Why Scientists Tweak Lab Viruses to Make Them More Contagious

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June 14, 2021

Biology Why Scientists Tweak Lab Viruses to Make Them More Contagious Some "gain of function" studies explore how a dangerous pathogen might cross species barriers to start an outbreak. They are not without controversy.  By Emily Willingham

Space Mysterious Fast Radio Bursts Come in Two Distinct Flavors A trove of new detections suggests that the bursts could be the result of at least two separate astrophysical phenomena By Davide Castelvecchi,Nature magazine

Climate Giant Ice Shelf Crumbling Faster than Expected Antarctica's enormous Pine Island Glacier could follow right behind it, raising global sea level significantly By Chelsea Harvey,E&E News

Space Searching for City Lights on Other Planets There's a detectable difference between a planet shining with reflected light and a planet glowing with its own artificial illumination By Avi Loeb

Conservation Invasive Species Can Sometimes Help an Ecosystem In Hawaii, imported birds have taken on some of the roles once performed by those that have gone extinct—but there's a catch By Samuel B. Case

Conservation Saving New York City's Last Wildernesses Added up, the natural areas in the five boroughs equal more than a dozen Central Parks By Sarah Charlop-Powers

Space Venus Wins Stunning Third New Mission, This Time from Europe EnVision will follow NASA's DAVINCI+ and VERITAS By Meghan Bartels,SPACE.com

Behavior & Society Marching to the Beat of the 17-Year Cicada Clock A visit to my hometown to see the legendary Brood X cicadas with my wife and one-year-old daughter changed my conception of time By Ross Kenneth Urken

Space How Human Space Launches Have Diversified A plethora of new countries and private companies are getting in on the quest to send people to orbit By Katie Peek

Biology For African Elephants, Pee Could Be a Potent Trail Marker Scientists found that elephants often sniff pathways—and seem especially attuned to urine. By Christopher Intagliata | 02:17

Arts & Culture Poem: 'Turing and the Apple' Science in meter and verse By Michael L. Johnson

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Mind, Volume 32, Issue 1

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FROM THE ARCHIVE U.S. Lifts Moratorium on Funding Controversial, High-Risk Virus Research The three-year-old policy had "paused" 21 publicly-funded projects By Sharon Begley,STAT | December 2017

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