Category: Science

InnovationRx: Beethoven’s Genome; Plus, Billionaires Back New Kind Of Health Research

Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin InnovationRx is your weekly digest of healthcare news. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here. The composer Ludwig van Beethoven first began to experience hearing loss in his mid-20s. He also suffered from chronic stomach pain and, towards the end of his life, displayed jaundice – the yellow skin associated with liver disease. His...

The Times Switches to C.D.C. Covid Data, Ending Daily Collection

As local data sources become less reliable, The Times will instead report information collected by the C.D.C. on its virus tracking pages. After more than three years of daily reporting on the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths in every county in the United States, The New York Times is ending its Covid data-gathering operation. The Times will continue to publish its Covid tracking...

Meet Ada Lovelace, The First Computer Programmer

This article was originally published on November 3, 2022. Ada Byron was on her best behavior when first presented to the British Royal Court — though she found the event and its attendees to be underwhelming. A few weeks later, however, the 17-year-old accompanied her mother to a mathematics lecture. That event captured her imagination and changed her life. Within the next decade, she...

Rising Rate of Drug Shortages Is Framed as a National Security Threat

A Senate homeland security committee examined growing health care shortages amid reports of rationing within hospitals. An increase in shortages of inexpensive yet critical medications is forcing hospitals to make “horrible” choices and is amounting to a national security threat, according to a report and testimony at a Senate homeland security hearing on Wednesday. A report prepared for the hearing found that drug shortages...

How did multicellular life evolve? Algae and yeast give some hints

Dictyostelium discoideum “slugs” give an insight into the evolutionary origins of multicellularity Joan Strassmann The following is an extract from our nature newsletter Wild Wild Life. Sign up to receive it for free in your inbox every month. New Scientist recently reported on something I’d never heard of before: Stentor coeruleus, a single-celled organism that is up to 2 millimetres in length. It is a...

Fastest random number generator ever uses quantum fluctuations

Illustration of quantum vacuum fluctuations Giroscience/Science Photo Library Using the inherent quantum flickering of empty space, researchers have figured out how to generate random numbers at an unprecedented rate. The record-breaking method could be used to enhance cryptographic security in large data centres. Modern cryptography relies on the production of random numbers, which are used as keys to encrypt the vast stores of information...

William A. Wulf, Pioneering Computer Scientist, Dies at 83

One of the first people to receive a graduate degree in the field, Dr. Wulf helped to adapt an early Pentagon communications web into the network that eventually grew into the internet. William A. Wulf, a pioneering researcher, entrepreneur and policymaker in computer science, who helped adapt an early Pentagon communications web into the network that eventually grew into the internet, died on March...

Top 5 Pieces of Forensic Evidence Used to Solve a Crime

​​Forensic science is supposed to be a scientific process. But for decades, critics have complained evidence isn’t always evaluated in a laboratory setting, and empirical studies don’t back the methods of analysis. The consequences for faulty forensic evidence have been severe. Forty-five percent of wrongful convictions that were later overturned due to DNA evidence were found to be the result of inaccurate evidence. Advocacy...

Recyclable plastic made from super glue could replace polystyrene

Jelly beans in a bowl made from a new recyclable plastic Allison Christy/Boise State University A new type of plastic made from super glue is easy to recycle and requires no fossil fuels for its production. Allison Christy and Scott Phillips at Boise State University in Idaho used ethyl cyanoacrylate – the main ingredient in super glue – to create a plastic that could...

Ultra-thin superconducting ink could be used in quantum computers

A render of a quantum computer Shutterstock / Bartlomiej K. Wroblewski Source: Shutterstock A superconducting ink that can be printed onto surfaces in a single-molecule-thick layer could prove useful for the building of circuits for quantum computers. The tungsten disulfide ink is more stable than other superconducting inks and it is simpler to make, which bodes well for future applications. When a material is superconductive,...