The Only Way We’ll Know When We Need COVID-19 Boosters
Research can tell us only so much. The rest is a waiting game.
A Major New Index Fund Should Unnerve Climate-Skeptical CEOs
The hedge fund that staged a revolt at Exxon last month is now recruiting an army of mom-and-pop investors for future battles.
A Slimy Calamity Is Creeping Across the Sea
The sea snot blanketing Turkey’s coastline isn’t just gross—it’s also smothering animals underwater.
Blue Animals Are Different From All the Rest
Some of the colors we see on creatures such as blue jays and poison-dart frogs aren’t created by pigments at all.
The Immune System’s Weirdest Weapon
For decades, neutrophils have been miscast as mindless grunts. They’re more like super-soldiers.
How the U.S. Made Progress on Climate Change Without Ever Passing a Bill
A “green vortex” is saving America’s climate future.
Drivers Never Learn the One Lesson of Cicada Season
Brood X always leaves behind a spate of weird stories.
A Hint About How Life Made It Onto Land
Our fishy ancestors might have gotten a cognitive boost just by leaving the water.
Why America Doesn’t Really Make Solar Panels Anymore
America invented silicon solar cells in the 1950s. It spent more on solar R&D than any other country in the 1980s. It lost its technological advantage anyway.
A Strangely Comforting Finding About Alien Rain
Whether they’re made of iron or quartz, raindrops on other worlds are about the same size as those on Earth.
Hallucinogenic Toads Are Too Popular for Their Own Good
A trendy drug comes at a high environmental cost.
Two Arctic Fish Are Breaking the Rules of Genetics
“I’m still very much puzzled about how this is possible."
The Essential Ed Yong Reading List
A staff writer for The Atlantic since 2015, Yong is the recipient of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting.
The Human Genome Is—Finally!—Complete
The Human Genome Project left 8 percent of our DNA unexplored. Now, for the first time, those enigmatic regions have been revealed.
A Pivotal Mosquito Experiment Could Not Have Gone Better
An extremely common microbe can stop the insects from spreading the virus that causes dengue fever.
The IVF Cases That Broke Birthright Citizenship
The U.S. had to rethink its definition of parenthood, to account for children born abroad to American parents using egg and sperm donors or surrogates.
Jeff Bezos Has Reached His Final Form
The Amazon billionaire is going to fly to space this year. So might Richard Branson. Has anyone checked with Elon Musk?
Neuroscientists Have Discovered a Phenomenon That They Can’t Explain
“Scientists are meant to know what’s going on, but in this particular case, we are deeply confused.”
A Crumpled, Dried-Out Relic of the Pandemic
I returned to my office and found an apple that had somehow not rotted away.
Immune Cells Are More Paranoid Than We Thought
Healthy birds watched their friends get sick with a bacterial disease. Their immune cells freaked out.
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