A collage of photos of people with long Covid holding signs saying how long they’ve had it and what their symptoms are. “Please hear our SOS” appears in large letters at the bottom of the collage
Video | Health & Disease

Long Covid: A parallel pandemic

By Hunni Media for Knowable Magazine

VIDEO: Tens of millions of people are living with long Covid. Yale immunologist Akiko Iwasaki explains the current state of play in the search for causes of, and treatments for, this potentially debilitating illness.

Photograph of an adult female Sumatran rhino resting on the ground. An adorable rhino calf is standing to her left.
Opinion | Living World

The importance of understanding wildlife sex

By Pierre Comizzoli

OPINION: If we’re truly serious about protecting animal species from extinction, we should learn more about how they reproduce

Photograph of a group of vervet monkeys. They are clustered around and feeding from a box of pink-colored corn kernels. They are ignoring an equally full box of blue-colored kernels.
Living World

Cultural transmission makes animals flexible, but vulnerable

By Tim Vernimmen

From monkeys washing potatoes to cockatoos raiding trash cans, socially spread behaviors allow creatures to adapt more rapidly to changing environments than conventional evolution would allow. But the traits are also more easily lost.

A dark-haired dog with white around its muzzle is standing with its mouth open. A small treat is in the air; the dog is preparing to catch it in its mouth.
Health & Disease

Inside the brains of aging dogs

By Lesley Evans Ogden

In a citizen science project, thousands of pet dogs are helping scientists to understand what happens to memory and cognition in old age

An idealized factory churns out plant-based meat patties in an idyllic nature setting, while closed feedlots and poultry farms stand empty nearby.
Food & Environment

How sustainable are fake meats?

By Bob Holmes

Marketed to meat lovers, plant-based burgers like Impossible and Beyond claim to taste like the real thing and to have far lighter environmental footprints. Here’s what the numbers have to say.

Health & Disease

The lasting anguish of moral injury

Psychologists are finding that moral code violations can leave an enduring mark — and may require new types of therapy

By Constance Sommer
Physical World

A dying star’s last hurrah

At the end of their lives, sunlike stars metamorphose into glowing shells of gas — perhaps shaped by unseen companions

By Dana Mackenzie
Graphical drawing of men in prison jumpsuits caught in a loop of leaving and entering prison cells.
Society

Rethinking prison as a deterrent to future crime

By Jamie Santa Cruz

Time behind bars can increase the likelihood that someone will re-offend, research finds. In many cases, programs that rehabilitate, rather than punish, may be a better solution.

Three people with small backpacks walk through the desert along the base of a wall topped with razor wire.
Society

An archaeological look at modern refugees

By Carolyn Wilke

The techniques of archaeology, usually used to study the past, also illuminate the experiences of today’s displaced people

Conceptual illustration shows a man sitting at his office desk leaning forward. Files are heaped on the floor; a keyboard and monitor are on the desk. The man’s back is on fire and smoke is billowing off to the right.
Society

How to deal with work stress — and actually recover from burnout

By Chris Woolston

Mindfulness, detachment, selecting off-time activities with care: Here are evidence-based strategies to achieve healthy work-life balance

A conceptual illustration shows a young girl with dark hair and an unhappy expression. In the green background are a sea of eyes that seem to be staring at her.
The Mind

Inside the adolescent brain

By Tim Vernimmen

This challenging phase of life may get a bad rap, but it’s also full of opportunity. A developmental neuroscientist shares what she’s learned from studies on young people’s risk-taking behavior, reasoning and more.

Graphic shows conceptual illustration of a microrobot on a blue background. It has five golden grasping arms and a curly, teal-colored tail, plus other components including visible microcircuitry inside a lightbulb-shaped body.
Technology

Making microbots smart

By David Levin

What would it take to create a truly intelligent microbot, one that can operate independently? A roboticist describes the fascinating minutiae and the medical jobs these tiny machines could do for us.

Photograph of a cluster of grapes hanging from a vine, surrounded by leaves.
Food & Environment

Climate change is altering the chemistry of wine

By Ula Chrobak and By Katarina Zimmer

Warming, wildfires and unpredictable weather threaten to disrupt the delicate processes that underlie treasured wines. Researchers and producers are innovating to keep ahead.

Multimedia

Opinion | Health & Disease

This myth about guns is killing us

By Mark Rosenberg

OPINION: The idea that gun violence prevention research is at odds with gun rights is just not true

Realistic illustration shows a cityscape with a mix of buildings of different heights; in the foreground is a grid of solar panels and several wind turbines. The sky is blue and filled with fluffy clouds; all is well!
Food & Environment

How cities can fight climate change

By Deepa Padmanaban

Urban activities — think construction, transportation, heating, cooling and more — are major sources of greenhouse-gas emissions. Today, a growing number of cities are striving to slash their emission to net zero — here’s what they need to do.

Photo of a man looking out on a city through a large set of windows tinted from dark to clear
Technology

How smart windows save energy

By Brittney J. Miller

Specialized glass that keeps heat in during winter and lets it out during summer could make buildings much more efficient — if costs and complexities don’t get in the way

A cutaway drawing of an animal cell, showing many internal structures, including the nucleus, mitochondria and other membrane-bound organelles. How exactly such internal compartments evolved within a simpler ancestor cell is still a question pondered by biologists.
Living World

Mitochondria and the origin of eukaryotes

By Viviane Callier

Were the powerhouse organelles a driving force or a late addition in the evolution of more complex cells like ours?

Photograph of two devil rays — one in the foreground, one in further back, swimming in the water.
Living World

Call of the deep

By Stephanie Pain

Some of the ocean’s biggest predators dive way down into the cold, dark depths. Animals-turned-oceanographers are helping biologists find out what they do when they get there.

Health & Disease

Sex, immunity and the brain

Differences between the immune systems of males and females — in particular, ones involving cells called microglia — might help explain why the risk for conditions such as autism and Alzheimer’s varies between the sexes

By Amber Dance
Video | Health & Disease

Covid and the brain: A neurological health crisis

VIDEO: Even a mild SARS-CoV-2 infection can cause inflammation that disrupts neural communication, says Stanford neurologist Michelle Monje. Her concern is that Covid-19 may leave millions dealing with cognitive problems, from a loss of mental sharpness to lapses in memory, that prevent them from returning to their previous level of function.

By Hunni Media for Knowable Magazine
The origins and future of the Grand Canyon
Event | Physical World

The origins and future of the Grand Canyon

VIDEO: How old is the Grand Canyon? Will the Colorado River run dry? Learn about how the Big Ditch formed and the present state and uncertain future of the Colorado River watershed.

Cartoon-style illustration of a snazzy, turquoise electric car being fueled up. The background is black with a lot of hexagons on it.
Opinion | Society

Make electric vehicles affordable for the rest of us

By Tamara Sheldon

OPINION: EV subsidies are poorly designed and mostly benefit the rich. Some simple changes could make them more effective and equitable.

Photograph about a dozen pale, tan horses relaxing on green grass by a body of water, Trees line the far shore.
Opinion | Living World

The creative way to pay for wildlife recovery

By Paul Jepson

OPINION: ‘Pragmatic rewilding’ restores damaged ecosystems and harnesses private money, with benefits for all

Collage with photographs, left to right, of three young boys, a father lying on his back outdoors with a young girl smiling down at him, and a man and a young woman standing next to each other. Overlaid on the photos is a bar graph showing the planet’s warming trend.
Food & Environment

A lifetime of climate change

By Nicola Jones

Researcher Arun Agrawal has lived three decades on either side of a watershed: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed 30 years ago this June. His 60 years are a window into how far we have come, and how far there is to go.

Photograph of colorful wooden houses with a bay in the background and mountains on the far shore. Chunks of ice are floating in the water.
Physical World

The race against radon

By Chris Baraniuk

Scientists are working to map out the risks of the permafrost thaw, which could expose millions of people to the invisible cancer-causing gas

Living World

The tale of the domesticated horse

The beloved animal has shaped human history over millennia, just as people have influenced its evolution — but only recently have scientists discovered exactly when and where it went from wild to tame

By Amber Dance
Technology

Gallium: The liquid metal that could transform soft electronics

Bend it. Stretch it. Use it to conduct electricity. Researchers are exploring a range of applications that harness the element’s unusual properties.

By Kurt Kleiner

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