How to sterilise scalpels when no electricity is available
Nov 28th 2020IN THE HISTORY of medicine, praise is rightly showered on those who invented vaccines, antibiotics, antiseptics and…
Another covid-19 vaccine joins the party
Nov 23rd 2020ON NOVEMBER 23RD, for the third Monday in a row, the results of an anti-covid vaccine were announced. This time the…
Giant prehistoric sharks left their young in nurseries
Nov 28th 2020IF SHARKS HAD bony skeletons, which preserve easily as fossils, rather than cartilaginous ones, which do not, then…
Child-safety laws may reduce the birth rate
IN THE EARLY 1970s American women gave birth, on average, to 2.12 children each. By 2018 that figure had fallen to 1.73. Many…
With the death of Arecibo, an era ends for radio astronomy
A snapped cable has irreparably damaged the dishNov 25th 2020ARECIBO OBSERVATORY was conceived in an era of space-age monumentalism,…
Success for a third—and perhaps most important—covid-19 vaccine
The AstraZeneca-Oxford jab is likely to be widely used around the worldNov 23rd 2020IN JANUARY, when most of the world was just…
China plans to bring back the first Moon rocks for 40 years
IN JANUARY 2019, when a Chinese spacecraft called Chang’e 4 visited the Moon, the mission broke new ground, figuratively speaking,…
A second vaccine against covid-19 arrives
Nov 19th 2020WAITING FOR a breakthrough in the fight against covid-19 has been a bit like waiting for a bus to arrive. After almost…
Sieve-toothed seals may be whales in the making
Nov 21st 2020LAKE BAIKAL, near Russia’s border with Mongolia, is, by volume, the biggest body of fresh water on Earth. At 1.6km,…