) They raid compost bins, outsmart latches and sometimes look gleeful doing it. A new UBC study in Animal Behaviour suggests raccoons may not just be opportunistic—they may be genuinely curious. UBC researchers Hannah Griebling and Dr. Sarah Benson-Amram found…...

5+ mon, 3+ day ago   (112+ words) A Nobel laureate’s environmentally friendly invention that provides clean water if central supplies are knocked out by a hurricane or drought could be a life saver for vulnerable islands, its founder says. The invention, by the chemist Prof Omar Yaghi,…...

5+ mon, 2+ day ago   (126+ words) The Lunar Gateway is planned space station that will orbit the Moon. It is part of the Nasa‑led Artemis programme. Artemis aims to return humans to the Moon, establishing a sustainable presence there for scientific and commercial purposes, and…...