As countries like the United States and United Kingdom inoculate their residents with never-before used vaccine technology, others, including Russia, China, and India, are investing in more traditional approaches, like inactivated coronavirus vaccines. But no matter the technique, together they have the potential to create multiple lines of defense against SARS-CoV-2. Science senior correspondent Jon Cohen explains how each of these vaccines can protect us from severe illness—and what understanding the details of our immune responses could mean for the future of human trials.
Tag Archives: Science
TOP JOURNALS: RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS FROM SCIENCE MAGAZINE (JAN 29, 2021)
Science Podcast: Social Costs Of Carbon & The Chirps Of Mole-Rats
On its first day, the new Biden administration announced plans to recalculate the social cost of carbon—a way of estimating the economic toll of greenhouse gases. Staff Writer Paul Voosen and host Sarah Crespi discuss why this value is so important and how it will be determined.
Next up, Alison Barker, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, talks with Sarah about the sounds of naked mole-rats. You may already know naked mole-rats are pain and cancer resistant—but did you know these eusocial mammals make little chirps to identify themselves as colony members? Can these learned local dialects make naked mole-rats a new research model for language learning?
Science Podcast: Spinal Cord Injury Device, Hand Gestures & Saturn’s Tilt
A neuroprosthetic device restores blood-pressure control after spinal-cord injury, and identifying the neurons that help us understand others’ beliefs.
In this episode:
00:47 A neuroprosthetic restores the body’s baroreflex
A common problem for people who have experienced spinal-cord injury is the inability to maintain their blood pressure, which can have serious, long-term health consequences. Now, however, researchers have developed a device that may restore this ability, by stimulating the neural circuits involved in the so-called baroreflex.
Research Article: Squair et al.
News and Views: Neuroprosthetic device maintains blood pressure after spinal cord injury
08:27 Research Highlights
How gesticulating changes the way that speech is perceived, and a new theory of how Saturn got its tilt.
Research Highlight: Hands speak: how casual gestures shape what we hear
Research Highlight: The moon that made Saturn a pushover
10:58 A neuronal map of understanding others
Humans are very good at understanding that other people have thoughts, feelings and beliefs that are different to our own. But the neuronal underpinnings of this ability have been hard to unpick. Now, researchers have identified a subset of neurons that they think gives us this ability.
Research Article: Jamali et al.
18:04 Briefing Chat
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, the science of why cats love catnip, and the struggle to identify what the mysterious celestial object StDr 56 actually is.
Science: Why cats are crazy for catnip
Syfy Wire: So what the heck is StDr 56?
Science & Wildlife: ‘The Bird Genoscape Project’
Billions of birds migrate annually across the Western Hemisphere… but if we don’t know where they go when they leave their breeding grounds, how can we protect them? By extracting DNA from individual feathers (and borrowing cutting-edge technology from the Human Genome Project) scientists can map bird migration with greater precision than ever before. The result is the Bird Genoscape Project, and it’s revolutionizing bird conservation by connecting migratory birds – and the people who care about them – across the Americas. This work was funded by the National Geographic Society. Learn more at http://www.natgeo.org.
TOP JOURNALS: RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS FROM SCIENCE MAGAZINE (JAN 22, 2021)
Science Podcast: Rodents In Research, Gut Allergic Reactions & Cobra Venom
Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss a controversial new paper that estimates how many rodents are used in research in the United States each year.
Though there is no official number, the paper suggests there might be more than 100 million rats and mice housed in research facilities in the country—doubling or even tripling some earlier estimates.
Next, Staff Writer Jennifer Couzin-Frankel talks with Sarah about a new theory behind the cause of irritable bowel syndrome—that it might be a localized allergic reaction in the gut. Sarah also chats with Taline Kazandjian, a postdoctoral research associate at the Centre for Snakebite Research & Interventions in Liverpool, U.K., about how the venom from spitting cobras has evolved to cause maximum pain and why these snakes might have developed the same defense mechanism three different times.
TOP JOURNALS: RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS FROM SCIENCE MAGAZINE (JAN 15, 2021)
Science Podcast: Aracibo Observatory Research, Environment & Behavior
Science Senior Correspondent Daniel Clery regales host Sarah Crespi with tales about the most important work to come from 57 years of research at the now-defunct Arecibo Observatory and plans for the future of the site.
Sarah also talks with Toman Barsbai, an associate professor in the school of economics at the University of Bristol, about the influence of ecology on human behavior—can we figure out how many of our behaviors are related to the different environments where we live? Barsbai and colleagues took on this question by comparing behaviors around finding food, reproduction, and social hierarchy in three groups of animals living in the same places: foraging humans, nonhuman mammals, and birds.
Science Podcast: Dire Wolf Extinction, Pluto’s Blue Haze & Mice Empathy
DNA clues point to how dire wolves went extinct, and a round-up of the main impacts of Brexit on science.
In this episode:
00:45 Dire wolf DNA
Dire wolves were huge predators that commonly roamed across North America before disappearing around 13,000 years ago. Despite the existence of a large number of dire wolf fossils, questions remain about why this species went extinct and how they relate to other wolf species. Now, using DNA and protein analysis, researchers are getting a better understanding of what happened to these extinct predators.
Research Article: Perri et al.
11:43 Research Highlights
The secret to Pluto’s blue haze, and the neural circuitry underlying mice empathy.
Research Highlight: Ice bathes Pluto in a blue haze
Research Highlight: Brain maps show how empathetic mice feel each other’s pain
13:31 Post-Brexit science
In December, a last minute trade-deal between the UK and EU clarified what the future relationship between the two regions would look like, after Brexit. We discuss the implications of this trade-deal for science funding, the movement of researchers, and data sharing.
News Explainer: What the landmark Brexit deal means for science
23:18 Briefing Chat
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, concerns about contaminating water on the moon, and the spy satellites that spied out environmental change.
Nature News: Will increasing traffic to the Moon contaminate its precious ice?
The New York Times: Inside the C.I.A., She Became a Spy for Planet Earth
Boomers Daily 