Carl Zimmer
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COVID variant warning: Brazil P.1 variant infects many who had recovered, devastating Manaus
B.1.1.7, first identified in Britain, has demonstrated the power to spread far and fast. In South Africa, a mutant called ...
UK COVID variant now spreading across the US likely deadlier than original virus
[British scientists recently said] that there was a “realistic possibility” that the variant was not only more contagious than others, ...
Evolution and the pandemic: How COVID could develop resistance to vaccines over time
With the emergence of what seem so far to be safe and effective vaccine candidates, it appears that humanity may be ...
COVID-19 vaccine tracker: What’s the status of all vaccines in development?
Vaccines typically require years of research and testing before reaching the clinic, but in 2020, scientists embarked on a race ...
‘Editing Humanity’: Kevin Davies’ new book on CRISPR, the ‘miracle of our age’
“The Crispr story has arrived for the grand telling as a miracle of our age,” the [MIT Technology Review announced ...
COVID vaccines for children need to be vetted more carefully and may not be ready for a full year
Thanks to the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed and other programs, a number of Covid-19 vaccines for adults are already in advanced ...
What if the first COVID vaccines are rushed, not guaranteed to be safe, and limited in effectiveness?
[A] surprising number of research groups are placing bets on some [COVID-19 vaccines] that have not yet been given to ...
Who are COVID-19 ‘super spreaders’ and how do they transmit the virus so widely
Growing evidence shows most infected people aren’t spreading the virus. But whether you become a superspreader probably depends more on ...
Intriguing links between blood types and COVID-19 outcomes
Why do some people infected with the coronavirus suffer only mild symptoms, while others become deathly ill? Geneticists have been ...
New York’s coronavirus outbreak traced to travelers who arrived from Europe in February before travel ban was imposed
New research indicates that the coronavirus began to circulate in the New York area by mid-February, weeks before the first ...
What is it about the coronavirus genome that makes it so dangerous?
In January, scientists deciphered a piece of very bad news: the genome of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. The ...
Bizarre deep sea microbe could help explain origins of ‘animals, plants, fungi and humans’
Two billion years ago, simple cells gave rise to far more complex cells. Biologists have struggled for decades to learn ...
Scientists reconstruct yet-to-be-found skull of humans’ last common ancestor entirely through computer imaging
[R]esearchers like Dr. [Aurélien] Mounier are using computers and mathematical techniques to reconstruct the appearance of fossils they have yet ...
Podcast: Why did we survive, when the Denisovans and Neanderthals did not?
The Denisovans have long been one of the most elusive ancient human cousins, until now. In May 2019, scientists revealed ...
7 things we get wrong about heredity
Many people have misconceptions about heredity—how we are connected to our ancestors and how our inheritance from them shapes us ...
Crime scene investigators couldn’t tell identical twins’ DNA apart. Until now
One night in November 1999, a 26-year-old woman was raped in a parking lot in Grand Rapids, Mich. Police officers ...
Genetically modified humans? Here’s why they already exist
It felt as if humanity had crossed an important line: In China, a scientist named He Jiankui announced on Monday ...
‘Living medicine’: Reengineering bacteria to tackle genetic diseases
In a study carried out over the summer, a group of volunteers drank a white, peppermint-ish concoction laced with billions ...
Can you inherit a laugh? Book explores this and other genetics questions
Why are people today often taller than their ancestors? If you have blue eyes or red hair, does that mean your children will ...
Viewpoint: Genetic intelligence tests are ‘worse than just wrong’
On a recent visit to [genetic data website] DNA.Land, I scanned down the list of traits they offered to tell ...
Why can your DNA vary from cell to cell? Mosaicism is a ‘hidden mix of mutations’
James Priest couldn’t make sense of it. He was examining the DNA of a desperately ill baby, searching for a ...
‘Natural traveler’? Humans may not be responsible for sweet potato’s migration from South America to Pacific
Of all the plants that humanity has turned into crops, none is more puzzling than the sweet potato. Indigenous people ...
Unexplained ailments? Genetic mutations may be responsible
Gregor Mendel discovered fundamental rules of genetics by raising pea plants. He realized that hidden factors — we now know ...
Designer proteins could help us fight flu, remove gluten from foods
[Researchers have] been stumped by one great mystery: how the building blocks in a protein take their final shape. David ...
Are ‘gene drive’ trials too risky for field studies?
In 2013, scientists discovered a new way to precisely edit genes — technology called Crispr... One of the more intriguing ...
NY Times’ Carl Zimmer: CRISPR gene editing vital but offers ethical challenges
[Editor's Note: Carl Zimmer is a columnist at the New York Times, where his column "Matter" appears each week. He ...
10 more years: Men with this common gene mutation may live longer, grow taller
A common genetic mutation is linked to an increase in life span of about 10 years among men...The mutation, described ...
‘Genome graph’ offers way for scientists to map human gene pool
[I]t’s becoming painfully clear that the original method that scientists used to compare genomes to each other...is rapidly becoming obsolete ...
