Tag: Science

— Deva Narayanan A: Genes work in pairs. Every person inherits two copies of most genes, one from each parent. Some gene variants, called dominant alleles, express themselves even when only one copy is present. Others, called recessive alleles, express themselves when a person inherits both copies. Someone with one recessive allele alongside a dominant...

Taking a fresh ​look at data involving a type of exploding stars, a team of researchers says it has confirmed the notion that the universe ‌is expanding at an accelerated rate – the very observation that led to the identification in the ​1990s of an enigmatic cosmic force called dark energy. The study’s results rebut...

The Cuban healthcare and biotechnology sectors — crown jewels of the country’s revolution — today find themselves at breaking point thanks to the U.S. campaign of economic strangulation, which has moved beyond trade restrictions to a direct assault on human services. Washington has also intensified pressure on the Global South to dismantle Cuban medical missions,...

The specific components of the immune response in a human body that protect against a dengue virus (DENV) infection and the subsequent illness remain unclear. Scientists are still trying to understand how natural infection and vaccination protect people so that they can develop better vaccines. Now, a novel study has revealed important insights into developing...

Of late, increasingly concentrated rainfall and violent floods have devastated India’s cities and farms alike. For years, scientists have debated whether this is simply natural variation or the direct result of climate change. A new study in Environmental Research Letters has found the smoking gun. Specifically, for the first time, researchers have dispositive evidence that...

Traditionally, many conservationists and policymakers have seen biodiversity conservation as a choice between protecting nature and meeting human needs. Forests were often seen as places that had to be protected from people, while alleviating poverty and economic development were treated as separate concerns. A new international study has concluded that this is a harmful view....

I am an oncologist. I have watched large language models (LLMs) do something I have been trying to do for years: make cancer comprehensible. A patient sits across from me with newly diagnosed cancer. I used to explain the PDL1 status and the role of neoadjuvant therapy, where patients get immunotherapy first followed by surgery...

The recent death of two people in Brazil during its dengue vaccination campaign, leading to the shot’s suspension on June 8, is a crucial wake-up call for India. This is because the dengue vaccine in Brazil, Butantan-DV, is pretty similar, if not identical, to India’s soon-to-be-launched dengue vaccine, DengiAll. Both the Brazilian and Indian vaccines...

Sea star sports nature’s optic fibres to focus light A remarkable structure in the chocolate-chip sea star (Protoreaster nodosus) has come to light. On the tip of each arm, a skeletal part contains an array of cone-shaped structures that, like optic fibres, transmit 70% of incident light and concentrate it nearly 3x at the base....